Have you cut the cord?

Question

Many people have opted to cancel cable TV and have a mixture of different subscriptions and other ways to receive programming. What did you do , ? Did you actually save any money? Do you think itvis better than cable?

D_Bone_Steak · Accepted Answer

It was years ago... over a decade. I moved to Japan and all I had was internet and video games to pass my free time. I suddenly found myself not sitting through 15 minutes worth of content stretched out to last 30 minutes with all the damn commercials. I was no longer sitting through bullshit that was tailor-made to shape my opinion from one source. Re-runs became a thing of the past. I was suddenly exposed to much more than television as I knew it in the 80's and 90's had to offer. I would never go back to "traditional programming." The opinions I now hear vary... not just one message at any time.

Cable is dead unless you have a television that doesn't even give you that free cable stuff... It's basically free on any new television... people have that and they still pay for subscription services. The only thing I pay for is Youtube... I watch movies for free just by ripping them right off the internet... some people still rent or pay.

Here is what happens when I get stuck in a hotel room and there is literally nothing to do but watch cable... I drift into crime TV and see a story about these white supremes that killed some Jewish guy...20 minutes into it, it was 2 Mexicans and a black guy, and they killed the guy because he's was sucking all there dicks and getting them all into fights and they narrowed it down to him getting the shit beat out of him. Then I get to the trial part. They get charged with a hate crime because the black dude had a Prussian eagle tattoo (obviously a neo-nazi... not), and they killed a gay guy... who sucked and let them all pound him in the butt for years. They go to prison for being white supreme nazis, and the hour-long real crime shit is over. I'm now drunk enough to sleep. As I drift off to sleep, I imagine how mental someone must be if they got exposed to that sort of contradictory bullshit day in day out... for years.

Ah, so that's how I've figured out why there are so many retards out there.

Also... dropping the Television habit led to doing things. I started lifting weights at home, really started playing more guitar and did a lot of studying. I'll put it like this... if you randomly pick one of those people from hoarders, or even one of those obese people shows... how much you want to bet they spend their time around that fucking TV? There's always that fucking camera shot of them sitting there flipping through channels and not doing anything... It's really fucking sad.

Bricealan · Accepted Answer

EVERY TIME MY BILL GOES UP, I CONSIDER DROPPING CABLE... REALLY A GOOD JIG FOR THE CABLE COMPANIES. i AM STILL CONSIDERING?

WhiteSteve · Answer

The sad reality is that it all ends up costing more or the same as straight up cable.

My old man had Xfinity, some bundle for cable, landline phone, and internet. He got fed up with the cost and all the dumb shit they pull with channel packages, and wanted to do something different. But he’s a 92 year old white guy, so he can’t live without his FoxNews, lmao. And we watch the NFL and other sports, so we kind of need cable. So we ended up getting him YouTube TV as a substitute. I think that’s like $60 a month. I got him a Smart TV so he watches a lot of YouTube, he gets by. But he’s also just not even aware of most of the shows that exist out there, he just falls ass backwards into shows that just happen to be available to him, he doesn’t really get how to search for specific things😂 I think he gets Showtime on his YouTube TV and he’s into Boston crime dramas like Ray Donovan or City On A Hill. Other than that, it seems to just be at random, haha.

But anyway, YouTube TV is about $60, and then if you’re not 90-something, you’ll probably want to watch other shows that are available on streaming services…. but they got cute with that too. I’m waiting for a world where we can just pick our entertainment a la carte, but I think that means less money for someone, so they won’t let it happen.

Now the various streaming sites are bidding for rights to certain popular TV shows. Like I remember The Office was on Netflix forever…. but then it wasn’t, and now I think it’s on NBC Peacock or Paramount Plus or one of the others.

And that’s what they do, they all go and get some well-established “comfort show” that everyone knows and loves and will watch over and over…. The Office, Seinfeld, Friends, The Simpsons, you name it….. it’ll never all be available on one platform.

So now you pay $60 so you can get news and sports from some kind of faux-cable service like YouTube TV. But then you also need Paramount Plus for this show, and Hulu for that show, and Netflix for another. All the HBO shows are on an HBO service. Ditto for Showtime. Most of these services are probably like $7-10 per month, so it really only takes a few of them to add up to paying as much or more than the cable company asks. It’s all a big hustle, haha

MrOracle · Answer

Are you kidding? I did that way back in 2002, when the "Windows Media Center" version of Windows XP was released. I'd been wanting something like that for years already, but the other options on the market were too incomplete, and the vendors too small.

