Because of smartphones, pocket TVs were never a thing.

BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 76 points –

As a kid I imagined the future as being able to hold a TV in your pocket, and flying skateboards. For the latter I guess electric scooters will have to do

76

You are viewing a single comment

No, because your smartphone needs internet, tv signals reach way more places, and more reliably.

Especially since broadcast tv, in America ya damn Limeys, is free, while internet is either very localized (WiFi, etc…) which may or may not be free, or wide spread (Cell phones, Satellites, etc…) which are definitely pay.

Do they?

I can watch my local TV channels from the other side of the planet. I don’t think the signal reaches that far.

With internet

Your point?

That that is the difference to me, a tv has a built in tv tuner, otherwise it is a streaming device.

So? Not sure why the difference matters. What is even the use or a tuner anymore?

Tuning into OTA broadcasts.

Which has significantly worse picture quality than cable or fiber, has fewer channels and isn’t even significantly cheaper

Free is absolutely cheaper than paying anything

Here you get a grand total of three shitty channels for free OTA. Anything more requires a subscription.

Oh no.

Here, in the middle of nowhere, like a town with 1500 people was the biggest thing in 20 miles or so, we got about 10-15 channels without even having the antenna outside the house, plus surrounded by forest.

We have more OTA channels, you just have to pay for them. The free channels are in shitty SD quality (you have to pay for HD) and they are only unencrypted because the government requires it (as they are used for emergency broadcasts).