I'll never need cable again (in theory)

Cafe Society
1

Once Sling TV was announced I was pretty stoked. They’re including all the channels that the wife and I watch (mostly the wife). Finally there’s an option for HGTV and ABC Family.

Last night I finally got my invite to buy the service. The $20/month is completely worth it. As of now they don’t have the option to use the Xbox One, but I have it streaming via my Surface Pro 3.

The UI isn’t the greatest. It seems finicky at times. But, my wife has had HGTV on all day and she couldn’t be happier.

We currently have Comcast for cable. We never watched it because it didn’t have any channels we liked. Having it included lowered are overall bill since it was part of a promotion, but the moment that ends we’re returning the box.

2

Why did you pay for it if it had no channels you liked? It didn’t have HGTV or ABC Family?

Sling appears to have 12 (twelve) channels. It doesn’t include local TV stations. I guess it’s worth it if those twelve channels include all you might want to watch.

3

The cable came with the internet. Because they were running a special, having cable lowered my internet bill.

And yes, the channels are limited, but those are really the only channels we watch.

4

OK, but you’re still going to need an internet provider to get Sling, right? or wrong?

5

Yes. I imagine the cable companies are going to fight this tooth and nail.

6

Your total bill is lower than it would be to just have internet?
We had a package deal with our cable company: phone + cable T.V. + internet. It was cheaper than the would-be total of those three services added up, but we dropped phone and T.V. and only have internet now. It’s more expensive than the internet portion of the package, but it is considerably cheaper than the total cost of the package.

7

It’s weird, but yes. If I got rid of the cable my internet bill would go up by ~25 dollars.

8

Because most people have no idea that there’s any option (a few years ago, there wasn’t, except for the geekiest tech crowd), and “cable” has come to be as much an unconsidered necessity as power, water and gas. It takes kind of an epiphany to realize you are paying WAY too much for WAY too little, and move to an alternate solution.

And if you have cable in any large part because of sports, you’re pretty much stuck with it. There are no good options for sports coverage off of general cable with your preferred sports package… it’s all sewn up by the leagues and the networks.

But if you can live without every NCAA game in realtime, you can save a shitload by telling Comcast where to put its cable. Buying the few shows you actually do watch, a la carte, is between free, nominal, and still a helluva lot less than buying a whole river you’ll never watch.