A Year without Cable

So it's been a year without "cable" in our house, and the world hasn't exploded.  It has saved us over $1,000 for the first year and has also saved us a bunch of time wasting time on watching TV.

I am going to breakdown my pros and cons to cable cutting.

PROS

Money - It has saved us over $1,000 just this year.

Cable Companies - Fuck cable companies.  They are giant monopolies that don't care about customer services and control the pricing, the scale, the product and everything else you watch on your television or internet — enough of that.

Tastes - My tastes and probably my whole families tastes have completely changed since we cut the cable — no more binge-watching stuff we didn't like.  No, we concentrate on what shows we love and want to binge.  For me, I watched through a ton of PBS specials on Netflix.  Sadly, the other one left is "Prohibition," and it is annoying as shit (I don't recommend it).

Unlimited Recording - Oh yeah, that magical think cable companies charged you extra for.  It's now basically free with whatever service you have.

Mix-it-up - The best thing is being able to choose a la carte what you want.  It is excellent, but some people will realize that you will need to spend more than you think about everything you want.  So you need to pick your battles.  

CONS

Cable Companies - You still have to use the cable companies for the internet.  Come on local governments, get into the game.  It is just another utility that we should have control over instead of some billionaire.  

A-la-carte - the downfall of cutting cable is the cost of A-la-carte.  Cable companies, broadcasting companies, movie companies are all catching up to the cutting cable idea and now moving towards their business models.  ESPN and Disney are two perfect examples of this.  Soon you will have to pay them extra to watch all your favorite sports or movies.  Disney is even getting rid of their vaulted films and forcing people who want to watch the original dumbo to have to pay for their service to watch it instead of being able to purchase it via DVD, Blu-ray, and digital.  This whole business model will explode.  But I see the Netflix/HBO service might blow before the bigger companies.  

"APPS"- the best and worst part of cutting cables is apps.  You can download any app.  but the biggest downfall is swapping between them to pick a show.  It is much more cumbersome than going from channel to channel.  I know, first world problems.  

GRIPES 

One of my biggest complaints with cutting cable is having to stick to the only cable service in my area.  This is mostly faulted by our easily swayed political system locally and statewide.  Our cities and public should have better choices and better prices.  I have one option.  This is not good enough in 2019 in the largest city in the state of Virginia.

OVERALL

I would do this hands-down again and again, and I highly recommend everyone else too.  I do wish I could try out the other operating systems like PlayStation and Apple or even try the other "cable" services like HULU with Live TV to see how it is.  But overall, it has been well worth it (except for all the random Power Ranger shows Avery watches on Netflix).