The Cable Company Wants You To Ditch TV Service… Probably
It has been a few years since "cord-cutting" became mainstream, but it's still shocking how many people still look to cable companies for their in-home television entertainment.
Edit: In hindsight, my short story goes on for a bit... Scroll to the bottom if you want to skip my ramblings and personal experience with the local cable company
I wouldn't consider myself an early adopter, but it was in the summer of 2019 that I finally decided to ditch TV service through our local cable company. I fought the idea of app-based television services through Sling, Hulu, YouTube, etc... because I didn't want to rely on the internet for TV.
As I had moved to a new home recently, moving my same-old TV service wasn't as straightforward as moving electric or gas service... Plug-in cable boxes and copper coax service wasn't available, I was strong-armed into the world of app-based TV through the local providers' own TV app. As with anything, there was that first week of frustration of having to relearn another new TV system, but otherwise, I grew to like it. It was simple and it worked most of the time.
Soon after getting used to the new TV system, an announcement came that our provider was ditching a bunch of good channels. I thought "Well, I guess as long as they cut that price, it's fair." But that's not how Lawton works. In the same way that the City of Lawton cut municipal trash service and raised the price, the same happened to TV service... but out of sheer laziness, that still wasn't enough to make me cut the cord.
It wasn't until something happened later that summer. Randomly one evening I was sitting in my chair, watching something, there was a loud boom and the house went dark. A transformer blew close by, it was the first time my power had gone out since moving to Lawton in 2006. Not wanting to melt in my own home, I decided to have dinner out somewhere with cold AC, the wings were good.
A neighbor texted me when power was restored, I headed home, sat down, turned on the TV, and nothing. Something in our power outage event had somehow affected the internet service, and the customer service rep on the other end of the phone reassured me it would be fixed the following day.
Ain't nobody got time for that.
I tried to watch on my phone, but it's all tied together through the internet connection, so I slipped my crocs back on and went to Walmart. I bought the cheapest HD antenna they had and set it up in my living room. I figured at least I had some background noise but it was shocking how many channels I've been paying to watch are available totally free with a $40 antenna...
That's the moment I realized I had to ditch cable
Here we are now almost three years later, people are still occasionally complaining about the local television service, especially how expensive it is.
The low, affordable basic-tier is mostly channels that you can get free through a cheap antenna. The mid-tier is eventually $100+/- and still doesn't offer the same basic channels OG cable customers were used too... and there's a tier of channels above that plus premium channels available that could potentially push just your television subscription bill $200-$300+ a month.
Who is crazy enough to pay that kind of price?
My parents live in a different town but have service through the same company as we do. I managed to talk my parents into ditching their local TV service too after I found out their cable bill was $380 each month with absolutely zero premium channel options, and while they both hate change, they let me convert them one weekend.
After turning in their four DVR boxes and canceling everything except their internet, we hooked them up with Roku's and HuluTV (since it looks close to their old menus and such).
Total savings after initially buying the Roku units and keeping the internet... $2880 a year.
You can fight technology all you want, that is your right... but you'll have to pay the stupid-tax for it in the form of hyper-inflated costs of service. Keep in mind, as that service continues to diminish and the prices still somehow keep going up, eventually you'll start to think our own cable company wants us all to ditch their TV service too.
It's time for you to move on to any of the much better, much cheaper options. Your savings account will thank you.