For another thing, your needs may simply exceed the number of HDMI ports on your TV.

If you plug those devices into the switch, you’ll have one cable from the switch to your TV. And if you’re plugging in five devices, there are five cables crossing that negative space. If your devices are in a shelf and the TV is up on the wall, there’s negative space in-between. So, why would you do this instead of plugging directly into your TV? For one thing, you might want cleaner cable management. These work similarly to old-school coaxial switches, except with HDMI instead of coax. That said, there are times and places you might want to use an HDMI switcher. You can often connect three or four different HDMI sources and cycle between them. Modern TVs don’t strictly require this type of setup. Then you’d use the switch to choose which exact device you were using. When you wanted to use one of your devices, you’d tune the TV to Channel 3 or 4. If you had a VCR, an early game console, or other device, you’d need a switch to plug them all in.

TVs of the day used a single channel, either three or four, for all signals other than antenna or cable. Many of us grew up with switches for coaxial cable.

As technology advances, some things change while others remain the same.