TL;DR - cutting the cable TV cord has been a great choice for me and might be a good choice for you too. You just have to do some research and learn a little bit; like an old dog learning a new trick.
Fear of the unknown. “If it ain’t broken don’t fix it”. Aversion to change.
We finally cut the (cable tv) cord. I think there was a CC Parents thread about this a couple years ago, but that thread is now locked. I, of course, ignored that thread anyways because, y’know, it didn’t apply to me. I don’t want to deal with change.
You’ve probably heard the narrative that if you put a frog in a pot of hot water it will attempt to jump out but if you put it in a pot of cold water and heat it slowly the frog will sit till it’s boiled. I’m that frog with the cable bill. Every year the temperature (price) was raised and I sat there. Finally it came to a boil.
I called the cable company for the dreaded bi-annual haggling. Crazy long wait time on hold.
Me: I want to lower my overall bill.
Them: Sure, we’d love to try to help you do that! Let’s just see what we can do here. Yes, I can lower your bill for six months and give you the speed increase (20x) your neighbors have been enjoying for years while we have been bleeding your wallet without upgrade. Oh, but you’ll have to pay extra if you want to keep the sports channels you currently enjoy because you were grandfathered into them before regional sports broadcasting fees went ballistic. I need to mention that after the six month promotion period expires you’ll be paying substantially more than the amount you called to complain about in the first place, but remember you’ll get the excessively fast internet speeds that you don’t really need, (and my goal is to increase company revenues, not decrease them). Can I get you to say “yes” to this recorded proposal?
Me: No. Tell me where to return the equipment.
Them: Ok I’ll email you a UPS return label. Anything else?
Me: Umm, I don’t need that 20x faster internet speed that’s sufficient to run a small company. Can I just have the bargain consumer speed that’s still 6x faster than I currently have and will cost me less?
Them: Sure. Done. Anything else?
Me: Nope. Thank you. You’ve been cheerful and I lowered my bill but you made me work for it.
Our cable TV equipment rental fees felt excessive (2 boxes: HD DVR box + muti-room DVR box), and we were captive to just those two box locations. Having cut the cord, we can now view anywhere (with a smart tv, or Roku stick, or even on my iPhone). So, for example, after I cut the cord I put a smart TV in front of my treadmill in the basement. Under the old scenario it would have required wiring coax to the location and paying monthly for another rental cable box.
To cut the cord and substitute with streaming, you’ll want to research which streaming service(s) might best fit your needs. Some could be lacking your must-have channels. Some don’t stream the local channels (in which case you need to set up for OTA reception). Some charge more for sports packages you desire. Some have disappointingly low DVR storage capacity while others have unlimited DVR storage included in the base package. That’s right, I said unlimited!
I’ve actually had compelling reason to cut the cord for years because we have two homes with cable TV at each, but now we can use the one streaming service at both. Even if we just had one home I’d still make this switch. Now we’re paying less in total than we did for either home and we are also getting much faster internet speeds at both homes. I felt we needed faster internet speeds to handle the increasing amounts of streaming.
If you have been pondering the thought of cutting the cord then I encourage you re-visit the proposition. It requires some research, perhaps some trial & error, but I think that all the streaming services have free trials that you can cancel easily, online, with the click of a mouse button. I know from some experience because I tried a particular streaming service and subsequently cancelled it with ease to switch to another. I actually used the streaming free trial before I cancelled my cable TV package so I was sure I’d be comfortable with the change.
Of course, this boomer still kept the (idiot tax) landline. Old habits (and hopefully old boomers) are hard to die…
I’m not even sure why I’m writing this long note. I guess because the change made me happy and maybe it will make you happy too.
