and cut my cable bill by 75% and don't miss any of the stuff I cut out.

We cut the cord a year ago, and life is so much better. Plus, if you really need to see something, you can generally find it online with a little digging.

There is no such a thing round here. Never heard of it. No broadband Intertubes either.

Here in the wilds of Michigan we just do not have those new fangled things. We barely have lectricy and indoor plumbing. And my furnace heats with oil delivered by a big truck.

I still watch things on my computer, like the Daily Show, etc, but I do it when I want to.

I used to feel like the tv needed to be on at all times, even with no volume, which makes it kinda pointless. What really struck me was after about 6 months without it, I stayed with some friends back home for a week. One night, I had to sit there for what felt like hours watching one of them channel-surf. There was nothing on. The whole exercise was about waiting for something good to come on, but at no point did anyone think "well maybe we should to something else, since nothing is on tv."

There are good quality video-based things out there, but you don't need all of them entering your home at once. It's more rewarding to seek them out, even if it means waiting

90% of my visual entertainment comes from the internet these days. If I didn't need cable for the internet, that'd probably be gone too.

I gave it up almost 25 years ago, and I haven't missed a thing....

I saw an ad for a program called Swamp Murders. WTH!

My first thought was "Am I paying money for these piece of crap programs? I have no idea what channel I had landed on, but damn...

Swamp Murders???

Do people actually watch this stuff?

with b-role actors & actresses portraying much "cuter" versions of the pitiful (mostly) downtrodden folks who were killed

Occasionally I catch a few minutes here and there of these shows, and I always end up thinking how sadly predictable some of these were..

I only hope the families make a little money from these shows.

Our world is much more peaceful, now. It just feels better to control stuff coming at you with a mouse-click, than passively waiting through ads for content.

I can't believe how jarring and transparent the ads are now, when I'm held captive to them at restaurants and waiting rooms.

I think a lot of people don't know that you can get free over the air high quality HD local channels with a regular antenna. The feed is actually better than cable/satellite because it comes more directly from the source, and they have a few more channels now in between the big ones than they did in the old days. Couple that with a Netflix or Hulu type streaming service and you are all set, probably $50 for a decent indoor digital HD antenna

The only things I really miss are the HBO shows and ESPN.

Thanks in advance.

The indoor one I use is "Antennas Direct" and it works great, they also make small outdoor ones that you could mount inconspicuously. Terk and RCA were other brands I saw.

The website linked in the post before mine seems to have a lot of good info.

But 5 percent that isn't keeps me hooked up.

Plus the news...Which is mostly crap bit still i can't give up my fix.

I do enjoy my shows. I admit it. I'm a tv junkie.

I give credit to those that go with out it, I'm not one of those people. I enjoy my tv as much as my books.

I love tv. not reality show tv (well, maybe a few of the cooking and design ones), but I love to watch tv, I love commercials. I have an embarassing knowledge of 70s and 80s tv and commercials. My wife thinks that since I was the 8th child of 9 (and the 6th boy), tv was my babysitter

What is your problem? I signed up for cable many years ago, as most people do these days. My bills steadily increased, and I found that even if I deleted services, the rates didn't decrease. Mission creep cable style. Last month our bill went up to $183 but we hadn't done anything different, didn't rent any On-Demand movies, nothing. We watch very little tv, mostly news, and my wife likes to fall asleep to HGTV stuff. And the service is terrible, frequent outages, cable boxes freeze up. And we're paying for this? That's when we said ENOUGH.

Why do you feel someone had to "force me" to sign up for cable for me to refuse to be ripped off anymore?

Sheesh...there's one on every DU thread.

Mention that you didn't like a particular episode of a particular show, and you'll get a lecture from someone who threw away their rabbit ears in 1978 and hasn't looked back.

Say that you found a sequel disappointing, and you'll be treated to a lengthy discourse on the death of Hollywood and how writers have lost all creativity.


DU abounds with scolds and I-Did-It-First-ers.

I happily enjoy my cable TV service, and the quality of network programming. My only issue is people who feel the need to tell me how they've hated something for years and have now felt the need to do something about it, when the choice was available to them the whole time..

My experience is much like the OP's.

Which is, I believe, the OP's point.

It's terrific that you find your cable package to be a good value. In that regard I suspect that you are indeed in the minority. Other than you, I have never encountered anyone who said "I find my $150 cable service--with 65+ sports channels--to be totally worth the price."

