Seth Long writes that he just doesn't get HDTV and he's usually one of those crazy "early adopter" types.
Well, Seth, I see you're gonna be at Gnomedex. Jeff Clavier and a few other people are coming over to watch the World Cup games in the mornings. Come on over and watch them in HD and see if it still doesn't float your boat.
As for the price. Let's look at it a different way.
A few weekends ago I took Patrick to see Mission Impossible. Let's look at the costs of doing that.
1) Waiting in line for an hour. Cost? About $42 of my time (considering I got paid less than $100,000 a year). Every hour is opportunity cost that's gone.
2) Sitting through 25 minutes of advertising. Seriously.
3) $10 ticket to get in. $7 for Patrick. That's $17. Plus, $12 for a hot dog, Coke, popcorn. Whew. And I won't even count the exercise time to work that off. $29 to take just Patrick. Another $17 or so if Maryam comes along (she has a weakness for M&Ms). Not to mention that if you go to a movie you're far more likely to eat out. There goes another $40 to $100. More if a friend comes along. So, one movie can cost us more than $100!!
4) The movie itself. Cell phone went off behind us during the movie. They won't pause the movie while going to the bathroom. The teenagers talking behind us. The tall guy who goes to the bathroom in front of us during the movie. The sticky seats. You can't rewind the movie when your wife asks you "what did that guy say?"
Compare to the monthly cost of my video system: about $130 a month (you think I had $4k in my pocket? You must think I was one of those Microsoft millionaires. Heheh). We bought it at Best Buy and bought it on credit. Don't look at it as $4,000. Look at it as $130 a month (maybe $200, if you also need to buy a new audio system for surround sound).
So, for the cost of a few movies with Maryam, Patrick, and me, I get a humongous new TV screen that makes me the most popular guy with venture capitalists and interesting geeks during Gnomedex.
Heheh, by the way, now you know why Gnomedex's tag is "a higher resolution."
If you want in on the World Cup games, email me robertscoble@hotmail.com. First come, first served (you gotta have transportation since I live about 45 minutes away from Gnomedex).
