
Cutting the Cord on Cable  - babakian
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550304577138841278154700.html
======
hieronymusN
But where is the author getting his internet service from?

For instance, I live in Brooklyn, and the only reliable high-speed internet
service is via Time Warner Cable. I currently get their WideBand service
(50mbps down) bundled with basic cable and an VOIP phone I never use in a
12-month promotion. This costs me $118 p/mo. When that 12-month period was up
I called to cancel stuff and they extended that promotion for another 12
months.

If I subscribed to just the internet service, it would cost me $95 p/mo and
that's before the taxes and fees, so it would come to about the same I am
paying now.

The only other player for internet service in my area is Clear 4G WiFi which
is a joke when it comes to speed.

So basically, I'm stuck with cable for internet service, and through effective
bundle pricing the missus can still watch Housewives of * on the big telly.

~~~
pmorici
Clear 4G is a dream to setup though. No shady install guy and 4 to 8 hour
window. You get a box in the mail next day and plug it in.

~~~
jseliger
Unfortunately, it's not a dream to use:
[http://jseliger.com/2008/02/25/another-public-service-
announ...](http://jseliger.com/2008/02/25/another-public-service-announcement-
on-clearwire/) . Maybe things have improved since then.

BTW, like the OP, I have expensive Comcast service because I have no other
effective choice, and they just sent me a box and let me set it up too.

~~~
18pfsmt
If you know you are going to use Comcast for a year or more, it is cheaper (or
break-even) to buy your own modem. Amazon has the Motorola surfboards (SB6120
and SB6121) for $75 and $85, respectively (vs. $7/mo *12mo=$84).

------
MrFoof
Personally I've found TV watching to be borne out of some sort of inertia.
There was a point where I paid for all the pre-requisite packages for the
privilege of being able to add The Speed Channel and watch my Formula 1, ALMS,
etc. I watched a fair amount of TV, and already had some pricey packages, so
what was a bit more?

However, the time came along where I didn't have as much time to watch racing
anymore. I had a TiVo, but even then, I just didn't have the time to watch the
recorded races. Eventually, I pared things down to the "Expanded" package.
However, the few shows of interest went away. So when I moved, I pared down to
Basic, only because if I didn't, I would only save $0.80/mo on my cable bill
since Internet service would cost $10/mo more without a bundled television
package.

I think the television was on about 12 hours last year, in terms of broadcast
programming. Yes, twelve. Why? I fell out of the habit of slouching in my
lounge chair and sitting there for a few hours every evening. My routine
changed, and there always seems to be this large amount of inertia to overcome
to change my routines. Unless the content producers come up with compelling
reasons for me to park myself in front of the TV again, it will probably
remain a tremendously expensive paperweight.

Granted, I do occasionally play video games, and stream content from YouTube,
or my transcoded DVD library to an Apple TV, but I don't do that all that
much.

It's like getting someone who lives in New York City to get excited about and
buy a boring midsize sedan. They ride the subway, buses and take the taxi.
You'd have to overcome their inertia of not using a car, and get them over the
fact of what a car would cost them. I look at TV now almost the same way
(though I live in Boston) -- there's this tremendous amount of inertia you
have to overcome to change someone's habits, especially when there's viable
alternatives that are nearly as good and cheaper.

~~~
rhplus
_since Internet service would cost $10/mo more without a bundled television
package_

I'm convinced that the only reason for them to do this is to whitewash the
"myth" of cable-cutting. Comcast in my area has a similar deal - it's a couple
of bucks cheaper per month to get Internet with "limited" cable rather than
Internet on its own. To the networks and advertisers, I'm still a TV
subscriber, even though the coax goes directly to my modem and nowhere near my
TV.

------
tibbon
I quit cable around 10 years ago when I moved out of my parent's house.
Really, I hadn't been into it for some time even then and found it generally
to be a time-sink and of little value.

I enjoy some of the content that's on TV, but the medium just isn't right for
me. I don't like commercials, and I'd rather just have the option of paying
more to not have them. I want what I want when I want it. I rarely care about
realtime information from a television (I have the internet for that). I also
like being able to watch most of a series in a short period of time. I like
movies better than shows. 99% of of the content on TV isn't something I'm
interested in.

At this point, cable TV just seems to be an annoying novelty to me. Its
background noise when I'm at someone's house with it. I'm frankly shocked so
many people still subscribe to it. Even if it was given to me for free, I
wouldn't use it.

