Thursday, November 20, 2014

Bye Bye Cable

We cancelled our cable TV and land line. I will probably miss the land line more than the cable. We still have cable Internet so we will pay about $75/month. Contrast that with our bundle that recently jumped from $156 to $190. It had previously jumped from $138 to $156.

We do have Netflix and we just added Amazon on a trial basis. All things being equal I would rather be able to watch cable TV but all things are not equal. Roku is a game changer. We have had our unit about three years. $50 one time fee gives you access to about as much programming as a lower level cable package. It's harder to access because you can't watch TV as you explore the guides. Of course you can also pair your TV (we have a dumb dinosaur TV) with YouTube sites and navigate via your laptop or other small screen device.

Cable TV still has the live event as a selling point. Breaking news and sporting events. And there is habit and familiarity and convenience. We still do not have instantaneous viewing when we turn on our "device," as we do with television. We know the channel numbers of stations we never watch. I like to come home. flip on the tv and let it run long before (or if) I sit and watch it. I don't have to make three or four decisions before passive viewing. The instantaneous experience television is a wonderful feature. But at savings of $4/day, we will somehow find the strength to endure.

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