Way back then, I set up a server using Media Center and a dual-tuner capture card, and I ripped my DVDs into files and hosted them on the server. I had 3 TVs in the house, one connected to the server, and the other two on old computers. It wasn't perfect, but it got better over time. By the release of Vista, you could use an Xbox 360 as a client, so one of the TVs got that.

Also around that time, there was a third-party plug-in that had a much improved interface but ran on the WMC infrastructure. It was called Media Browser.

A few years later, Microsoft made it clear that Windows 7 was likely to be the last version of WMC (they did include it in earlier versions of Windows 10, but it was old, unmaintained code, and it was finally discontinued in 2015). This prompted the developers of Media Browser to begin a major project to make Media Browser independent of Windows and WMC. Media Browser had, for years by then, been frequently shortened to MB, and so this new product was called Emby - the phonetic pronunciation of MB - and competes against other media servers like Plex, though having used both of them, Emby is, to me at least, the superior product.

My current Emby server has 64TB of storage, holds my entire collection of movies, pictures, music, TV shows, music videos, and acts as a DVR for broadcast TV, using an HD HomeRun TV tuner. There are clients for nearly every device you can name that's got enough horse power to run it - essentially almost everything from 2012 and newer. Phones, tablets, computers, TVs, streaming boxes, web browsers, game consoles, and so on. And there are versions of the server that run on almost anything - I run mine on a NAS.

I can access any file or movie or TV show from anywhere I can get on the Internet.

Granted, running your own server is a lot of work, and I've built mine up over more than a decade, but it's like my own, personal, much more comprehensive, and higher quality Netflix.

in my opinion, "the cord" is only for getting me Internet.

LazerBean · Answer

It always amazes me when people still have cable and watch ads and stuff. Pretty sure it's just old people who do that these days. Between all of our families, we have Hulu, Disney Plus, and HBO max. We pay for the Disney Plus, so about $14 a month. Then there's another app that my sister uses to watch her little shows on that is essentially cable, but free. It's peacock or Pluto or something like that.

sage2021 · Answer

Our apartment business manager made all us have Direct TV. It costs $25/mo and is included in the rent.
If I wanted to switch to Spectrum I would still have to pay the $25/mo!🤬

On top of that I would have to pay Spectrum for cable and this special deal that gives you a lot more channels. That's what we used to have - everyone in the building. When they sold the property the new owners had Spectrum come to all 135 apartments and remove their equipment. That's when we got stuck with Direct TV which doesn't have anything to watch 😐.

I don't have a computer either and no internet.

So either I fork out at least $80/mo or just keep Direct TV.

Yeah! My life is real exciting.

midnightmoon05 · Answer

I think we only subscribed to a few things in the house…nothing related to tv since we don’t own one.
cell phones, electric bills, oil, Amazon, cleaning services and landscaping services… those bills are not much compared to our tax.

Lliam · Answer

When my wife and I move into our home in a rural area, we got a satellite dish with a good internet provider.

We don't poison our minds with TV news and programming and don't care that much about sports or special events.

We have a large, flat screen TV. But we mainly use it to watch an occasional movie together via my laptop.

We got Netflix discs for years and had Netflix streaming at the same time for a couple of years. But Netflix ended the disc service and we cancelled the streaming service recently because of the utterly shitty films that are available on the service.

The two of us don't have a lot of time to watch movies together these days, anyway.

I watch free Youtube movies on my laptop when I'm bored. She watches one on her iPad but rarely. Once in a while we watch one together on our TV usually on Youtube or Hoopla (the public library service).

We get our news and information from various sources on-line.

Static_In_The_Attic · Answer

As for me I didn’t cut the cord I just cut the cable tv. In my attic I installed an antenna which picks up over the air channels & also on my tv I have 3000 IP Internet channels so who needs cable anymore. Told two of my neighbors about what I did & I hooked them up too.