------
ixnu
I pay $40 month for ESPN in HD. I love football, and more importantly, the
majority of my customers and important contacts love it more. $500 year for an
easy and relevant conversation starter is a steal.

~~~
zavulon
If you only do it for NFL, you might reconsider. All regular Sunday day games,
Sunday night football and all ESPN/NFL network games with your local team are
available for free in HD over the air. And all playoff games and Superbowl,
too.

The live sports was my main reason for holding on to cable for so long, but I
finally made the switch two years ago and it's great. I can watch all NFL I
want, once a week baseball and sometimes basketball and hockey.

~~~
ixnu
I would love to do this, but I live in an area where I can't get OTA broadcast
of Fox or NBC.

~~~
zavulon
Try plugging in your TV into cable outlet directly, bypassing the cable box.
I've found all network channels are available that way as well

------
GuiA
I barely watched TV as a kid/teenager living with my parents (it helped that
cable isn't that popular in France, where I'm from- most people are content
with the 5 free national channels, which are now completed by 15 or so more
through the free TNT service); so when I moved out, I never missed it and as
such I have never had TV since.

Semi-exception to that, an ex-girlfriend of mine moved at some point in an
apartment with cable TV- the difference in the quality of our relationship
with or without the TV was noticeable. Without TV, we'd go more out of our way
to cook, find things to do, play games, etc.. With TV, a lot of evenings were
spent just on the couch staring blankly at the screen (well, I would be
programming on the couch while she would be watching TV).

It's a very subjective experience, of course, but all of that makes me feel
that TV watching is inherently pernicious and to be avoided as much as
possible.

I think a lot of the phenomenon is due to the fact that you can't watch TV in
a discrete fashion- as soon as something ends, something else starts and you
do not have to do any effort to keep watching. When you watch something like a
movie, the activity is clearly defined in time, and as such you don't get
sucked in like you do when watching TV.

------
Fluxx
Anyone who cut the cord a women or live with a women? I live with my
girlfriend and don't watch our cable except for live sports and the occasional
show I can't (easily) torrent. But my Girlfriend has no way to get all her
favorite cooking shows. Those don't show up as torrents - I think cause most
people who rip TV shows are men/nerds.

~~~
jeffh
My girlfriend and I replaced cable with Netflix and internet TV (Food Network
is online, plus lots of youtube stuff and other channels with food shows).
FWIW, many nerds I know love cooking (including myself), so finding good shows
(not crappy reality TV meets cooking) was a necessity. Netflix definitely
keeps my girlfriend more occupied than me, but for $8/m and lots of variety,
it's the way "cable" is (or should be) going.

~~~
Fluxx
> finding good shows (not crappy reality TV meets cooking) was a necessity

I just searched for the my GF's 3 favorite cooking shows, and found ~8
torrents, total, for two of them and zero for the other. Granted Good Eats, a
more "nerdy" cooking show, has every single episode available for its 14
season run on the private TV torrent tracker website. My girlfriend is pretty
girly and not nerdy at all, so her "style" of show is hard to find.

I was also unable to find those shows on Food Network's website - perhaps I
missed them? Could you point me in the right direction? And even if they are
online, getting that content to my TV is difficult - certainly harder, at
least, than a torrent playing through Plex on my Mac Mini.

------
MarkTraceur
I saw this in the paper yesterday, but I was immediately disappointed to see
that their primary forms of switching away from cable not only required cable
Internet connection (because let's face it, DSL and others have no way to
stream that quickly), but also required nonfree software (Silverlight for
Netflix, Flash for Hulu). The world can offer so much more to these people who
have been wronged by corporations, but for some reason, they keep moving from
one bad corporation to another! Even the Occupy movement, who are supposedly
protesting against the influence of corporations, are using nonfree,
corporation-run sites to spread their propaganda. Why are people so blind?

~~~
gameshot911
What do you mean Silverlight and Flash are nonfree? As an end-consumer I've
never paid for either of them.

~~~
kbutler
If you're running Silverlight, unless you pirated Windows, you've paid for it.

~~~
philwelch
Really? I had to download it for my Mac, and if Microsoft is somehow getting
Apple to pay them off, they're getting a shitty deal because I still had to
download it.

------
zobzu
What the author means is "goodbye TV"

Cause many have to use cable to get a decent internet in the US, still. Sadly
its usually called Comcast (but it does offer Internet-only - even thus its
very expensive and internet+tv isn't much more expensive)

~~~
ams6110
I'm on Comcast and Internet-only costs MORE than Internet+TV. So I have the
basic TV package as well as basic internet. I also call them every 6 months or
so and threaten to quit and they will offer to put me on a "new subscriber"
discount rate (lowered monthly rate for 6 months).

