Amazon has come out with a television set that automatically connects to the internet, and also to all of the Amazon Prime movies without having to have a set-top box (like the Fire TV Box) to be able to use it. When this is used in conjunction with Alexa, which is voice activated, even the remote is pretty much unnecessary anymore. We have been getting closer to this for a while now, and I think that this is how the television of the future will work. Cable boxes and satellite boxes will become obsolete as long as a person is connected through Wi-Fi, and the television is programmed for automatic voice control. I will be surprised if Apple does not come up with something similar in the very near future.
I think sooner or later this will happen... It's a question of modernity. TV alone has no more power than it did decades ago, it needs external factors to continue to survive.
Well I feel that many don't have laptops or computers to watch TV with so cable will still be around. Then there's people like me who'd like to preserve laptop wear and tear, so I'll always get TV with cable, hopefully cable companies will start giving senior discounts, lol! I like my cable and my TV and I like my laptop. I once upon a time only went to the library to use a computer and love my laptop I got on sale. The ease of having a laptop when you want to use it, research with it, answer questions and etc. anytime anywhere you want to use it, is sooooo great.
The number one TV show in the US right now is The walking dead and it is a cable show. I think free tv is in more trouble because they kept on cancelling shows because they are obsessed with high ratings. Cable shows and Netflix originals have less chances of cancellation.
If you ask me, I stopped watching cable, and TV at all like 7 years or even more. Since everything I want to watch can be found on computer, like Netflix, HBO and stuff like that, who needs cable anymore. And as for the other channels, like history or discovery, it's almost the same case. You can watch it online. So watching cable is like changing through 300 channels and nothing is on.
I agree that there are still a lot of people who don't use their laptop or iPad to watch movies with, @Krissttina Isobe , and cable will probably be around for a while yet; but i do think that it is on a downward spiral, and will eventually become obsolete. Who would ever have thought that camera would not need film ? For many years, the Kodak company made great money selling film for all kinds of cameras, and every large store that had a camera department also developed film. The ones who offered overnight service (and later , it became 1 hour service) did a lot better than the ones where they sent the film off somewhere for developing and it was a week later when it was ready to be picked up. I can remember my mom getting those phone calls to let her know that her pictures were back from the developer, and we would hurry down to pick the pictures up. Now, we have cameras that don't need any film, produce excellent quality of pictures, and we can see how the picture turned out instantly, not weeks later. I think that cable television will soon become as obsolete as cameras with film. More and more people have smartphones, and they watch movies right from their phones, or they have smart TV's, and can put anything that is online right onto the television screen. With a Roku device, or Apple TV box, or Amazon Fire TV box, you can easily watch almost anything, and not have to pay a monthly subscription for most of it. Even things like Netflix are notexpensive to subscribe to, and there are lots of movies and TV programs on there that make it worth while.
Well yeah, it is very likely to happen given if the whole world gets access to a good internet connection and are ready to invest in monthly internet package. The only thing stopping Netflix and Hulu and Amazon Prime to replace traditional cable and disc system is the fact that many people still think the internet as a luxury and not as a necessity. But tv is considered as a necessity in fact whole world's middle-class population.
At this point I am hoping so, but at the same time I hope that they do not just begint to mirror the current way cable is done. I still do not understand why we cannot just pick certain channels, but I do know it has something to do with profits.
Not anytime soon, but so far they have been very popular and the demand has only gotten more apparent, and i'm pretty sure over the next few years, they will be the pinnacle of entertainment.
