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People who "cut the cord"- Do you regret it?

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Hell no. I grew up without cable, and even when my University provided it in the dorms I never really watched it.

I'm not a huge sports fan, so quite simply there's nothing I want to watch that can't be found, one way or the other, on the internet or broadcast.
 
Nope, don't regret it. Hulu, amazon prime, and Netflix cost me less than $300 a year. Local movie store gets all the new releases in blu-ray. Better than $110 a month fo the DirecTV package I had.
 
iwajabitw said:
Nope, don't regret it. Hulu, amazon prime, and Netflix cost me less than $300 a year. Local movie store gets all the new releases in blu-ray. Better than $110 a month fo the DirecTV package I had.
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Ikr all the DVD's and movies you can own for the $1000/year or whatever people pay for cable.
 
My situation still has me getting cable, though I'd like to get rid of it.

I should watch less of this stuff, but generally like to watch daily MSNBC shows, PBS, HBO, some cable like FX and Stewart/Colbert, and a little network tv.

I don't know a good way to get some of that content without cable.
 
I was looking into cutting my cable, but after checking the alternatives decided against it.
Best only internet at my location:
€42,50 for 50/5
My current package:
€64,- for 120/12 , 110(37HD) channels, DVR, phone and wifi

I kept my current package...
 
Sigh- I haven't actually cut the cord yet 🙁

I called recently to do it, but they said that:

A) it will cost me $120 in cancelation fees. No way around it. Fine, the savings each month will pay for that in ~2-3 months.

B)I have 4 cable boxes under my name, 1 of which can't be accounted for. It's listed as not being active (not hooked up in any way) and apparently will cost $200-400 to be replaced.

I think this is utter BS because I have never even had 4 cable boxes at once. The most was 3, which I have all in my house ready to be returned. I need to call back and see what the exact date was that this box was given to me, and what date the last time it was used was. I have a strong feeling this is one of the old boxes I had before Comcast updated their software and gave me new boxes sometime earlier this year/late last year. If so, it's their problem of accounting, yet... trying to pin it on me. What a bunch of shit.
 
4 months out from "cutting the cord" I do have some remorse. Even though I do live in a major metro area (almost half a million people) my closest fox provider is like 50 miles away. It's a struggle to get a decent signal on Sunday's for football. And even local signals can be pretty shitty if the weather is bad.

I'm paying $35 a month for Time Warner internet. Cheapest bundle I can do to get ESPN is another $40 a month + $2.50 a month for a cable card for the Tivo + another $10 a month for a cable box since they are fuckheads and scramble even local QAM channels. So it's more like another $55 a month just to get local channels + ESPN. And that was only a rate for a year. It goes up another $5 more in twelve months.

I want to do it, but just not going to out of principal at this point. I hate the squeeze play being put on subscribers.
 
MrPickins said:
100% this.

I occasionally miss sporting events, but that gives me an excuse to go to a friends or hit up a sports bar.
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My local pizza place has a great beer selection and Dish Network with all the sports you could ever want. At home I use Amazon prime, OTA HDTV hooked into a server I setup with DVR capability, Redbox for the occasional Bluray disc, a HTPC for any streaming content (e.g. CW Arrow episodes), and Tversity to stream any files I want to share locally. Cut the cord 4 years ago and haven't really regretted it. Only sports I really care to watch are the Royals and Chiefs games, and those come in fine via OTA HD.
 
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I love the "just go to a sports bar" arguments. Yes, in order to save the $80 a month I pay for cable, I am going to spend $40 a week (if I only go to MNF or the Cowboys game), sit far away from the small TV, and listen to a bunch of other idiots go on about da Bears...

Cutting the cord as a sports fan is stupid. You either miss 99% of all the sports or you have to spend more money to make it up.
 
cbrsurfr said:
Anyone use a Tivo Roamio HD w/ OTA antenna as an alternative to WMC/HTPC? You would still be a slave to $15 per month or $4-500 for a lifetime subscription. But it's way cheaper than cable/sat and you get a really good dvr with scheduling and other features.

My bill will be going from ~$30 to $87 in the next few months which is got me revisiting this.

I use OTA on 2 of my TV's but would miss DVR features on my main tv. Seems like the Tivo option might not be that much more when you consider the cost of a HTPC with tuner and storage.
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I think I finally have my plan down as I have less than 1 month left on my cheap rates.

I bought a Tivo Roamio 4 tuner ota/cable card box with lifetime sub. This was pretty expensive, but these boxes bought with lifetime hold their value well and can easily be resold. It was around $600 with the extended warranty and lifetime. Not cheap but I sold some stuff around the house and garage that covered almost all of this cost. I already have a Terk HDTVa antenna, I just need to move it to the attic for a little better coverage.

I did a trial with the Tivo (you have 30 days) to decide if I liked it or not. Seems worth the extra cost for less hassle dealing with tuner cards and HTPC's with media extenders.

