It's not bad enough that I am sick as a dog with a cold that is messing with my brain with so much sinus pressure that all i can do is watch tv with an ice pack on my face; but, when i turned on my directv this morning i found that HBO is not working. instead, there is an error message that tells me my $50 gold plated HDMI cable will no longer work and i need to buy an inferior "component cable", which will mean whenever i watch HBO i will be watching an inferior resolution (this is only one of the issues, the guy at radioshack told me that i'd have issues with recording HBO on the DVR because of the separate input). the supposed justification they give for punishing their subscribers is that they are trying to stop piracy. well they need to call seal team 6 or something because the closest i've ever come to piracy is when i dubbed my friend's led zeppelin cassettes in the '80's.
the idea that punishing your loyal PAYING subscribers in a futile attempt to stop people who will just find some way around whatever you do anyway is just stupid corporate policy, and typical of the way that we keep getting screwed by corporations over and over. HBO is fooling around with it's goodwill big-time and they are very quickly going down the road that Netflix went down, and how'd that work out for Netflix? yeah, not so great. it's not like they still have shows like the Sopranos or Six Feet Under anymore, and they've done nothing but raise the price on us as the quality of the programming has plummeted. and their movies suck. i really don't know what is keeping me subscribing except that my wife likes True Blood. i wish i knew how to be a pirate because if i did HBO has surely motivated me to cancel them and pirate True Blood -- something that never would have occurred to me yesterday before they started their anti-piracy sneak attack policy.
oh and btw, you can call HBO's corporate office before 5pm eastern to yell at them at (212) 512-1000. i had to do my rant into a voicemail box because i was too late, but if this pisses you off as much as it does me, go for it. maybe if enough people give them shit they might figure out that this is definitely NOT in their interest.