Cutting the Cord on Cable

I quit cable around 10 years ago when I moved out of my parent's house. Really, I hadn't been into it for some time even then and found it generally to be a time-sink and of little value.

I enjoy some of the content that's on TV, but the medium just isn't right for me. I don't like commercials, and I'd rather just have the option of paying more to not have them. I want what I want when I want it. I rarely care about realtime information from a television (I have the internet for that). I also like being able to watch most of a series in a short period of time. I like movies better than shows. 99% of of the content on TV isn't something I'm interested in.

At this point, cable TV just seems to be an annoying novelty to me. Its background noise when I'm at someone's house with it. I'm frankly shocked so many people still subscribe to it. Even if it was given to me for free, I wouldn't use it.

Personally I've found TV watching to be borne out of some sort of inertia. There was a point where I paid for all the pre-requisite packages for the privilege of being able to add The Speed Channel and watch my Formula 1, ALMS, etc. I watched a fair amount of TV, and already had some pricey packages, so what was a bit more?

However, the time came along where I didn't have as much time to watch racing anymore. I had a TiVo, but even then, I just didn't have the time to watch the recorded races. Eventually, I pared things down to the "Expanded" package. However, the few shows of interest went away. So when I moved, I pared down to Basic, only because if I didn't, I would only save $0.80/mo on my cable bill since Internet service would cost $10/mo more without a bundled television package.

I think the television was on about 12 hours last year, in terms of broadcast programming. Yes, twelve. Why? I fell out of the habit of slouching in my lounge chair and sitting there for a few hours every evening. My routine changed, and there always seems to be this large amount of inertia to overcome to change my routines. Unless the content producers come up with compelling reasons for me to park myself in front of the TV again, it will probably remain a tremendously expensive paperweight.

Granted, I do occasionally play video games, and stream content from YouTube, or my transcoded DVD library to an Apple TV, but I don't do that all that much.

It's like getting someone who lives in New York City to get excited about and buy a boring midsize sedan. They ride the subway, buses and take the taxi. You'd have to overcome their inertia of not using a car, and get them over the fact of what a car would cost them. I look at TV now almost the same way (though I live in Boston) -- there's this tremendous amount of inertia you have to overcome to change someone's habits, especially when there's viable alternatives that are nearly as good and cheaper.

The author claims he cut cable yet pays $340/year to get NFL Sunday Ticket on his PS3 - really?

The only reason I still have cable is for ESPN. They have live sports that are exclusive to ESPN and the only way to get ESPN is to have cable.

Let's say I'm hooked on Spanish language soap operas. There are generally three or four of interest running all the time on cable. These program run daily for three or more months and have an end (unlike some American soaps). When they end, a new soap starts up to take it's place.

Where else can I go to record/watch these besides cable? Some are on over the air channels, but I live in an area that can't receive those channels either.

What the author means is "goodbye TV"

Cause many have to use cable to get a decent internet in the US, still. Sadly its usually called Comcast (but it does offer Internet-only - even thus its very expensive and internet+tv isn't much more expensive)