Viewing

Recently I looked at Instagram and I noticed that almost all of the “content” is vertical videos. When I look at Facebook and TikTok I notice the same thing. Yesterday I noticed that Bluesky were promoting that they have ten minute videos. I think all of these people have forgotten that we’re using antisocial media to connect with others, not to watch long videos.

Of course, there is a very good reason for allowing longer and longer videos. Ads. If we watch a video that is several minutes long we are likely to stick around during the ad break to see the end of the video. The longer a video is, the more ads we see, and the more committed we are not to skip them, or force quit the app.

Recently the bottom Swisscom TV bracket tripled in price from 5 CHF per month to 15 CHF per month. This is a huge leap in cost per month. At first I spent a few minutes to see if I could abort the Swisscom TV part of the contract but I couldn’t so I adapted.

Dormant ‘Receiver’

For months the Swisscom TV “receiver” was sitting in a drawer doing nothing but because of the huge hike in price I put it back into service and I feel that the experience has been improved since I last played with it. For a start the increase in price includes the option to watch programs up to 30 hours after they have aired and I think this feature is key.