Living Without Television (on Television)

Since moving to New York, I have been living a grand experiment - I decided not buy a television. My co-workers thought I was nuts of course, but my roommate and I believed we could get all of our shows and news through the Internet. If we succeeded, we would save $60/month on basic cable and $400 on a nice TV.

The grand experiment turned out to be fairly easy because I wasn't a sports fan. I got my news through CNN.com and Google News, and I watched just about everything else on Hulu - even the ball dropping at New Years. The most difficult part is being a day behind on series like 24 when my friends want to talk about it the next day. But overall, I've become so used to it, I actually prefer TV on the Internet to TV on the TV. I will be watching the Presidential Inauguration on Hulu as well.

I realized that as TV on the Internet expands, the idea of "net neutrality" may be challenged. As it stands now, anything said on television is censored by the FCC. Anything said on the Internet is only self-censored. YouTube makes you confirm your birthdate before anything that the community deems inappropriate for young people. Hulu put a notice on the SNL short Jizz My Pants that it originally aired at 12:40 AM. But other than that, these shows are allowed to say anything and do anything online. I wonder whether this different in censorship between TV and Internet will ever come to a head, or whether Internet will just be treated like HBO or Cinemax where producers can also say or do anything. I suppose we'll see.