A rant on paid TV

Image courtesy of www.playbuzz.com

Hello you. The name is Luca, but you can call me Luca and this post will have a serious and even possibly, a pathetic tone to it. Over the past few days, we have been getting Sky installed as our new provider after we have been with Virgin Media for a while, and it has been rather stressing for me.

 

The reason for that? My parents as I have stated before, were paying for Sky Sports, BT Sport, Netflix and Amazon Prime, and I was really grateful to them. A couple of weeks back, they had to cancel Netflix but my brother agreed to share his Netflix two-platform subscription with me so I thought all would be good.

 

Then we began the transition from Virgin Media to Sky Broadband, and now we have just finished setting it all up, and well would you look at this! So we now have to pay for Eurosport, and it's the last straw, I am giving up on all this shit.

 

So to why I am stressed, well my parents do so much for me and I never ever want to ask for too much out of them. So what happens? They're having to pay however much a month for F1, MotoGP/IndyCar, World Endurance Championship/World Superbikes, the Marvel exclusive shows on Netflix (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage etc.) and finally, The Grand Tour (With the old Top Gear trio). So much fucking money per month, and I've reached boiling point.

 

Not only this, but I am an avid gamer. If you've been stalking me, you'll know I love to play with my friends on PlayStation 4 and on such games as Grand Theft Auto V, Rocket League etc. and because of the nature of how games are these days, we have DLC and the need for in game money so I purposely limit what games I decide to buy and don't just buy anything. When there's a new update on GTA, I ask for a bit of money and that's that, I don't want to have to spend so much more on other games.

 

Now before any of you say anything, I know. I am very much aware that these are companies that are in the business of making money, I could not be more aware of such a basic reason to ever do anything. If there's anyone who doesn't enter some kind of business for something other than the money, then that's weird.

 

What really bothers me, I want to watch all this motorsport and it has become so difficult to access. We were constantly trying to pay for all these subscriptions and it became fucking ridiculous, to the point now that I have just given up. "But Luca, why don't you just ask a friend to borrow their Netflix or whatever you need?", well random person who was just conjured up from my imagination just so I could answer something and is now insignificant again, I could do that but it would for me, not feel morally correct.

 

I would not feel right using someone else's Netflix if I wasn't paying them, I am not a freeloader. That's why even with my brother offering me the ability to use his Netflix, I'm struggling to accept if I am not in any way contributing to the payment or giving him something in return. I imagine a lot of you would be like "FREE NETFLIX!? Of course I'll have that", but I can't do that at all.

 

So I have decided that whatever I need to end up paying for, such as BT for the MotoGP and the IndyCar, Eurosport for the World Superbikes and Le Mans/WEC, I am not going to bother. It has got to a point where I have to have so many fingers in so many pies, that I am just done.

 

I know I referenced Jeremy Jahns in my last post, but I am going to use him again in this post. If you lot didn't read my last post about the movie Rush, Jeremy Jahns is a YouTube movie reviewer with nearly 1.2 million subscribers. He uploaded a video when Star Wars Battlefront was released, speaking about why he was refusing to buy the game due to the ridiculous-ness of the price. Infact this video became so popular, it was on the front page of Reddit.

 

He spoke about the preposterousness of paying $60 for the game then buying another fraction of the game for another $50, even going on to compare it to Destiny's pricing of its core game and three title updates (Two previous ones) and making you have to pay for a full game when you were really only buying one new update. I did not speak about gaming fully because I have it relatively easy, with only one major game attacking my wallet (Or my parent's wallet) right now.

 

Jeremy went on to say that if we speak with our wallets, we do make a difference. That if we don't give the companies our money, they do need to re-evaluate, and I say this now having spoken to my mum about the issue with spending all this money on all this, I still don't know if I can have BT and Eurosport or if I feel right having to cause more paying headaches. Though I have said I will personally have the BT and Eurosport funded out of my bank, it still may not be a guaranteed thing.

 

But as for speaking with our wallets; I'll have BT and Eurosport to pay for, I've got Assetto Corsa, F1 2016 and Gran Turismo Sport all ready to buy for PS4 with the inevitable upgrades that I'll need to pump real world money into along with a PS4 steering wheel, I have the new router I'll have to pay for to strengthen the connection in my room, and I like going to the cinema a lot. Having just had a meeting with my bank to obtain my account (Which for obvious reasons, I will not spill any details whatsoever on), where does it end?

 

I mean, the only crumb of consolation I have is the fact that I don't cause any sort of issues for my parents like being drunk or bringing the police to the door. But it still raises more questions than answers. I'm not going to be a dick and be like "Go protest, stand for what is right!", I get money is what makes the world go round. But if you speak with your wallet, the environment will have to change.

So I guess what I am saying is, everything is so difficult to access for so many people. This does not affect me personally but there are some broadband networks that are completely incapable of accessing Sky and therefore as of now, it means there are many people who even if they wanted to watch all the races live, they can't. Not only that but as of 2018 or 2019, the 'free-to-air' TV that shows half the races live and half the races as extended highlights (BBC and in recent years Channel 4) will not be available and you can only be able to watch F1 through Sky.

This really is a massive kick in the teeth to us motorsport fans. I imagine it'll be the same with other sports, I wouldn't know though since I do not follow any other forms of sport, but do we have to be selective with what forms of sport we watch simply because of a monetary greed? Businesses out there, I get it, you want to make money. But don't fuck around with the customer, they are the ones who give you this opportunity, they deserve a lot better.

 

No clue how to end this blog post, but the evening I wrote this post was lightened up by the following (Be aware this is detached from the rest of my post). My older brother just found his old Pokémon Game Boy Colour with a Pikachu and Pichu on it, along with his three Generation II games (Gold, Silver and Crystal) in which he has on all three, a Level 100 Feraligatr (Apparently).

 

He currently has a broken ankle, and him digging up his old Game Boy will give him something to do whilst it heals. Afterwards though, he has not fully decided yet but he is thinking about selling it, though hold your horses because we already have a buyer.

 

My closest friend Nadine is a huge Pokémon fan just like myself, I've mentioned her in a post of mine before. She and I love MotoGP and Pokémon and I even gave her the nickname Eevee, because I absolutely adore that Pokémon.

 

Whilst I was negotiating the deal, I was talking to the lovely Twitch streamer Zearxy who also wanted in on the deal. We all agreed should my brother decide to sell the game (We are not forcing him), Nadine gets the Game Boy and Crystal and Zearxy gets Silver. The best part of all of it though, I really like.

 

Nadine offers to draw my brother a picture of his favourite Pokémon Snorlax as well as paying him, me and her as the Pokémon Riolu and Eevee since I always picture myself as a Riolu or Lucario, and Nadine is also going to draw a picture of Zearxy's favourite Pokémon Jigglypuff - to which Zearxy answered "I can't wait to see it!". So that has brightened up my evening, and if I can't get BT or Eurosport now, then all of this has been something that has made me smile at this moment.

 

Oh and before I forget, I recently got in touch with the National Autistic Society regarding the post I wrote a few days ago, 'Change - From an autistic person'. Today I got an email back from them saying they will be taking my post into consideration and will get back to me, so I will keep you all up to date with that when there are further developments.

 

Alright! That is all for me today, I thank you all for reading. If you decide to stick around, either follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat if you want to be notified of when I post next or if you're on your computer and can see a 'Follow By Email' option, put your email address in that and you'll be sent an email when I post.

 

So until we meet again.

Luca