Which way do you prefer or "Have it your way."

[Mrs Beanbag]

The downside to television is that its quantity of programming pales in comparison to the Internet, even if you have 1,000 channels that a drop in the buck compared to video programming on the Internet.  It also makes it easier for people to provide video content.

These are both upsides of television.

[Mrs Beanbag]

"We just watch DVDs on our XBOX360"?
Then you are kind of watching TV.
Its splitting hairs.
And I still value news access.
Primarily because no matter how biased broadcast journalism is, the internet is uniformly worse.

I don't watch TV, but I have a monitor.
Sorry, that just sounds dumb.

Yeah I watch TV shows I guess (but not broadcast live so I don't need a TV license). I never said I didn't watch TV, I said we don't have a TV. Although lately we've been mostly watching Tom and Jerry, which is what the BBC customarily puts on when the schedule is cancelled at short notice.

[Mrs Beanbag]

I think in the majority of cases TV wins that point. Most people don't have the time or motivation to sift through the dregs of the internet to track down programmes, while TV has less better quality programmes that are easier to find.

Exactly. I don't want to watch any old junk by Joe Nobody. I'd rather watch well-produced stuff with professional acting. Mostly I only watch films, and the occasional classic TV series. Currently going through a Buck Rogers box set in between the Tom and Jerry.

The internet makes it much harder to have water cooler moments.

Yeah but then you have to watch crap like Big Brother, soaps and talent shows, and all that celebrity rubbish. Well, depending where you work anyway.

The absolute worst thing about TV in my opinion is the advertisements. This is really putting me off YouTube lately as well.

[Mrs Beanbag]

You know what I don't actually care how popular My Little Pony is, but if it's only popular because of hives of self-reference and in-jokes such as 4Chan and Reddit it would be no loss to humanity if no-one had heard of it.

I'd rather only pay for the content I actually wanted to watch. The problem with a subscription is you'd be tempted to try to "get your money's worth" and spend hours every day glued to the box, or have the TV on the whole time even when you're not watching it like some people do and you get so used to it that you can't do without. Which is also a disadvantage of streaming media. You can get addicted to it. I don't see the appeal of "more, more, more entertainment!" I treat myself to a 2nd-hand DVD once a week and I watch that and that's it. Even the inconvenience of having to go to a shop and pay for it with money makes life a fuller, more satisfying experience.