Future of TV is On-Demand: No Thanks

I was perusing around the net the other day and happened upon this page at Digg talking about a new experimental service offered at BitLet that lets you stream videos directly from torrents. While the idea is definitely an interesting one, though I've yet to give it a try, what really caught my eye was the discussion going on the Digg page.

See, many people on that page had it right that this could potentially be useful in revolutionizing internet TV. The use of torrents can help to diffuse bandwidth costs for content providers and possibly make it easier for movies or TV shows to be available on the internet for free or at least for cheaper than what's out there now.

Then there are those who think this is the future of TV. Apparently, the ideal future for TV is one without channels where everything is available when you choose. Here's one user's comment: "The technology is there for a la carte television. Basically nothing but on-demand. No more channels, just like Hulu for your television."

Sorry, but I like my channel surfing, thank you very much. As much as I would like to be able to pick which show I want to watch whenever I have the time, I still enjoy a good session of mindless TV once in a while. Call me lazy, but sometimes I actually do want other people to pick what I watch for me. Sure, that means I'd have to put up with a selection of religious and other junk shows 95% of the time, but it also means I'd never find the many worth-while junk shows that I'd never consider watching with any on-demand service.

Maybe I'm just a little old-fashioned, but I frankly like what we have now: a balance of subscription-based TV channels and a selection of on-demand entries. Of course, there's room for improvement. If there's anything I would like to be more a la carte for television is the selection of channels (why is the Shopping Channel on basic cable?). And why do I have to pay a monthly subscription in order to get access to pay-per-view on-demand service?

But getting rid of channels altogether is just stupid; if you want pure on-demand, that's what the internet is for. For the rest of us, leave us our mindless channel surfing -- it's relaxing!