I cut out the Directv recently. Now I’ve got Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, andsling. through a Roku box. The only thing I miss is the dvr recording stuff-I occasionally forget about a show. And I have the $10 option of Time Warner for local channels.
In the last couple of weeks Sling added a bunch of channels-Comedy Central etc.
Yeah, when I returned my cable box, they accepted it without comment.
I’ve had Amazon Prime forever–for the shipping; the Acorn add-on (4.99 per month) supplies a huge amount of Brit TV. Netflix, of course; they’ve got some of the HGTV shows. And Hulu–with the non-commercial option; will reconsider this one. Last weekend I wondered where to find the series where one of the Top Gear guys toured California with a wine expert–YouTube had it!
My cheap digital antenna works great–for local news, some network shows & lots of PBS. I don’t pay a huge amount less than when I had cable–but I pay for what I want. Not a big sports fan…
Amazon Prime is the only service requiring a year-long commitment. The others are month-by-month, often with a free trial! And if you decide you *must *have cable again–they may well offer you a (temporary) deal.
I cut my cable 15 years ago. I watch VCR/DVD movies instead. No problem!
(If they ever go to à la carte and I can purchase JUST the channels I want, THEN I will consider returning!)
PBS has a standalone streaming channel. All you need is to provide your email to register and you get access to a huge library of their shows.
There are also a number of streaming channels that offer a variety movies and TV shows with ads in them. Crackle is one of the popular ones. There’s a ton of channels which show old movies from the 50’s and 60’s.
I like using a standalone streaming device, like Roku, hooked up to my TV as opposed to using my computer. The standalone device has a more TV-like polish and feel and is tailored to finding streaming channels and content.
This is my biggest takeaway after about 5 years of being cable TV free. Nothing about cable tv even sounds appealing. I wouldn’t want it for free.
Nothing cable tv offers even sounds appealing to me over what I get from streaming services like Netflix and Amazon and Hulu. Lots of channels playing random things instead of exactly what I want… and I have to watch commercials too. Great deal. :rolleyes:
I have Fios. I was previously paying $110 total, including the taxes and fees, for 50/50 internet and the “Preferred” cable package.
When my original 2 year contract ended I wanted to get just internet, and I was quoted a price of… $110. If I added the bare-bones “Local Channels” cable package, the price dropped to $72 ($90 w/taxes and fees). Their incentive and discounts are entirely based on multi-service packages. Plus they still get to hit you up with a cable-box rental fee and other extra charges.
I haven’t had cable for 30 years. Right now I have over-the-air broadcast (only about 10 stations) and Roku. I buy Netflix (finally raising the price to 9.99 for me next month), Amazon Prime (I don’t know if I’d have this if I didn’t do it for the “free” shipping), and AcornTV (British, Canadian, Austrailan, New Zeland programs). I’d probably drop Acorn because it’s not a huge catalog and I might go weeks without watching it but it’s only $5 a month.
And there’s YouTube (free) which is not just cat videos.
During March Madness I sign up for a month of SlingTV so I can watch the games and that costs me about $25 to get the package I need for that. There’s no hassle to cancelling it.
We cut the cord two years ago and my wife still misses foodnetwork and for me it’s ESPN. We have Hulu and MLB.tv and our computer hooked up to the TVs. We have Amazon prime but we never watch it. We also have an HD antenna.
We can watch all of the shows we want when we want which is so much better then cable and we just don’t watch much live TV except for sports or the kid shows in the morning. Really the bottom chest down side is that a ton of live sports have moved to ESPN and there just isn’t a good way to watch them. Hell most of the MLB playoffs are on cable now so I’m forced to watch them a day afterwards same thing for most college bowl games. We’ll probably go back in a year or so just for the sports (and foodnetwork) since we’re moving to LA and I’m going to lose the ability to watch my Dodgers live without it. It’ll mostly depend on how frustrating the rest of the season is watching everything a day late.
I haven’t had cable since 2007 or so. I still have Internet, a Tivo, and a Roku. I watch:
-Recorded over-the-air HDTV on Tivo
-Stuff online, mostly YouTube, watched on PC and Roku.
-Netflix on Roku and Tivo
-Amazon Prime video on Roku and Tivo
I have plenty to watch. There are many entire television series in my Netflix and Amazon queue that I will probably never get to.
Yep. Same here. We do use Netflix (streaming only - when we got discs they’d often sit near the TV literally for months). We also have Amazon Prime, though the selection of “free” (i.e. included in the annual fee) stuff isn’t all that great.
And there are lots of movies that aren’t available anywhere else.
As far as TV series: If it’s something Netflix doesn’t carry for streaming, Amazon might - but you might have to pay for it. There are a lot of things that neither one carries that you can only get via disc - or by purchasing the digital copy from Amazon or the cable provider.
Basically you have to look at your viewing patterns, see how you can replace that media via a streaming box (Roku, Apple TV etc.), Netflix or whatever - and figure out whether that would be cheaper. A number of channels we watch would only be available to our Roku if we paid a fee. It’s just less of a hassle to leave the cable in place.
A lot of networks are making their content available online. For a few weeks only usually, but a few (Fox, USA I know and probably others) let you watch whole seasons as long as you log on with your cable provider’s credentials.
