4 Reasons Television Will Totally Suck in the Future

Why's that? Because of a little thing called network neutrality. For as long as the Internet has been a thing, the speed at which your ISP connects you to websites has been relatively equal for all corners of the Web, whether you're on some dodgy Russian site looking up porn or a big respectable site like Google, also looking up porn. Some of you are saying, "Bullshit! I tried to watch my buddy's self-hosted My Little Pony fan film and it took forever to load!" Yes, but that's a problem (one of many) on your buddy's end -- it's not like the company you pay to handle your Internetting can intentionally make some sites run slower than others.

At least not yet. We're saying that because the government is actively working to kill network neutrality and make the Internet a crappier place for you. And yes, that affects streaming services like Netflix and Hulu.

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"Well, well, look who came crawling back."

In April, leaked documents from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission revealed that the government has been fervently planning to shit all over network neutrality, then flush it down the toilet for good. When that happens (and yes, it's a god damn when), ISPs will be able to charge websites and services extra to keep broadcasting at a non-infuriatingly slow rate. Or, even worse and more inevitably, big streaming companies -- you know, the companies that most rely on whether they can stream faster than the clock ticks by -- will have the ability to pay ISPs to make themselves faster than every other streaming company that pops up, making it impossible for any new startup to break the surface. And since you can't overthrow a king who's sitting so high up that his crown is sticking up Uranus, Netflix and YouTube are going to become the new Egyptian dynasties.

The upside is that there are already other alternatives popping up, such as watching high-quality shows directly on your console. Well, about that ...

Well, with these next-gen consoles out and plaguing more and more living rooms by the day, both Sony and Microsoft have already started on their promises -- Sony's first series, Powers, is an adaptation of the Marvel-published comic book of the same name and is produced by the people behind shows like Breaking Bad and Community. Microsoft, on the other hand, in its never-ending quest to try to one-up Sony at everything, recently released a slate of 12 freaking series, including a Halo TV show developed by Steven Spielberg and a Halo movie produced by Ridley Scott. Think about that for a second. This is how much we've progressed as a species: Having not one but two top directors involved in a video game franchise would have been unthinkable back in the days of the Super Mario Bros. movie.

And it's not just Sony and Microsoft. You've also got EA pledging to stream games with Comcast, and Oculus Rift talking about their own movies and TV series. That's these guys, if you're not clear:

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"Hey, dude, how's that Ron Jeremy documentary? Dude?"

Even if you're not an active gamer, this still sounds like a pretty sweet lineup of new entertainment, right? There's just one problem: Tuning into this shit isn't gonna be as simple as changing the channel. As Xbox One's official website happily reminds us, their new movies and shows are available solely on Microsoft devices. Likewise, you can bet that Sony won't be letting everyone watch their TV shows, and if you're even thinking about pirating this stuff, good luck slapping those two monitors on your face to watch the Oculus Rift shows.

All of this is understandable, of course: These shows aren't being made for fun, they're meant to sell consoles. However, the idea of a dystopian future where every television brand lets you watch different shows just got a little more feasible. So if you're still arguing over whether the PS4 gives out better blow jobs than the Xbox One (or whatever people on message boards fight about), just give it up. You're gonna end up buying every console eventually anyway.

This isn't just us putting on our tinfoil hats. In February, Comcast and Time Warner Cable started talks of merging into one company, and just a couple of weeks ago, AT&T began plans to buy DirecTV ... which is only a month after AT&T was found trying to get in bed with Dish Network. Yes, at this point, the relationships between big television companies sound like something straight out of one of their daytime soaps. That Warner/Comcast merger ("The WC," probably) would cause 30 million customers to fall under the same umbrella, while the DirecTV/AT&T one ("DirecTV&AT&T") would result in a ball of 26 million subscribers. More people would subscribe to that one company than live in Australia.

Those are scary numbers, but wouldn't the FCC stop something like that from happening? Nope, they've already said they wouldn't do shit about the Warner/Comcast one, because technically, there's little overlap in the areas covered by both companies -- we're sure the fact that the FCC is run by former Comcast lawyers and TV lobbyists is just a funny coincidence. What they're conveniently overlooking is that, even if these companies weren't directly competing with each other, the resulting hypermegacorporations would be big enough to bully everyone they do compete with into having their own way. And if there's no competition in a specific area? They can raise prices and no one can do shit about it, and there's no reason for them to give a crap about improving their service.

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"Hi, I've had nothing but static for two w-"
"Want six? Shut up."

Thank God for streaming services, right? Not so fast ...