Personally, I am not an avid YouTube user. I had never even made an account until the first assignment of the semester for this class and it was actually pretty tough. I tried to look up some songs that I knew I liked but then I didn’t want to just have music videos so it turned into sports and videos about the GOAT (greatest of all time), Tom Brady. I had some fun with the YouTube exercise yet I still don’t think I’ve been on Youtube since. It just isn’t for everyone, which is why I don’t think that Youtube is the future of television. I can’t imagine going to Youtube for a series the way I do for HBO Go or Netflix. I think that Netflix, at the moment, is the leader in eliminating cable television.

Just about everyone uses Netflix whether they pay for it or have the password to another account, we’re all on it. The biggest thing about Netflix is that their marketing strategies are simply word of mouth. People are constantly using social media to reflect their opinions on certain shows that Netflix has, usually just in their Netflix Original’s. I have never seen so many tweets, or been involved in as many conversations about a show as I was with Netflix’s Making a Murderer. The show had the world up in arms and whether you were watching and discussing with friends, there were also those who refused to watch but were still sharing opinions and giving publicity to the show and the Netflix platform. Right now House of Cards has just been released for season four and the buzz is all over Facebook and Twitter.

I don’t see it being Youtube or Netflix alone, but the culmination of Hulu, Amazon, HBO, Netflix and YouTube together is going to put an end to cable television; probably a good thing considering the monopoly that Comcast holds throughout the country. I can stream a live sports game online whenever I need to and have been vying to eliminate cable in my house off campus for two years now. While my roommates aren’t buying it, I think things will be much different in a couple of years. Our biggest issue is not being able to watch the Patriots or Bruins live, which is basically the only benefit to cable anymore. There are offers from leagues such as the NFL Game Pass or NHL Center Ice Package which allows you to watch any games you want, accept for the team in your area. So, as awesome as $100 for the year to watch your team sounds, sometimes, like a Patriots fan in Amherst, this doesn’t benefit you. I am fairly confident that in not too long this type of package will come along and the cable companies will really be screwed with one of their final strangleholds on consumers being eliminated. I can only hope that this is the case because I can justify splitting $400 per year to watch the Patriots, Bruins, Red Sox and Celtics between four roommates, but the cable bill has just got to go.