~~~
kbutler
I was on a Comcast phone/TV/Internet promotional rate for a year, and they
wouldn't renew a reasonable rate at the end of the year ("promotional rates
are only to acquire new customers" in spite of what they said when I signed
up). I needed to port my phone number, so I canceled TV and internet in the
interim - and paid more than I'd been paying for the three services combined
package.

Then to complete the cancellation, I had to take the modem in to their office
in person and wait in line to return it.

Comcast promotional deals: not worth the hassle.

Currently very happy with a community network cable provider internet-only
service, against my "lassez-faire" inclinations.

------
Stark2
Let's say I'm hooked on Spanish language soap operas. There are generally
three or four of interest running all the time on cable. These program run
daily for three or more months and have an end (unlike some American soaps).
When they end, a new soap starts up to take it's place.

Where else can I go to record/watch these besides cable? Some are on over the
air channels, but I live in an area that can't receive those channels either.

------
radishroar
I did this a few years ago and never looked back. Had a tad bit of
apprehension about it but I simply don't miss cable or satellite and the
thought of paying at least $60 a month to have loads of useless content jammed
with commercials strikes me as a scam.

------
watty
The author claims he cut cable yet pays $340/year to get NFL Sunday Ticket on
his PS3 - really?

The only reason I still have cable is for ESPN. They have live sports that are
exclusive to ESPN and the only way to get ESPN is to have cable.

~~~
ams6110
Yeah I cut the extended subscription last year and no longer have ESPN which I
sorely miss but am living without. If I could have a-la carte channels I would
definitely be back on board, as there are about half-a-dozen channels I would
be willing to pay to get, without 150 other crap channels.

~~~
tomjen3
Lets not stop at choosing your own canals -- which my TV provider has started
to do, except the channels worth watching are not part of the offer -- and let
me choose my own shows. That is what could have been so nice about iTunes and
it would have enabled me to watch more SciFy.

But no, no then they would make less money.

------
jmduke
I think at this point, my primary (and perhaps only) reason to stick with the
traditional TV delivery paradigm is HBO. That being said, I would be ecstatic
if they introduced an HBO Go-only price plan.

~~~
tomjen3
You could just pirate the shows worth watching. That seems to be popular these
days, or so I hear...

~~~
jmduke
As a poor college student I can't really deny the appeal of piracy but:

a) Saying 'hey, I can get this illegally for free' isn't really a valid
economic argument. b) Pirating HBO just, I dunno, feels wrong. They're a
company with a unique economic model that consistently produces amazing
television; even if it's on an incredibly micro scale, I think they should be
rewarded for that.

~~~
tomjen3
I have begun to think of TV as a lossleader for DVD sales. At this point I
mostly spy on what kind of shows people in the US talk about, read up on them
and select one for my parents birthdays + christmas. My parents love this, I
have no trouble buying them gifts(thanks to Amazon.co.uk) and there is a new
market for HBO.

But yeah, HBO will earn more money when they get off cable-only.

------
sgaither
Anyone switch to Clear or some other 4G variant and have success? seems
cheaper than just Comcast.

~~~
joezydeco
I've had Clear for 18 months now. It had a lot of rough edges at the start but
the service has been pretty stable lately. Maybe two outages lasting 2-6 hours
each time.

I'm literally next door to a tower, so my experience is going to be better
than most, I fear. I get 2mbit down and 1mbit up on a typical day. 8mbit down
on a great one. I seem to get better speed after an outage, oddly enough.

The price is about 1/3 what Comcast would charge (I have the two-plan bundle:
home net and phone service). No complaints about the phone service at all
except for the extreme ping times. Talking to a mobile phone from the "home"
phone is just as laggy as two mobiles talking. International rates are
_awesome_.

I've run a light bittorrent set over it with no problem. I haven't hit a usage
cap so far. Customer service, as others have noted, is pretty bad. AT&T/DSL-
level bad.

------
jebblue
I saw no mention of MythTV in the article, I wonder if it would be an option
paired with OTA.

------
smcnally
> ~my cable provider's my best broadband option"

We're witnessing non-death throes of a more-intelligent animal.

When the music industry was disrupted completely, their Plan B was a white-
knuckle-grip onto Plan A (their traditional business model). The cablecos were
foresightful enough to turn their TV monopolies into broadband value-adds.
They've done a d _rn good job at it, despite the bellyaching we can do. While
providing "the best available internet access," they're no dummies, and
entrenched cableco interests will ensure cord-cutting's not easy.

