Cable companies freak out after 1 million cut cord in 3 months

NY Post ^ | 1 November 2017 | Chris Mills, BGR

[oh8eleven]

Cord-cutting, or at least the speed at which people are ditching pay TV, is on track to be the biggest upset of the year. There’s finally a collection of cheap-ish streaming services widely available, and as you’d imagine, people are jumping ship from cable as fast as humanly possible.

[niteowl77]

We cut the cord intending to get a new flatscreen and stream into the living room from our computer, but we took our time figuring out exactly what we wanted. After a couple months, we decided that we weren't going to watch enough to even bother with it.

What surprised both of us was that we didn't really miss the television, let alone have withdrawl symptoms.

My dad was a pro football fanatic for 50 years or more, but when he decided that it had lost all redeeming features, he quit cold turkey and never missed the NFL from that point on. None of us would have thought it would be so easy to kick those long-term habits.

Mr. niteowl77

[GOPJ]

Lots of older people would PAY a company to ‘cut the cable’ for them... while pulling in stuff they want to see.

I have no idea why no one’s put this business together...

[Skooz]

I cut the cord almost 5 years ago. That means I’ve not spent about $6900 on DirecTV.

Haven’t missed it a bit.

I have Netflix and Amazon streaming, if I really want to watch something. Recently gave VUDU a try. Pretty nice service with a fair amount of free content.

[oh8eleven]

Excellent idea!

[GreenHornet]

Anybody here use Verizon/Fios? If so, what’s your opinion of them?

[CodeToad]

We cut a year ago. Best decision.

[fr_freak]

Thing is, you still need the internet for streaming. And guess where hi-speed internet comes from?

I cut the TV cord about ten years ago or so. I called Comcast, I believe it was, and told them I no longer wanted the TV service, just the internet (which I already had). The girl on the phone said she'd have to redo my plan, and look! you can get on a promotional plan that gives you internet and TV for the same price as just internet! I told her no thanks, internet only, get that TV shut off. She seemed quite bewildered.

[Pearls Before Swine]

And like the NFL, the cable companies will ignore what the customers want and tell us to just shut up and keep on paying.

No, I think they are smarter than that. They will just raise the price of their internet service, so cutting the cord doesn't save you as much.

[1Old Pro]

Cable companies are just the conduit. They need to cut the cord with companies like ESPN that demand so much money to carry their worthless garbage.

[Terry Mross]

Streaming has nothing to do my reason for cutting the cable.

[sneakers]

We have a Roku. The Fox News app is just clips. We checked Youtube, and somebody airs the station live. We have plenty of stuff to watch without cable. We dropped cable almost 3 years ago and have never looked back!

[MayflowerMadam]

“Directv used to be a good deal.” Yes; it was. Now when I pay the bill every month, I gasp.

I understand that the trend is to get entertainment via internet, but I guess I’m Luddite enough to not trust the stability of internet. (We still have a basic landline, which has been wonderful and reliable during power outages.)

[newnhdad]

When you force customers to subsidize Mexican, gay lezbo, Chinese, and abortion television, they stop buying..

[Bonemaker]

“DirecTV ought to pay ME.”

Direct TV stiffed me royally a couple of years ago over a length of contract issue. Thay unilaterally extended it. Would not negotiate or budge an inch. Over $400 down the drain.Their only concession was to offer to give me a credit if I came back. I told them to shove it. Sons of bitching gangsters.

[suthener]

I don’t have a problem with the bill or the service. What I have a problem with is the content. I absolutely refuse to fund CNN, MSNBC, etc. And then there are individuals who I won’t fund; Chelsea Chandler, Samantha Bee, Bill Maher, so that takes me out of even going the Sling TV or Netflix route. Amazon Prime is my one guilty pleasure for watching tv.

[V_TWIN]

Sex drive enhancement infomercials.....not good.

[Loud Mime]

I just cancelled DirectTV, which was a good service but got too damned expensive. I went to Cable, which is fine and was far cheaper. Now I see Youtube TV.

I believe I’ll just watch less TV. With the death of the NFL, it’s easier. Methinks after football season I’ll just cut all TV and go internet streaming.

[Newbomb Turk]

Here is what I learned. Cut your service. In 30 days they will be begging to get you back at the old rate. They won't do it unless you prove your serious.

I dropped Charter Spectrum back in FEB after giving them a chance to drop the price. I haven't really missed it now that its been of but I saved $100 or so a month.

Funny that they are begging me to come back at a severly reduced rate now. But since FOX is no longer conservative and the NFL has decided they are In-American, I won't be turning it back on.

[Jeff Chandler]

It’s like paying to wear clothes that advertise a product.

I know. It has always seemed kooky to me, all those product t-shirts. I also remove advertising decals and license plate frames when I buy a car.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I did once purchase and wear this t-shirt:

[Obadiah]

Yep. I don’t know what people are thinking. As millions more get tied to their ISP you don’t think the prices will rise with few options available? You don’t think outages and poor service will be a concern?

All people are doing is buying some time until the Internet providers reconfigure and start dictating the terms again. It’s just a matter of time.

As we all know, when cable started out the promise was no commercials in exchange for a fee. Everyone RAN to the cable companies. Shortly thereafter, once the suckers were locked in, the cable companies breeched that promise with their greed and charged a fee and put on commercials. It’s a cat and mouse game now. The stampede to the Internet is just temporarily rearranging the rules of the game.

Just look at YouTube. It was totally free content uploaded by private citizens. Then a few commercials at the beginning of a video, then a lot of commercials throughout, now you have to pay a monthly fee to get YouTube commercial free, and I suspect it will go to fee-based with “limited” commercials.

So yeah, everything changes.