It is more consistent with my experience to conclude that people grudgingly accept these outrageous and entirely artificial prices because they perceive that they have no alternative.

I'd be in serious trouble if I did it, especially when the bandwidth caps hit in a couple of years. With seven people in the house, three of them kids, there's a good bit of consumption going on. Especially for the sports stuff. But with me already streaming about 10 hours worth of HD material from overseas every week in addition to the hours of other material I get through the TV/DVR, I'd be over the limit pretty damn quick.

In fact, I just checked my season pass list, which is at 50 shows that are spread throughout the year. So yeah, that'd suck to deal with.

Who's your ISP?

When my bill shot up to $125 I began to wonder why I was paying the amount for shitty cable "news", commercials and constant repeats of movies that came out months ago and back then you couldnt flip through the channels with kids over because someone always had their tits out on the premium channels.

Cable shouldnt cost more than $50 (premium).

If I want to see Game of Bones ...Bone in your throne ...Throne Boner ...whatever it's called or Silicon Valley or the Walking Dead I'll just get it on the *cough* DL *cough*.

No cable, no satellite, no TV, no regrets.

Most of the time people talk about shows I have never heard of and I have no idea what they're talking about. The kids don't care either. We rent a vid on the computer once in a while by choice not boredom. The rest of the time we read real books or occasionally from a Kindle and we go to the library more than once a week....That's good enough.

Best thing we ever did.

When I told him I have no cable or satellite and don't even own a TV, he was quite startled.

I do have the internet, and I can watch almost everything I want to see on line.

I will say that what I'm most spoiled by is the lack of commercials. Especially during election season. Whenever I'm in a hotel and I turn on the TV, I generally turn it off again in about a half hour, because the endless commercials make me crazy.

I have a decently large screen, although not the size of the typical big screen most people have these days, and so far it's plenty for my needs.

What I really don't get is watching movies on a smart phone.

Welcome to the future. Netflix and other on demand providers are going to rule.

the same time.

Many people watch Netflix shows in one sitting (I'm still far behind on House of Cards though entire seasons hit Netflix at a time). But we'll adapt I think. Think of how book clubs work, rather than everyone reading an entire book in a sitting they sit down and talk about reading chapters 1-4 or whatever. Same with shows I suspect, in the long run.

We've still got internet. Our main tv is already connected to the internet. In the bedroom, we just plug the hdmi cable into the iPad and we can watch anything on Netflix or download movies from iTunes. It's not like we have to sit in front of the computer...we just no longer have a cable bill.

I wish there was more competition so I could tell a company "I just want basic stations & sports channels".

There is no reason I need thousands on channels when I only watch a few things.

We are actually planning to move in the next year & I think it will be easy for us to just drop it and pick up as much sports streaming as we can through our PCs. I think it makes more sense at this point. I have 2 children who have TVs in their rooms (old ones) and THEY don't even watch them. All they care about is games/apps on their Kindles. We can even stream movies from Amazon for them to watch on their Fires.

Screw the monopoly cable companies - we don't need them.

We were paying $170/month. We bought an antenna for each of the tv's and a Roku box. We kept the cable wifi at $50/month.

If you have a home phone, consider Ooma. We shut off the phone when we cut the cable and bought the Ooma box, which runs off our wifi box. The cost for our home phone was $26, now it's $4 with Ooma, we only pay the taxes.

Easy to set up, not one issue with it. Free US long distance. Here's the Amazon link, but we got ours for $99 from Costco online.

http://www.amazon.com/Ooma-Telo-Free-Phone-Service/dp/B002O3W4LE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401888846&sr=8-1&keywords=ooma

Why would I want to shell out $100/month for the most basic package when my life is busy without it? No thanks.

K&R

Welcome to kill your tv underground.


Enjoy the show!

I know that I can't just go turn on the TV for some background noise, or what I thought was news. If I want information about the outside world, I can seek it out, not just turn on some corporate bullshit.

I'm rather enjoying it. Listening to lots of music and streaming news. And saving almost $130 a month.

Very busy right now. I've had DISH for years!

Haven't missed a thing. Got two Mohu Leaf antennas, and a big indoor/outdoor antenna in the attic. Smart TV with Netflix and Youtube on demand. I can get the major networks in two markets and I LOVE it.

No regrets.