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The Cable-Cutting Dream Is Kind of a Myth

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Re: The Cable-Cutting Dream Is Kind of a Myth

#11

My bank account says otherwise. I have a $30/mo Internet bill and a $30/mo phone bill. Both get me unlimited Internet at good bandwidth, so I just watch a metric ton of YouTube, Twitch, etc. I've never had any other monthly telecom service.

How'd you manage those deals?

Re: The Cable-Cutting Dream Is Kind of a Myth

#12
post #3

Is it really though? I haven't had a cable subscription since I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, didn't have one for four years before that, and I have yet to be convinced that I'm actually missing anything - anything I care to watch can be found trivially online (even without piracy, though often you have to sit through ads...) My demand for content hasn't really changed, just my will and desire to put up with b…

One thing I'm noticing with cable-cutting is that the market is getting more fragmented. Instead of just getting Netflix and watching free Hulu with ads, now you have to get Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Now, pay for Hulu, buy the Starz app, pay for MLB, etc. in order to compose all the content you want. It's equivalent to buying cable packages where you spend money on a bundle engineered to have only 20% of what you wa…

I don't know. Netflix appears to have added a lot of licensed content over the last year. $10/month for Netflix vs $65/month for basic Fios TV. I could add HBO Now for $15/month and still be money ahead.

Re: The Cable-Cutting Dream Is Kind of a Myth

#13
post #3

Is it really though? I haven't had a cable subscription since I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, didn't have one for four years before that, and I have yet to be convinced that I'm actually missing anything - anything I care to watch can be found trivially online (even without piracy, though often you have to sit through ads...) My demand for content hasn't really changed, just my will and desire to put up with b…

I'm in the same boat. But certainly we're in the minority in this country for not really caring too much about sports.

I'm sort of in the same boat? I don't want cable but it is cheaper bundling it with internet. I receive two extra channels than I would get from an antenna and the cable company tells shareholders their subscriber base is still going strong.

Re: The Cable-Cutting Dream Is Kind of a Myth

#14
I can't read the pay-walled article, but based off my own habits I do wonder what has really changed. I don't have cable, but I pay Netflix, Amazon, HBO, Sling, MLB, and the NFL anywhere from $8-$25 per month. At this point, that isn't much different than the old model. I'm not saving any real money and I still pay for plenty of content that I have absolutely zero interest in ever watching. The only difference is that instead of paying a single middleman for my TV, I moved slightly upstream and pay a handful of providers.

Re: The Cable-Cutting Dream Is Kind of a Myth

#15
post #14

I can't read the pay-walled article, but based off my own habits I do wonder what has really changed. I don't have cable, but I pay Netflix, Amazon, HBO, Sling, MLB, and the NFL anywhere from $8-$25 per month. At this point, that isn't much different than the old model. I'm not saving any real money and I still pay for plenty of content that I have absolutely zero interest in ever watching. The only difference is tha…

I've had trouble getting to other paywalled articles through the "web" link, but this one worked fine for me.

Re: The Cable-Cutting Dream Is Kind of a Myth

#17

My bank account says otherwise. I have a $30/mo Internet bill and a $30/mo phone bill. Both get me unlimited Internet at good bandwidth, so I just watch a metric ton of YouTube, Twitch, etc. I've never had any other monthly telecom service.

How'd you manage those deals?

$30/month on phone is not hard if you don't use an overlarge amount of data (or if you never talk on the phone and use idk about internet, "good bandwidth" in my area is >>$50. Probably depends on where you are and what your definition of good bandwidth is.

Re: The Cable-Cutting Dream Is Kind of a Myth

#18
post #9
post #3

Is it really though? I haven't had a cable subscription since I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, didn't have one for four years before that, and I have yet to be convinced that I'm actually missing anything - anything I care to watch can be found trivially online (even without piracy, though often you have to sit through ads...) My demand for content hasn't really changed, just my will and desire to put up with b…

Can't read the paywalled story but where I live there's really one option for internet: Comcast. So if I literally cut cable, I have nothing (I cut my phone landline years ago, and AT&T has no high-speed internet in my neighborhood anyway). What I do is I have the "basic" TV + internet package, as that's actually cheaper bundled than getting internet by itself. I have no ESPN, HBO, etc. I do miss some sports but I ca…

> What I do is I have the "basic" TV + internet package, as that's actually cheaper bundled than getting internet by itself.

I've heard this before, and on the surface seems like it's probably skewing a lot of the numbers (making the number of cable TV subscribers artificially higher than it otherwise would be).

At the same time, you, like many others, do have it hooked up to your TV, and you watch it at least occasionally. Despite the bundle being cheaper, you still are by all metrics a legit cable TV subscriber.

The big question is if it wasn't cheaper, would you still have cable TV? If it was $1 more to get TV vs just internet, would you do it, and at what point does it become too expensive?

Re: The Cable-Cutting Dream Is Kind of a Myth

#19

Just wait until today's teens grow up. Most of them have never gotten in the linear TV habit, they prefer to watch Youtube and don't have the attention span to sit through a commercial break. 10 years from now, cable TV is d00med.

I'd say the golden age of TV consumption contributed to shortened attention spans by conditioning us to focus for ~10minutes and get interrupted by 5 minutes of random nonsense.

Re: The Cable-Cutting Dream Is Kind of a Myth

#20
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How'd you manage those deals?

$30/month on phone is not hard if you don't use an overlarge amount of data (or if you never talk on the phone and use idk about internet, "good bandwidth" in my area is >>$50. Probably depends on where you are and what your definition of good bandwidth is.

"Both get me unlimited Internet" seems to indicate that there's not a cap on transfer for the GP's phone service, which is surprising at $30/month (in the US, anyway).
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