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I think the sports channels are where the cable companies have you over the barrel. Try as we would, we simply could not get EPL and MSL games without extra fees, and one channel never has them all, you have to subscribe to Bein, Espn, FSC, and Lord know what else to get a complete lineup. I can't imagine what it must be like if you follow more than one particular sport regularly.
$50 for internet, and I get my NFL fix by way of an over-the-air antenna I bought for $25 on amazon.
Other than that, We already had Amazon prime, so we get amazon video, and we share a Netflix account with family. If there's a certain show I want to watch, like Westworld, I can use PS vue to subscribe to that channel for a month and then cancel when done.
I think the sports channels are where the cable companies have you over the barrel. Try as we would, we simply could not get EPL and MSL games without extra fees, and one channel never has them all, you have to subscribe to Bein, Espn, FSC, and Lord know what else to get a complete lineup. I can't imagine what it must be like if you follow more than one particular sport regularly.
And this is the issue... Soccer didn't used to be this "cool" in the US but now it's more than a niche and they're capitalizing on it. It is good in a way, to have the option to have the access, but it can get quite pricey, and yes, if you include other sports which have their own subscription package, then it's a sizeable investment with only marginal emotional returns.
I cut cable two plus years ago and the landline earlier this year. At the time, it was a savings of $92 + $60. I spend less time as a couch potato and not being controlled by a cable company.
The only sport I'm into is college and NFL football. So basically, I only watch TV from September thru the Super Bowl. With a $10 antenna, I get the free broadcast channels which takes care of my football fix.
Last edited by Rastafellow; 09-05-2018 at 01:06 PM..
Reason: change wording
We have cable AND Netflix, UFC Fight Pass, Hulu and Amazon Prime (although we have Prime more for the other perks). We're also enjoying a 60-day free trial of Shudder right now but probably won't renew it at $8.99 a month.
Sounds like a lot? Yeah. But it's worth it for us because my husband is really into TV, movies and sports. If we didn't have these things, husband would want to go to sports bars and whatnot to watch sports, would want to rent Redbox movies and go to the movies, etc. I know from experience that it's more frugal FOR US to have things for us (mostly him) to watch at home.
That is not the case for everyone, of course. We all have to figure out what works for us.
We tried both SlingTV and DirecTV now and weren't impressed. We didn't like the platforms and found they froze up a lot on all of our devices. The prices weren't much cheaper than what we pay for cable as a part of our bundled package, either, and we didn't get some of the channels like we like.
So then what happens when everyone does this? Not too long now... give it 5 years max.
Personally I see this as a Airline Deregulation Act parallel of sorts. Cord cutting is that "act" and now we see lower prices across the board. But soon enough the mergers will begin. And instead of several subscription services we can pick and chose from, we'll have only a handful. Just like the airline industry now.
IMHO it'll be awhile before everyone is doing this. There's still about 99 million pay TV households in the US (https://www.statista.com/statistics/...lds-in-the-us/). I agree cable TV will go away eventually, but it's probably a generation or two away. IMHO landline phones will do the same.
I know the Internet has gotten a lot better just in my time. I remember my buddy getting a warning letter from Comcast because he busted their data cap back around 2008. They used to have a hard cap at 100 GB a month. Bust it and they'd send you a warning. Bust it again and they'd cut your service. Lots of companies now don't even have a cap, like Spectrum, or they have a cap but just bump your account up to business class if you keep busting it.
Back in 08 youtube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc barely existed. So far the trend has been positive.
Personally I wouldn't pay $45 a month for a streaming service. The cable our apartments includes in the rent is $50. We have Amazon and Netflix, so $20 a month. There's more on there than I'll ever watch, commercial free and on demand.
A lot of people share services which you can’t do with cable...like sharing a Netflix login with a friend and only one person pays. Splitting a $40/service is $20 per person. If you want to save money you can’t be overly picky about what you watch - there’s only 4-5 must have channels for me but most all services have them. I’ve never been a big enough tv watcher to care about all the movie/sports packages.
The channel bundle irritates me. We get and have to pay for 100+ channels and watch a maximum of about 12. We watch zero sports and no premium channels, but it is all or nothing. Spectrum are sneaky, they raise the bill a few dollars and hope you won't notice.
The channel bundle irritates me. We get and have to pay for 100+ channels and watch a maximum of about 12. We watch zero sports and no premium channels, but it is all or nothing. Spectrum are sneaky, they raise the bill a few dollars and hope you won't notice.
Yep, and if it's sports you're interested in, they never put ALL the channels that carry the complete sports season on one package. So you've got to take two or more extra packages or hopefully use the channel switching feature if your cable company offers one, to buy extra channels. Grrr....! (they're not stupid of course)
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