Bad Democrat

Last week, YouTube TV sent out an email to its subscribers (YouTube TV allows you to get full cable through your internet, so if you are in an apartment with Smart TVs instead meant to play streaming services instead of your own television where you can install cable, or if you own a Smart TV instead of a regular TV with a cable provider for any reason, or you have a laptop because you’re there, you can still get live cable that’s almost exactly the same). It’s about $89 per month. YouTube TV said in the email last week that ESPN Unlimited is now included with your YouTube TV subscription. This is a big deal because YouTube TV was in a dispute with ABC and ESPN, which it owns, and for about 10 days where it took away those channels for its subscribers. There was a really important football game on ESPN that week and many YouTube TV subscribers could not get to ESPN so they bought ESPN+ the app so that they could live watch the game. I am guessing that many of them forgot about ESPN+ as time went on because those channels, ABC and ESPN, came back on YouTube TV. ESPN+ has its place and I’ve used it but people forgot. That’s what you need to know about the announcement. To me it seems to be saying, you will not spuriously deprive your viewership of their channels just because the cable is cheaper and they are often living in apartments meant for a young crowd, or for whatever reason provide Smart TVs instead of them installing cable. Or if you’re in an AirBnB with a Smart TV or whatever, not cable, or even a hotel with a SmartTV, you can watch the game. You can’t hold people who find themselves using your product hostage and give them worse. And it’s wrong that they forgot about ESPN+ subscription. That’s what this said to me.