Not sure if this is the case or not but I hate reading posts where people beg for a feed for a specific area or complain about a feed someone else provides so they can listen on their $800 iPhone. If they have the money for the phone, then they can get a scanner.
And it seems a majority of the people have absolutely no clue what is involved to provide the stream or even to just listen on their own equipment.
If they would try it show a genuine interest in the hobby, it would be different but a lot don't. They seem like they feel they are entitled to have a stream setup just for them. Maybe it's that generation.
I'm a member of "that generation" (I think, depends on which generation you're referring to, I'm in the 24-30 age bracket if that helps) and I agree with the points made. However, when I demonstrate the differences between listening to a stream and listening with your own equipment, most people in my generation appreciate the fact that listening to a stream and listening to a system (or systems) on your own equipment are two different animals.
In my case, I have the choice of listening to a stream of several localities' police, fire/rescue, EMS, schools, public works/utilities,etc or listening to my own equipment - which only has the locality I'm in's PD/FD/EMS. The more frequencies/channels/talkgroups/systems you're scanning through, the more transmissions you're missing. You can't hear the police dispatcher at the same time you're listening to the school bus drivers if you're listening on a stream. Can't "lock out" a channel temporarily (or permanently) unless you're using your own equipment.
If the locality in question is still running analog FM, you can listen to them with a dirt-cheap analog-only radio (even first-generation analog trunking and first-generation digital trunking scanners are all over the used market and are quite affordable). Due to many localities upgrading to Project 25 Phase II, some listeners are putting their older digital trunking scanners on the secondhand market. eBay is filled with analog-only and first-generation digital scanners.
Having your own equipment provides you with a level of control and customization impossible to achieve through an Internet/smartphone stream. You're forced to listen to the frequencies/channels/talkgroups/users/etc that the person providing the stream has programmed if you use a stream. With your own equipment, you can listen to what you want to and lock out (or just not program) what you don't want to listen to.
I feel that the whole point of owning/using/operating two-way radio systems (and I'm talking about all kinds of two-way radio systems from truckers using 11 meters and kids on FRS to ham radio to the military, government and public safety systems out there) is the fact that two-way radio is separate from the mobile/cellular networks. It is well-known that mobile networks suffer congestion during times of crisis, and these are the times having a scanner (and radio in general, especially amateur radio and to a nearly equal extent the license-free services FRS/CB/MURS) are the most useful and interesting.
If you're relying on a stream that's done through the Internet and to your smartphone, you're relying on the cellular networks. Just my 2 cents.
