Peak Cable TV: 2001!

2001 was the year when the largest percentage of US households were subscribing to Cable TV service (71%). Since then, the CATV subscriber percentage has fallen... and precipitously.

Peak Cable wasn't in 2015. It wasn't in 2008. It was in 2001!

What is worse, by 2023 the households subscriber number had fallen to 34.7%. That's right, half off its high water mark. And is has continued to plummet since then.

Why have so many people left cable TV? No doubt Cable TV's continued sky-high pricing convinced a lot of people to cut the cord and instead go to streaming services. High base prices, ever-rising special fees, unavoidable rental costs, and scam-oriented "discount bundles" have all conspired to make the typical Cable TV bill run well over $100 each and every month.

The Cable TV value proposition simply failed.

So what's next for Cable TV? I suspect no resurgence and a continued slow decay. The people who are still on Cable TV simply don't have any plans to change. The remaining cable TV subscribers will drop their plans after they die, or after their kids take over their finances and move them to an old age home.

That might take a while, but it won't take forever. The group with the most Cable TV subscriptions are those over 65 years old.

Welcome to the long and slow death of Cable TV. It may have 20 years left in it, but it definitely isn't going to get any prettier. More and more cable channels will focus their programming and advertising on the elderly. After all, that is their primary audience.

Sources: https://www.tvb.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/OTA_Penetration.jpg , https://www.statista.com/statistics/322958/pay-tv-penetration-rate-usa/

Fixing a SodaStream Jet, part 1: Disassembly Guide

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Sodastream Carbonator Leakage, Usage, and Weight

SodaStream 60L "Carbonator" CO2 cylinders have a specific weight when empty, plus about 410 or so grams for the CO2 they should have when they're "full". A little while ago I went to buy a replacement Carbonator from my local hardware store. The dealer pulled a new Carbonator out of the box and sensed it was lighter than usual. He put the "light" Carbonator in the "empty" pile and sold me a different one. At that moment I concluded that it would be smart of me to weigh both new and empty SodaStream carbonators. Here are the results. Weighing a SodaStream Carbonator - for both Science and Consumer Protection. The dealer told me that sometimes the carbonators leak after they leave the SodaStream filling facility. That means there could be an opportunity for customers like me to get ripped off! The SodaStream cylinders I buy claim to have a net product weight of 410 grams - and that means that a full Soda Stream Carbonator shou

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Not everyone would bother repairing a $25 beard trimmer, but why not fix something for under $5 instead of spending another $25? My Wahl 9918 Groomsman Beard and Mustache Trimmer has admirably performed its beauty duty for many years, but the time came when the battery just wasn't holding a charge any more. Most people would just put the trimmer in the trash and buy a new one, but I figured I could repair my otherwise excellent Wahl and save some money. In fact, even high priced trimmer and rotary shaver brands, like Norelco and Remington, can be easily repaired using a process similar to the one I used to fix my Wahl. Read on to find out how. I opened up the Wahl by popping off the black plastic faceplate with a tiny flathead screwdriver, which revealed two screws. By removing the two screws I was able to easily open up the unit, revealing the guts of the device. Backplate off, Revealing the screws The internals are rather simple: a motor, a simple circuit boar

Fixing a SodaStream Jet, Repair #2 - Broken Fill Button

My Soda Stream Jet's fill button broke, which means I can not longer carbonate water by pressing the pushbutton. This caused all sorts of grief in my household. Here is how I managed to repair my Jet to give it another 10 years of life (hopefully). First, a look at the button The fill button on the top of the SodaStream is actually a simple lever. Pressing down on the button moves a pin that does the actual work of pressing open the Carbonator's valve. Unfortunately, the axis point is fairly thin and can see a lot of stress. That's where my Soda Stream button cracked. [ I think the usage tip here is "don't over-press the button like a gorilla, it doesn't do anything but put high stress on the button."] Cracked levering point of the button The Pesky Lever Retaining Pin The Fix It was pretty easy for me to replace the button: Take off the back of the Soda Stream and remove the carbonator. Push out the the button lever's steel retaining pin. This takes qu

Macintosh: Upgrading an eMac

It's been a long time since I wrote this article, but the fact remains: The good old eMac can still be useful if you take the simple steps to keep it as good as it can be. All can run Tiger, and most can run Leopard - great operating systems for their day with a bit of useful life. This article describes the procedure I used to upgrade my old eMac, including: Replacing the internal hard disk with a large capacity drive. Increasing the memory for performance Upgrading the operating system Here I'm upgrading a 700 MHz eMac, but the procedure and tasks for upgrading other eMac models should be almost identical. Upgrading versus Replacing My sister's eMac is of the 700 mhz variety, with 256 MB of memory. The machine seemed to be getting "slower", and the original 40 GB disk was becoming jammed packed with photos and iTunes, and within a few months she'd be out of disk space. There were two options to address the problems: upgrade the eMac, or go o

Trendnet TEW-652BRP and DD-WRT Success!

I recently visited my dad while on a business trip when I coincidentally discovered that DD-WRT is now available for his TEW-652. The TEW-652BRP has been a great router for my father, but it isn't what I'd call "feature rich". An upgrade to DD-WRT is a big bonus. I live 2500 miles away from my non-technical father, and so a well-specified router that helps me manage his network remotely is important to both of us. This article will explain what I did to finally get DD-WRT working on my TEW-652BRP v1.0R. About the TEW-652brp It's a nice looking little black 802.11n, 2.5 GHz router. It was amazingly inexpensive (usually way under $30), and the TEW-652brp is available through Amazon. Mine is a version 1.0R, you'll likely want the same version. Out of the box, it works quite well - it has been stable, and I was fairly happy with the stock firmware. But it was short on features - I like having VPN, SSH, and flexible DHCP services on the home netwo

The Lance J. Technoweb

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