Getting rid of my cable box

[DaisyRose]

I decided to take my cable box out of my room. I never use it and I just stream all my movies I like to watch on my tv. I think it’s cheaper to use streaming apps than paying for cable. You get to pay for streaming services and have no commercials.

 

[kriss72]

We used to have a satellite dish, the wind turned it so it couldn't receive anything, after a year or two I decided to stop paying for the cable over satellite connection, as we haven't missed it - what annoyed me most about paying for cable was all the channels you payed for but never watched, streaming services seem to be a better solution, and you can always swap one for another one.

 

[Gerontius]

I'm living without television and it's ok. There's radio, records, Wi-Fi internet, why do I need to add cable television to that?

You can use a TV more as a monitor for streaming media, or hook up to rabbit ears for OTA broadcast, and that's great. But I don't have a television here at all, of any kind, and I don't miss it one bit.

 

[kriss72]

I'm living without television and it's ok. There's radio, records, Wi-Fi internet, why do I need to add cable television to that?

You can use a TV more as a monitor for streaming media, or hook up to rabbit ears for OTA broadcast, and that's great. But I don't have a television here at all, of any kind, and I don't miss it one bit.

We rarely use the TV alone here, we each have phones, computers, when we are alone, and you can stream to all of those devices anyway - what we use the TV for is when my daughter and I watch something together - the TV still have value there for us.

 

[Misery]

I used to watch a decent amount of TV as a kid... fast forward to now, and it's been like a decade since I last did so, and my feelings on the concept sure are different. Used to be excited to watch my favorite shows. Now? I'm excited to turn off that stupid screaming slab in the living room. It's ALWAYS on, usually bloody stupid (ads and news, that's all that plays), and so very loud. I only get a chance to shut it up when the rest of the family aint here, and turning that thing off is so satisfying at this point.

I dont know how anyone can watch anything on it anyway. It seems like everything is more commercial than show, like there's SO MANY of them and unlike something on a PC or whatever you cant skip or block them. Even if there was something I'd care to watch, I'd be driven mad by the ads within a day.

These days I've got Youtube and adblockers. And a larger variety of hobbies, fortunately.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Now that fiber optic is in rural areas it is a concrete material benefit for me. This is saving us about $200/mo. because we no longer need to get internet from the cell carrier and stream rather than have Dish Satellite TV.

 

[Cryptid]

Our 'cable' is a fiber line. I agree with the "Stream only what you want" philosophy. There is no reason to pay for a lot of channels you will never watch when you can watch what you want for 'free' (paying only the monthly service charge).

 

[Judge]

Hate having to pay $50 for cable tv I hardly use any more. (Part of my lease) Most of my tv watching is free streaming Internet media. My cousin cut the cord a year ago and is quite happy about it.

Still hating any and all commercials though.

 

[Jeff T]

Had cableTV until 10 years ago. 4 years ago I tried dishTV. Dropped that after 2 years of non-watching.
The usual issues of having 90% of channels that I wouldn't watch at all. It bugged me with the 'introductory offer's, then full price a year later. I figured the full price was subsidizing the newbies? I wish they'd just charge a flat fee. I had a small OTA antenna as backup all these years.

Last summer I took down this original TV antenna, and upgraded all of it. Replaced the RG-59 with RG-6, changed to a two-setting mast amplifier, and got a much larger Channel-Master antenna installed in a different position at the property line. San Francisco stations 65 miles away come in sometimes now, and the local ones 40 miles away come in good even with high winds and all.
Now if I can just get the advertisements to mute automatically!

I haven't tried the streaming thing yet, it sounds interesting!

 

[Au Naturel]

We have FiOS for our cable/data connection. 90% of what we watch is streaming. We still have cable boxes because of a few channels we can't get streaming without paying a fair amount of money. Someday, we'll get ala carte streaming and not be restricted to packages for particular channels and programs.

 

[Forest Cat]

I'm still hanging on to my satellite dish. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but I like it. There is a streaming service included in the satellite dish package but it has been losing money lately and they are removing content so there's nothing to watch there.

 

[MNAus]

Here in Aus a lot of TV is free to view broadcast. This house is the first one I've been in without an antenna. Only time I miss it is for the AFL and the cricket which is broadcast live for free, but needs payment for streaming. Otherwise, don't miss it at all.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Hate having to pay $50 for cable tv I hardly use any more. (Part of my lease) Most of my tv watching is free streaming Internet media. My cousin cut the cord a year ago and is quite happy about it.

Still hating any and all commercials though.

We are now using Roku to stream and with the fiber optic and the mesh router system I put in the house; speed, quality, and reliability has improved.

 

[Dagan]

Same, but I still have to have it for a "slight" usage. I am doing just an internet service, but it comes with 10 channels, still and runs through the cable line into my modem, so I still have one box in the main room. Fiber optic was finally installed last Summer, but they have yet to confirm it can be used or even which services to choose from.

All of this said, certain apps for streaming don't work like they claim to. ESPN app is useless, so I won't be watching any football championship game tonight like most others. Yay.

 

[Judge]

We are now using Roku to stream and with the fiber optic and the mesh router system I put in the house; speed, quality, and reliability has improved.

I love my Roku Ultra. Been using it for the last two years using an Ethernet connection. Never lags...and has made me increasingly ambivalent towards cable television.