We’re paying 175 a month for TV, phone and internet - 125 plus 32 dollars for the mandatory box rental (16 apiece) plus mandatory taxes and fees. The Veridiot web page is making it impossible for me to see what the monthly fee would be without TV service - presumably at the very least we’d save the 32 rental-box ripoff.
Your local library can be a great resource for TV shows and movies on DVD.
Never had cable to cut, but ditto on PBS for almost all my non-news viewing. I’m not much of a sports fan, so nothing missed there. If basic cable was included in my condo assessment, I’m sure I’d watch some of it. But it isn’t.
My internet access is on my smartphone, on a Verizon 6GB plan, liberally supplemented with Starbucks wi-fi and my work computer. 
I have a DVD player but usually go to the movie theater to watch movies. Yes, I realize that’s not the cheapest option.
You all inspired me to check out a plan change with Verizon. The same plan we have now would be 5 dollars “cheaper”, with a 10 dollar a month credit for WorldCall 500 or something like that, for 24 months. Mmmmkay, what’s that? Oh, it’s an international calling plan. Can I opt out? Not on the web page.
Per a live chat, that COULD be removed, lowering my monthly price even more. I’m guessing they’re just hoping that people don’t notice, and keep paying for a service they don’t want, basically completely offsetting a hidden price drop.
Then I got a quote for goiing without that, but bumping up our TV channel lineup and internet speed slightly. 10 bucks less than our current monthly - but they jacked up several fees so our monthly outflow would drop a grand total of about 2 bucks.
Some of the fees are a scam. One is for local sports access or something - required of everyone who has a lineup with any sports channels. Hellloooooo, they ALL do. In other words it’s a non-negotiable part of the price and should be included in the monthly rate quote.
If we dropped TV service, we’d save 80 bucks a month. Time to look hard at our usage and seriously consider it.
ESPN don’t play no baseball except Sunday night and very restricted weekday schedule. I used to be able to watch a baseball game almost every night of the week. Chicago and Atlanta stations combined with a lot of ESPN games, plus the Angels and Dodgers. Like everything else it was cool. For a while. Now, the only way to watch regular baseball is to have Major League Baseball Network. Which is a top-tier level channel. Just fuck. You know?
I just found out this year that mlb.com has a free game of the day. You can watch it online, or if you’re lucky (like I am) you have a mlb.com app on your TV and can stream it on your TV. It is awesome. The quality is great (HD) and you can select the home or away feed, and start the game from the beginning if it is in progress or has already finished. You do need to sign up for an account with mlb.com but I have spent $0 and have watched a bunch of baseball games on TV this season. I love it!
Oh, and we have been cable-free for about 5 years now. We have Netflix, Amazon Prime, a Chromecast and an OTA antenna. We don’t miss cable, plus when we stay at a hotel the kids are always amazed at the number of channels. 
I have been doing this since 2010. I started grad school and never had time to watch. Cable company really jacked up my bill. At the time the cable folks was really pushing the internet-cable-telephone combo ($120.00 for the combo vs the $150 for just cable and internet) so when I called about lowering my bill they would simply refer me to the combo deal. So my options were to save $30 to get a land-line telephone that was less reliable than the cell that already fulfilled all my telephone needs, or drop cable and save $90 ish. (Save $100 on now just internet bill and +$8 for Hulu plus. I already had a Netflix subscription.)
It’s a no brainer. Cable is really obsolete anyway. I had 50-70 channels and only really watch like 5. I think most of the bill went to pay sport channels. I don’t watch sports and don’t care to supplement a sports fanatic’s pastime. I’ll pay Hulu and Netflix a fraction of that and only watch what I want, when I want to.
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Note: This doesn’t apply to a lot of people. E.g., me. The library use to have a tiny collection of crappy scratched up CDs. There are DVDs of exercise videos, the worst kids stuff, and such. But nothing you’d consider a regular movie or TV show.
Not an option.
So, I started reading this thread last night, which really, really got me thinking about how much I hate Time Warner. My bill had crept up to $189 a month, and I’d really been thinking that their prices were just too high. My promotional offer ended a while back, and I was past due for a call to their “retention specialist” to get another promotional deal.
Well, after 45 minutes of grilling me on my data usage and TV viewing habits, I was given the great news that they could save me some money. A whole whopping $3 a month!! Or a generous $14 savings if I added a phone to my cable/internet bundle. WOW!! Thanks, Time Warner! :rolleyes:
That’s when I did the unthinkable. I passed on their spectacular package. I now have internet, and local channels (yup, bundle…but it was $20 less than internet only). I came home to my long weekend to be greeted by a sad lineup of no cable channels.
Before the withdrawal symptoms kicked in, I went out and bought a Roku, and signed up for Netflix. I’m having a little issue getting Hulu set up, but once I get that done, I think I’ll survive.
Thanks, Dopers, for all the inspiration to ditch Time Warner! I’ll be sure to let you know how I spend my newfound windfall of an extra $120 a month.
Congrats!!! Over time, you may not miss those channels, and you may even be glad not to have them anymore. One thing that I noticed is that I felt more relaxed not having hundreds of live channels. When there’s a lot of live content, you may feel like you’re missing out if you’re not watching something or recording it. But now that you have just a few network channels, you won’t feel like you’re missing something on a different channel.
I haven’t had cable since 2005. I get 20+ channels with an antenna, which I use mostly just for local news, and between Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, have more than I can watch.