HBO is balancing the beam effectively (for their business, if less so for
their "audience"). They have zero plans to make their "HBO-Anywhere" service
available except to cable subs.

[http://paidcontent.org/article/419-hbo-to-cord-cutters-
youll...](http://paidcontent.org/article/419-hbo-to-cord-cutters-youll-never-
see-our-shows/)

Competition is still Good. Cableco monopolists were in no hurry to improve
things until DSL and fiber-to-the-premises services became available and
attractive. But they've responded.

Re TV programming itself, cutting the cord is more difficult when kids are
involved. Even with timeshifting as second (or first) nature, you need the
source to switch _from.* As for torrenting, etc., "it's only 'free' if your
time has no value" comes to play.

Per the cited article, and per comments in this thread, TV is a lean-back,
consumption-oriented time sink. I like to have that even knowing it's a less-
than-optimal use of time.

~~~
w1ntermute
> As for torrenting, etc., "it's only 'free' if your time has no value" comes
> to play.

Whenever I hear someone disregard torrents offhand, I get the distinct
impression that they've either never actually tried it or that they're simply
being dishonest, because piracy has never been easier.

Have you actually tried torrenting TV shows or movies (or any other type of
digital content, for that matter)? Contrary to the FUD that seems to be
popular opinion on HN, it's a cake walk. Most importantly, learning how to use
torrents is a (rather small) _one-time_ time investment, whereas watching TV
means that you _perenially_ waste 1/4th of your viewing time watching ads. And
don't forget that you have to keep track of when shows are airing and either
watch them then or remember to record them for later viewing.

So if saving time is one of your primary concerns, _the numbers simply don't
add up in favor of broadcast TV_ , no matter how you look at them.

In fact, piracy is _so_ easy that I won't even bother with free solutions like
Hulu - why should I waste my time traversing 10 different sites looking for a
particular episode of a particular show I want to see when I can go to the
_same_ torrent site _every_ time and have a virtual _guarantee_ that the
content I want will be instantly available, and in HD, at that?

If you have moral qualms with respect to piracy, I can agree to disagree,
despite my personal lack of objections to the practice. But claiming that
piracy is somehow _time inefficient_ is nothing more or less than pure
prevarication.

~~~
smcnally
> Whenever I hear someone disregard torrents offhand, I get the distinct
> impression that they've either never actually tried it or that they're
> simply being dishonest, because piracy has never been easier.

It wasn't offhand: it takes more time to find and download content than it
does to turn on the tube and flip through its offerings. With hope, you're not
arguing that point.

Your distinct impression is incorrect in my case: The last several torrents
specifically for shows not then available via other means took me several
minutes to find and many more to download. The shows in question weren't tiny
unknowns; in my experience, finding less-popular shows is even more of a
hassle. If any of these had been available on demand, for "purchase," or via
Hulu (to which I subscribe), I would have preferred those methods.

Your own points are also not mutually-exclusive: piracy may be as easy as it's
ever been and still be more involved than turning on and tuning in. I don't
mind paying for content I feel is of value. I also value my time and the
frictionlessness with which I can ~"mindlessly" enjoy some programming. Less
hassle - even if it's still little hassle - is worth it to me. YMMV.

~~~
w1ntermute
> It wasn't offhand: it takes more time to find and download content than it
> does to turn on the tube and flip through its offerings. With hope, you're
> not arguing that point.

> I also value my time and the frictionlessness with which I can ~"mindlessly"
> enjoy some programming. Less hassle - even if it's still little hassle - is
> worth it to me.

I think our use cases are different. I have no interest in flipping on the TV
and "mindlessly" watching whatever programming happens to be on at the time. I
have always hated "channel surfing", and I certainly don't like watching
anything from the middle (of the episode or the season).

I carefully pick and choose what I watch. Once I've picked a show, I always
watch it from the beginning to the end, in order, and keep careful track of
which episodes of which shows I've seen (using Anigrate:
<http://anigrate.glacicle.org/>). As you can imagine, I take my TV viewing
quite seriously (though this is not necessarily true for all, or even most,
torrenters).

> The last several torrents specifically for shows not then available via
> other means took me several minutes to find and many more to download. The
> shows in question weren't tiny unknowns; in my experience, finding less-
> popular shows is even more of a hassle. If any of these had been available
> on demand, for "purchase," or via Hulu (to which I subscribe), I would have
> preferred those methods.

Like I said, it takes a (small) upfront investment of time to educate oneself
in the best means of finding such things. I don't know which particular shows
you were looking for, but I can likely find a torrent (or direct download, if
that's your preference) of any show you name in under 30 seconds.