IslaTheWitch · Answer

I don't have cable at all... I have German basic TV (I watch only news there from time to time), Polish TV via the internet, and zillion subscriptions

TrueConfection · Answer

I cut the cable last year. It was a great decision. I changed providers, upped my internet, kept my phone, and I'm saving $200/mo.

We put an antenna on the roof that's barely noticeable because it has a low profile. It took me about a week to teach my husband how to access channels and he hasn't complained. I think he's happy about saving money too.

llorando · Answer

Cut the cord last year, switched from Xfinity cable to DirecTV stream. Even tho DirecTV stream is one of priciest streaming services for live TV, I still saved money. Just the saving from equipment cost and taxes and fees covered most of the cost for DirecTV stream. It pain's me I didn't switch sooner, not only is it cheaper, but I get unlimited DVR and the picture is 10x better then Xifinity who compresses the crap out of their channels to fit more of them in a given channel.

OlderAndWiser · Answer

I have internet, Prime, Netflix, and Sling. Most often, I watch YT. I don’t have cable tv.

Jamie05rhs · Answer

"but would still need to subscribe to a few streaming services to get TNT, USA, and the other rerun channels" "need" FALSE. "WANT"

normalice · Answer

I have never once seriouely considered getting a cable subscription. It used to be the whole point of cable was that it was ad free. That is a bygone era. Since the citizens united ruling it is now pretty much exclusively ads, especially the "news," and they want you to pay for the opportunity to watch them. I'd maybe consider letting them pay me to watch for 5 minutes a day but that's not even on the table.

rosemilk · Answer

i don't have cable tv lol i hate tv anyways. i'd rather watch youtube. but we have hulu, netflix, disney+, hbo max, and paramount. we share a lot of these with family so... not all of it is on us, me and my husband only pay for hulu and hbo max

Anonymous · Answer

Many people have. But I enjoy old fashion television. I have some steaming services but I hate them I just have them to watch my shows when I want. Though if you have on demand you don’t have to worry about that.

There is just something about it for me and I find it hard to part ways. If that makes sense.

Gabriella2005 · Answer

Yes Hulu great live tv , don’t even have a house phone.

Iron_Man · Answer

Well I have Xfinity Comcast I’m paying $165 a month now basically for basic cable no HBO no Showtime no movie channel and they took away Bally sports so it’s not really a good deal but I don’t have these new digital flatscreen TVs where I can get computer feeds I have a 2003 TV

NathanDavis · Answer

cable is included with my internet plan... so is Netflix subscription I did try to get internet only, but they don't really have a plan like that

AviatorTom · Answer

We got rid of cable 6 years ago, keeping only Internet connectivity from the cable company. We added several streaming services, with the total cost being less than half of what cable was, with more choices now.

menina · Answer

I thought about doing that, but I know I would get bored. Having cable TV is pretty common in the country where I live. But yes, it saves a lot of money.

naartjie · Answer

I watch Netflix here and then, mostly on for background noise otherwise I don’t sit hours on end watching tv. My phone is what should be thrown away or at least 80% of the apps I should get rid of

OfMiceandMen · Answer

Been off cable for quite sometime, as soon as online options came out, I dumped cable which was way more expensive and opted for better internet and online content.

EmmaMary · Answer

@exitseven  We don't have cable, we don't have Sky, we only subscribe to Amazon Prime... Other than that we're extremely happy in just having Freeview (A UK free service).

Razp_Sorbet · Answer

I never got cable. When I moved out of home we never bothered getting it. I don't see the point. I stream everything I want to watch.

TurtlePoop · Answer

Yes. You can find plenty of free stuff to waste your time.

Curmudgeon · Answer

One word: Roku. it has saved me a good deal, not paying for what I never watched anyway.

Part2603 · Answer

Bruh, I never paid for television in my life.

MikeTheBartender · Answer

Over 20 years ago. Other than sports I don't know why anybody has television nowadays

Wiredone · Answer

No I didn't cut the cord yet. I'm still getting raped by cable every month.

OddBeMe · Answer

Yes but ironically- actually just capitalistically- the price is probably the same by now,

Twalli · Answer

When I move, I intend to only have a roku with streaming services

PA19062024 · Answer

I've never had cable TV in the first place, so there never was anything to "cut".

slatyb · Answer

About 12 years ago when my child went to college.

shortster · Answer

Nope

Have you cut the cord?

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