I'd planned to buy Game of Thrones when it came out on iTunes a couple months ago but I realized that even that still indirectly supports the buzz around this property and the way it's primarily delivered.
Instead I'd suggest fellow cord cutters just skip Game of Thrones entirely, don't pirate it, don't even watch it. Instead spend your money and leisure time supporting content that's provided online.
When your friends talk about GoT you'll need to have a few canned response-pivots like "is that about orcs? Lawl, hey did you guys see Lilyhammer? It was totally not godawful."
Mm, I see where you're coming from but that's not really the point here. It's more a matter of here's a great show that I want to support. But, I don't want to support the cable companies charging an arm and a leg for junk. I solely want to support the content creator (HBO) and its distribution service (HBOGO). Both are excellent quality and I want to pay for it and it alone. But, I can't.
I don't really get the anti TV people. Like any medium there is good and bad. TV definitely has its share of bad, but there is also some pretty good entertainment. Books, magazines, websites, etc... there is always going to be more crap than not, but for some reason I never read about people bragging about giving them up.
it's a form of signalling herd membership. compare people bragging that they are bad at maths - people are bad at all sorts of subjects, but mathematics is unusual in that people are proud of their ignorance of it, because they are essentially signalling that they are part of the "non-geek" tribe. similarly, people are uninterested in all sorts of media, but are proud of a lack of interest in tv because that signals their membership in the "non-mainstream" tribe.
It's not purely an issue of TV being "crap". Books, magazines and websites just aren't mass media in the same way TV is. For many people (maybe not for hackers), talking about TV shows is like talking about the weather — it's a common bond that helps you get comfortable with someone you've just met. I'd guess those of us who watch less/no TV feel left out of those conversations. But we still want to make connections, so we look for others who made the same no-TV-watching choice. It's a way to find reassurance that our choice didn't completely isolate us.
(I don't watch TV, but the above is my best attempt to explain the greater phenomenon behind posts like the GP's — not a personal statement.)
I hardly watch TV. Basically because my entertainment demands are asynchronous. I need entertainment on-demand when I need it. I can't adjust my schedule to the TV's schedule.
TV is for people who can sacrifice something else for the sake of a show. I can't and I won't because my time is worth doing something else. And when I need entertainment there are other things that fill that need.
Its like the radio, I turn it on when I need it. If something interesting is playing I hear, else I have a whole hard disk full of songs to hear to.
Also the ads and breaks between shows, movies and songs. When uninterrupted entertainment is available at dirt cheap prices. Who likes to waste their time watching/hearing ads.
DVR has been out how long now? I can't remember the last time I adjusted my schedule to something on TV. The few shows I do watch I'm not even sure when they air. No auto-commercial skipping is annoying, but DVR helps with that even if it's a manual process.
True... just like the thumpers vs atheists debate it may be a overreaction to the anti-anti-TV people.
I have real relatives who are incredulous when I tell them I don't know anything about American Idol or Snookey or Justin Bieber or the most-annoying current commercial (and don't care to know).
A bit infuriating and tempting to brag about not having a head filled with garbage.
There's decades of good TV to watch. You don't need the newest stuff. Who only reads books that came out last week? If you've never watched The Prisoner or Fawlty Towers, for instance, you can get access to them cheaply and watch a TV episode every day for about a month. And it'll be better than almost everything you could get with a TV subscription today.
There's a lot of enjoyment to be gained from watching the same shows as your friends at the same time, and that's easier to co-ordinate when that time is "when it airs".
My comment was more to point out that those same "I don't own a TV" people are now all obsessed with Mad Men and Game of Thrones (watched on their computers, mostly).
I wouldn't care about the show at all (I haven't watched real TV, with the exception of Dr. Who at other people's houses because I'm impatient, for about 5 years), except that it has a genuine constructed language in it, and a darn good one. I'd like to watch it just for that; but just that isn't enough to make me go get cable, so I content myself mailing lists and David J. Peterson's blog.
I have stopped watching it, as I find what they show just too aweful, and only delivered at certain times (and on most channels interupted by commercials).
The problem with voting with your wallet is that you and your friends are usually the only ones doing it. Feel free to vote with your wallet, but unless you have the momentum to overpower everybody else who consumes the show and doesn't care, it's not even going to bother HBO. Unfortunately, standing upon principle and not participating in HBO's distribution just ends up costing you some good entertainment, just as with taking a stand against DRM. Very noble efforts, which I used to be involved with, but ultimately there's just too much good stuff out there for me to keep letting it pass by. I guess I'm just unprincipled.
I respect Top Gear a lot, and Jeremy Clarkson was on 60 Minutes last year. I'm paraphrasing, but he said something similar to "if we paid attention to everybody that got offended, we'd make a bland show". I'm sure HBO is completely aware that you are offended by their distribution model. I'm also sure that for them to continue being as successful as they are, they simply cannot care. There's a lesson in that for entrepreneurs.
I still wish DRM wasn't a thing, but I enjoy the pants off of TF2 and most Steam games. I think you can be both, and it's not a binary world view.
Instead I'd suggest fellow cord cutters just skip Game of Thrones entirely, don't pirate it, don't even watch it. Instead spend your money and leisure time supporting content that's provided online.
When your friends talk about GoT you'll need to have a few canned response-pivots like "is that about orcs? Lawl, hey did you guys see Lilyhammer? It was totally not godawful."