[geforce]

It's a similar debate as when we north americans decided to switch to DTTV [1]. Many people disliked that; they had to buy a box for their old TV and it was more complicated to use, etc...

Digital radio [2] has it's advantages. For once, it's more efficient in it's use of the spectrum. In many densely populated towns, there is no (or not many) more spectrum left for new broadcasters.

It's a matter of time, and people will adapt and forget they "hated it and doesn't want to change".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_terrestrial_television

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_radio

[reaperducer]

Just as a point of clarification, people didn't have to buy boxes to make their old NTSC televisions work with ATSC. The gub'mint gave them away for free through distributors like Radio Shack, and even via mail. You only had to pay for a box if you waited something like five years after the program began, when it was all over.

[roywiggins]

One difference is that most TVs are big, bulky appliances that could be cheaply retrofitted to the new technology. Sure, portable analog TVs existed but didn't really take off.

If FM is turned off, every single pre-digital clock radio, portable radio, integrated FM cellphone radio, car radio and boombox suddenly stops working and needs replacing. There's no government program to hand out vouchers to replace my boombox; I just have to junk it and buy another.

If DAB is so great, why does hardly anyone in the US bother with it? Unlike DTTV, it's broadcast alongside regular FM, so people can go out and buy a digital receiver any time they like. But they don't, because they have a perfectly good clock radio already and don't see a benefit.

[blattimwind]

> If DAB is so great, why does hardly anyone in the US bother with it?

'cause it isn't? It just generates a huge pile of electronics waste [1] with marginal if any advantages for users... legislation here is an obvious money grab in my eyes.

[1] Because that's what we need! Another pile of never-to-be-recycled waste, sky-high, in the name of efficiency (maybe some lobbyist even argued with the energy savings - assuming they actually exist - look how good this move would be for mother earth!)

[mallaidh]

People will still remember when they were able to get more OTA channels, because analog signals degrade when weak instead of being non-decodeable.

[maxerickson]

Where I used to live went from NBC,CBS,PBS and Fox to about 15 channels. 8 or 10 of them are channels that play old sitcoms all the time, but ABC and Create were nice additions.

(ABC rarely came in on analog and was added as a secondary channel on the NBC transmitter)

[mallaidh]

And here, we went from being able to get ABC from literally anywhere in the house without the antenna extended to having to get the position right when in a good location; we also lost plenty of other channels.

[dsfyu404ed]

So basically urban areas get more channels because the new tech uses less spectrum and everywhere else gets less because they will no longer be able to listen to the channels physically located in urban areas that they could pick up using the old tech.

Does the new tech make bandwidth sufficiently cheap that more stations can broadcast their content on multiple frequencies in physically separate locations(which is not uncommon for large FM stations to do today)? If so you'd basically get the same coverage using less spectrum by broadcasting the same station from more sites using the newer tech (not that this would happen if the initial investment in the physical equipment is anything large enough to cars about).

[bowlich]

My folks (living in the upper peninsula of MI) went from being able to pick up all the stations from Greenbay from across the lake to being able to pick up one random analog station out of Canada.

Everyone ended up on satellite to compensate. But it was really viewed as yet another Urban vs. Rural fight with Rural getting the short end of the stick again.

[themodelplumber]

I agree. Also I heard on one of my local repeaters the other day that ham radio operators were protesting TV before TV went mainstream (1930s?). It was funny to think about that.

[mark-r]

The TV transition benefited from the conversion to flat screen that happened at approximately the same time. Increased resolution was also a huge draw. None of that applies in the case of digital radio.

[paulie_a]

People hate change.

[JustSomeNobody]

People hate change that screws us. Like the ATSC 3.0 changes that are coming and bringing with it the ability to track consumers.

[dagss]

I hate spending lots of money on DAB infrastructure right before it turns outdated and irrelevant. The future is internet. Many are now switching from FM to Spotify or internet radio on 4G and ignoring DAB.

[voltagex_]

DAB doesn't cost me per minute listened. I'm on a very good mobile plan here in Australia (10GB for $40/month) that would finally mean I could stream (128kbit, blech) music all day and not immediately hit the data cap. Many people aren't on that kind of data cap though. Not to worry - there wasn't ever any mobile data net neutrality so Spotify, Apple Music and Netflix aren't included in the cap (with a quality limit, of course)

[rusk]

No, they hate "you" [0]

[0] https://medium.com/@cwodtke/users-dont-hate-change-they-hate...

[toomuchtodo]

People hate costs being foisted on them (new receivers) by government. If DAB is that much better (and cost effective), that government should've paid for new receivers with the FM->DAB cost savings (the US gov subsidized digital TV broadcast receivers when the transition occurred).

[ajmurmann]

You know "the government" is us, the people of the country, right?

[toomuchtodo]

In a game of telephone sort of way. The will of the people appears to get mangled severely on the way to government leadership.

Norway's government cut off 50% of its population from public broadcasts with this change. And their electorate is okay with that? I find that hard to believe but perhaps their electorate finds that acceptable for the cost savings.

[ajmurmann]

It does. Maybe we should fix that instead of constantly trying to disempower it. Conversations in the US in particular always get conducted as if government had to be bad and is out definition disconnected from the people. We have technologies like approval voting to name one that could improve this. It's insane that you have to hijack one of two parties to bring any change. We must have a functioning government! We must stop working around that.

How the government makes decisions aside, for this concrete case, the money the government pays with is ultimately the tax payer money. So why not buy the received yourself? I don't want a receiver and I don't want to pay for yours. I don't even understand why it's not all just internet at this point.

[ams6110]

> Conversations in the US in particular always get conducted as if government had to be bad...

Yes, that is generally the classical conservative point of view (as distinct from the current Republican party, which has been imploding for a while now).

This point of view holds that government should be small and basically its responsibilities are common defense, protecting and defending individual rights, and bringing bad actors to justice.

> We must have a functioning government! We must stop working around that.

Beyond the above definition, there can be no "functioning" government, because the more power given to government the more corrupt and self-serving it becomes. This is due to inherent imperfection in human nature and can't be avoided.

[Asooka]

So how did that work out for you when the FCC decided to kill net neutrality?

[xoa]

>So how did that work out for you when the FCC decided to kill net neutrality?

Exactly as it’s supposed to? The Republicans have had eliminating Net Neutrality as part of their platform since at least 2012, and are generally hostile to consumer protection and the like in general. Conversely, the Democrats have supported it, to the extent that Hillary Clinton made it an explicit part of her technology platform. It’s right there on her website still.

Even more then that, when the political coalitions were being formed, the American people had every chance to influence what would go into each coalition. America could have ensured that both supported it. They didn’t, so instead we ended up with two very distinct coalitions on a range of issues, with NN as one of them. The Republicans promised to scrap it. The Democrats promised to keep and enforce it. America democratically voted to hand total power for this cycle over Federal government to a single coalition, the Republicans. There was no significant fraud whatsoever. There were no major national emergencies causing disruption. The Republicans won and have proceeded on policy just as they said they would (as expected, since most politicians work to keep their campaign promises).

Please explain what in this doesn’t reflect “our will” as expressed by the electorate? We all know how it works, what the dates are, etc. It’s easier now to get information and organize and get involved then at any time in history. If America had voted differently we’d have had a different result, simple as that. It’s our government, we are not ruled by anything but a democracy. If we don’t like the results it’s our responsibility to make it change.

[ajmurmann]

My statement wasn't about the decision making part, but about the other commenter's suggestion to have"the government" pay for the new receivers.

[tomjen3]

They should just operate both.