Morgan Pastner Jaffe

Hi Morgan!

First Blockbuster, now this! You bring up a good point about the cable companies tendencies to “bundle”. If anyone has noticed a trend, lately, it’s that the newer generations want to have freedom to choose from different options. They want to consume the media they want.

I believe it would be in the best interest of the cable companies if they merged with some of these streaming services. Comcast is a huge media mogul, they technically don’t “have to” per see. However, to stay relevant and reach a very important segment that their cable packages are missing (Millennials and Gen Z) this merger would be mutually beneficial.

Thanks for the post!

Hi Morgan,
I totally agree its a pain/hassle to call or go to Comcast because if you call it takes forever to reach a representative. Sometimes you got to tell your reason for calling to multiple representatives until you reach the correct person who can help and that takes time.

I currently have Comcast and you’re right about the bill always fluctuating, which is why I’ve been thinking of canceling my service with them. I don’t watch television as much anymore and I’m always on Netflix or Youtube now. I don’t think theses providers will go extinct perhaps merge with other services and also lower their prices. I think these providers will evolve and keep up with new trends and changes. Great post by the way!

Hi Morgan,

Truthfully, in the next decade, I do think a lot of these TV providers will become extinct or there may come a time when there is just one main provider. Contracts with TV providers can get quite expensive, plus you’re locked in for “X” amount of years. With streaming services, there’s no contracts and you can cancel your subscription at any time.

I don’t watch TV very often and I’m finding that when I do watch TV, there’s really nothing to watch. There’s a few shows I follow here and there, but they’re probably available on the streaming services as well.

Streaming services are convenient, not overly expensive and give a user the ability to self-serve. It will be interesting to see how this sector changes as IoT and streaming services evolve.

One thing I am interested in is how streaming services will inevitably connect more significantly with IoT devices ? Will your purchase of yoga pants prompt a streaming service to push exercise videos? Or will your reservation on an Alexa, bring up romantic movies on your Netflix feed? The desire from programmers for their algorithms (a word that I will never spell correctly without spell check) to move from intuitive to instinctive will require interlocking facets of everyone’s external lives (monitored by IoT devices) and the internal workings of online data. While this seems a little creepy, I’m hopeful that my algorithm makes it easier to choose what to watch on a friday night, because I seem to spend an endless amount of time trying to pick the best new show or movie to watch! What’s the matter with me? Choice fatigue friends. PS if you have a recommendation for something you think maybe I’ve been sleeping on, let me know!

Hey Morgan great read

I believe that cable will never go extinct. I think more people will stop using cable as more technology and streaming services advance more but I think they will always have a niche market that they can reach out too and still be profitable.

I think cable providers need to find a way to make there services cheaper. I know some people with cable bundles that cost them over 200 dollars a month when you can watch practically anything for free off the internet.

Dealing with cable companies is frustrating, and it’s one of the main reasons why I haven’t had cable in years. Why should I pay an exorbitant amount of money every month for hundreds of channels that I’ll never even watch and the poor customer service that goes along with it? No thanks. I (and many other) like streaming services because they provide a ton of content for a relatively low cost.

Cable and Internet providers are already pivoting – look at Comcast (Xfinity) and their Xfinity Home service, which utilizes smart devices and realtime monitoring as part of a home security bundle. I think we’ll see more providers moving towards these subscription-based services as a way to differentiate themselves from streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. They obviously can’t compete, so they need to enter a different market in order to stay alive.

Hey Morgan,

I enjoyed reading your post!

I recently got an officially smart TV in the last year. I was surprised at how cheap they are now. Before we had it was “hacking” an old tv by hooking it up to an Xbox to make it smart. So now not only do we not use the Xbox, but we also haven’t been using cable for years.


But to answer your question, although I do think that cable providers will stop providing cable, I can already see choices they are making to branch out into other services, like how Comcast does internet.

It makes sense to go this route since they already have deep knowledge and expert staff to understand the utility industry. I think it also makes sense because even if they don’t end up merging with other companies to stay in the television industry, people who use smart TV are always going to need access to the internet.

Hey Morgan,
I for one think there is more value is having streaming subscriptions over being locked in a cable contract for just the 10 channels I actually watch. I think cable is a traditional thing for our culture but I would love for it be abolished as it doesn’t really suit the changing atmosphere of streaming shows and movies. You make some valid points, cable either needs to keep up or go away!

Hi Morgan,

As a cable cutter myself, I have been (for the most part) satisfied with streaming in terms of savings on a monthly basis. To me, the money I have saved on switching to a streamed version of cable has outweighed the benefits of the quality of service you get from a cable provider. With that being said, I do not see cable going extinct until streaming services can match the quality of cable. As long as there is a need for high quality television, cable will prevail.

Hi Morgan!

I loved reading your post because I think home improvements are such a big thing right now! My dad and my older sister are constantly working together to build anything and everything they can think of and add it to our house! Also, I keep seeing all over Tiktok videos of people who are flipping houses, renovating their own houses, etc and those kinds of videos always blow up and gain a lot of traction. I think home renovations are a big thing right now and will continue to be for the time being. In that case, I see spending staying on all the different tools needed to renovate a home (i.e. supplies from Home Depot, Lowes, ACE Hardware, etc.) and all the different decorations and furnishings needed to finish the spaces (i.e. stores like Target, HomeGoods, Marshalls, Mealy’s, Ashley Home Furniture, etc.)!

Also, I feel like it is inevitable that the housing market might crash, so yes I see that happening in the future.

Hi Morgan, I can definitely relate to this post. I was living with my father during the height of the pandemic and it felt like each month, he had a different project going. Our home was completely different as vaccines started to come out. My father added a private deck, a fence, a home gym, a sauna, and so much more. There was pretty much nothing to else to do. But it was nice to be home and enjoy all of these amenities that we may not have had the opportunity to if we were at work all day. He eventually sold our home, above asking price of course. I think the market will level out as it’s starting to.

Morgan,

Without a doubt. My parents had no problem selling their house during the pandemic but did have some trouble finding a new home to move to! They are currently in the process of renovations to their new house but are having trouble finding affordable builders since lumber is so expensive right now as a result of the popularity of home improvement.

Having to translate a title to better suit an entirely different language is interesting, it’s not something we often think about. The same way english speakers have their metaphors and slang, other languages do as well- and culture is often very influential in the way we process things like titles. I don’t think it matters what ranking of title you pick, as long as you have good reasoning. It isn’t helpful to be too specific when trying to find how people react to certain options, because then your information becomes too biased or leads people to conclusions- so often times you have to be a bit more open-minded about what options people can choose from for surveys! This often leads to people picking a general answer, when maybe your business goals have a very direct objective. This is why we don’t just take data and run with it, we also have to analyze it! I think you guys made the right choice in this case.

As a Spanish speaker myself, I think you guys picked the right choice! When I think about how I would translate “Better Money Habits” in my head I automatically think of “Mejores Hábitos Financieros.” It sounds natural and correct. Sometimes I see certain things on websites translated and it doesn’t hit the same, like it gives off another meaning. I like how you guys did surveys to gather your information. Another idea on how to market research what name would perform best can be using social media. You could have a poll asking people to choose which translation works best or have them write in why they pick a certain choice.