I already pay for Amazon prime (I buy a ton from Amazon) and Netflix (grandfathered old pricing). I've added Hulu Plus for basically free. I use bing rewards to save up for credits that I can redeem for monthly Hulu Plus cards.

I went through my DVR and half of the shows I had set to watch were cancelled and most series I watch are on regular OTA networks. For other stuff I think I'll just buy a season pass on Amazon.

So Tivo + Amazon Prime + Hulu Plus + Netflix for main viewing at a cost of around 16 bucks a month. That will get supplemented with Amazon instant video season passes for anything not caught by the above. 2 months of no Directv will more than pay the remainder of the Tivo costs. After that it's all gravy.
 
smackababy said:
Cutting the cord as a sports fan is stupid. You either miss 99% of all the sports or you have to spend more money to make it up.
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Eh. It's really just coming down to spending for me. I'm tired of getting dinked and dunked on various bills. I've gone down to low(er) cost cell phone plans at the cost of lower data limits. God forbid I listen to terrestrial radio for a bit while driving instead of streaming Pandora non-stop.

Instead of the uber-fast cable connection I'm chugging along just fine on my $35 a month 15mb one.

I paid for my own cable modem instead of getting dinged $5-$7 a month for one.

And with Cable TV as much as I'd like the convenience of all you feast buffet of sports...it just isn't worth it to me for a game or two of college football that interests me on Saturday, pre-game coverage on sunday and then the every 3 or 4th MNF that is actually interesting for another $800 a year.
 
poofyhairguy said:
I will believe it when I see it. HBO is owned by Time Warner, one of the biggest cable giants. I don't think HBO will get to screw a different division of the parent company so blatantly, or not until we know FOR SURE net neutrality is dead.
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Or if they do it, it's going to be priced so retardedly high that it's not even remotely enticing. And then when it fails they can sit back behind their desks and go "See, told you nobody wanted it!".
 
vi edit said:
Or if they do it, it's going to be priced so retardedly high that it's not even remotely enticing. And then when it fails they can sit back behind their desks and go "See, told you nobody wanted it!".
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So far the only two entities have real leverage over the cable companies are the NFL and ESPN.

The NFL is taking it to the cable companies- first they forced Thursday games to the NFL Network to make them all pick it up and then once they all did they turned around and sold off half the Thursday game package to CBS. Oh AND the NFL is allowing Directv to be pretty liberal about streaming their primary content, and they have worked hard to take complete ownership of new content streams (like the Redzone channel). They are putting the squeeze on cable.

ESPN has been more of a team player with cable (you can't log into ESPN3 without a login from the cable company), but they too are putting the screws into the system. ESPN1 is the most expensive channel for them to subscribe to, and they bundle it with ESPN2 so each cable subscriber in America pays Disney around $10 a month even if they don't care about sports. Also ESPN has been creating college football networks (SEC Network, Longhorn Network) that forces cable companies to pay a premium ON TOP OF ESPN to have access to those brands. So they are really milking the non-al a carte setup.

HBO is yet another brand that has the content to go around cable, but Tuner as a company has many channels that quite simply wouldn't survive if people had to pay extra each month to get them. HBO could possibly go rogue MS-style, but I think this executive is trying to get more power within the company.
 
I'm kind of "Meh" on the NFL. Monday Night Football used to be on ABC. That went away to Cable. So bringing "Thursday Night Football" back for 2/3 of the year is a just barely giving back what you lost a while ago.

Don't get me started on the Sunday ticket. It's $300+ and restricted to Direct TV. That's even worse than needing cable to watch something. And by most accounts the streaming solutions available on line are pure trash. They killed the Xbox, Playstation and stand alone options.

ESPN would certainly be a channel I'd be happy to pay $10 to directly for being able to stream direct to my Xbox or Apple TV. But noooooooo. I can't do that either.

Fuck Cable companies and providers. I'm sick of it.
 
poofyhairguy said:
I will believe it when I see it. HBO is owned by Time Warner, one of the biggest cable giants. I don't think HBO will get to screw a different division of the parent company so blatantly,
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That is a misconception. Time Warner spun off Time Warner Cable, which is now an independent company. So there is no link between HBO and Time Warner Cable.
 
squarecut1 said:
That is a misconception. Time Warner spun off Time Warner Cable, which is now an independent company. So there is no link between HBO and Time Warner Cable.
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Good catch, you are 100% right. But the point stands that the Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. division would be screwed if the HBO division pushes for an al a carte future. I could see people paying more for some specialty channels like HSN, Cartoon Network and probably TBS, but bye bye The Legal Talk Network, Turner Classic Movies, truTV and maybe TNT and the CW.
 
Nope, no regrets.

15/15 internet with roku (Netflix, prime, PBS, Smithsonian channel, etc...) and over the air digital I have more than I could ever watch.
 
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