Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for November 04, 2022

Time to go back to antenna on the roof and reopening Blockbuster.

I have one word for you guys: Antenna.

Hopefully they weren’t using the cable for Internet access.

…meet the new boss, same as the old boss…

No. Dumping cable/satellite CONTRACTS, and replacing with month-to-month streaming services cut my costs in half. The best part was kicking AT&T in the nuts.

They were getting cable and wi-fi for a hundred bucks? Rat doesn’t know how good they have it.

Ha ha. Me never subscribe to steenkin streaming services.

So “cable cutting” but they still get internet service. They using their cell phones? Got dial up service?

A thousand channels, and nothing on.

And you’re still paying the cable company for Internet…

In 1992, my new bride and I decided cable wasn’t worth it, so we dropped it. Haven’t had it since. We do have internet, however, so that’s a monthly bill. And we do have Disney + which also includes Hulu and ESPN.

WTF are you paying an average of $22 on streaming?!?

Seems like a lot of people here have never heard of getting DSL from an ISP or the phone company.

That’s broadband internet service over the phone lines… it was around before cable included internet, and is usually way cheaper.

No TV, just internet service, unless you also want landline telephone, which I do.

You can get your streaming services over DSL; you don’t need cable for that.

Hahahaha… March 24, 2021

shoulda bought an Ozbox……

Ah, reruns

I am saving money. My YouTube TV is half what I paid with DirectTv. I get Netflix free with my T-Mobile plan and Prime Video is included with my prime membership.I also have free programming with Tubi and Tubi

Once I realized that most of my TV viewing was on the two streaming services I had on top of cable, it was easy to “cut the cord”. Obviously, I still have an ISP, but the cost reduction going to something like YouTube TV or Hulu TV cut my entertainment expenses in half.

I dropped cable TV and saved 60 bucks/month. The streaming including Prime which also covers shipping is about $35 which is still cheaper. I have FrndlyTV and Curiosity Stream which are both good and very reasonable.

I was looking forward to watching the Baylor-Oklahoma football game Saturday. But it’s on ESPN+. Which I don’t have and not going to have.

Most cable deals now come with streaming apps and accounts.

If you don’t watch much tv, dropping bundles makes sense. If you do, it doesn’t. I pay twice as much now as i used to.

My wife has several streaming services (I think). She pays for the cellular service and Internet. The latter based on what she needs to WFH, as her encrypted VPN is a bandwidth hog.

heeeee…………..not true…………….but heeeee

Cable for Internet only, and one streaming service (or maybe three since it’s a single package). I have no television, and my last one was a Sony Trinitron.

I have cable, but just for Internet, so it’s not quite so expensive. No paid streaming services. If you can find other things to do with your free time than watch TV, you won’t miss it.

At one point we had three streaming services: Disney+, Netflix, Amazon Prime. Now we only have Prime. And we aren’t missing a thing!

Solution: DVDs and a good player.

One streaming service has enough to keep you busy for quite a while then if you run out you switch to a different streaming company. You don’t need more than one, and they’re a LOT less than $20/month, though netflix is getting close but I ditched them long ago.

just get amazon prime. kill 2 birds with ,well you know, but for local tv , you still need an antenna

Why does one need nine streaming services? The only good thing on Netflix is A Series of Unfortunate Events. Hulu is far superior IMO.

At least with streaming you watch what you want instead of paying for crap that you never watch.

Yes, but how many of those streaming services did they have when they still had cable? And do any of the streams have CNN? I thought one of the reasons CNN+ failed was that it couldn’t include a live CNN feed because of exclusivity contracts with some cable companies.

Ain’t that the truth❗️☹️☹️☹️☹️

Newton Minow’s “vast wasteland” has just gotten a lot vaster. . . .

better idea; the majority of the shows on these platforms are garbage, with a few decent ones here and there. Just go out, buy a USB disc drive that plays CD, DVD, and Blu-Ray discs, purchase whatever shows you desire to watch on DVD or Blu-Ray and whatever music to which you desire to listen, and enjoy them on your personal computer. Or, plug said computer into your TV and watch them on that.

Yep

One problem with cutting cable is if you get your internet through a cable company you no longer get the bundle price and your internet may go up $25+.

We use cable Internet with ROKU.

If they had SPECTRUM, that’s STILL a great deal!

The problem with streaming services is, you have to have wifi. If that goes down, you can’t watch. That’s why we still have cable.

We looked into ditching cable, but we’d have to get better Internet for streaming, resulting in saving about $10/month, but losing the few channels we actually watch.

a. that seems like a lot for just nine streams b. he can’t possibly keep up on everything on 9 services c. there will still be something he wants to watch that won’t be on one of the 9 services.

Totally worth it, though. At least I’m paying for content I actually enjoy.

It’s called privatization. Trust us, it makes everything cheaper because of capitalism.

If you are on automatic payments, they will just keep taking money from your account. Had it happen to me with three different companies.

I guess I’m weird. I like cable. I live in a condo in a downtown area, all high rises, and everyone has cable or dish. Cable and internet are part of my condo fees, so even if I wanted to get rid of cable, I couldn’t. I do pay for some extra channels.

Still cable. They can call it whatever they want, it’s still cable.

Unfortunately, if one wants Turner Classic Movies (TCM), one must have a cable provider. I hope that they someday allow direct subscription. THEN, it would be very easy to cut the cord. I have tried to cut it every year for years, but the options cost the same or more and result in managing several different companies, so more straightforward to stay with Comcast. Yes, their customer service totally sucks but we must have a “landline” because cell phone coverage in our neighborhood sucks. The quadruple package of high speed internet, “landline” phone, Verizon cell phones, and cable (for TCM) still is most cost effective for us at the moment.

You want to watch 5 shows? All 5 are on different streaming services… Cable might just be a cheaper option…. By like 10 cents.

Only $100 savings? You weren’t on Bombast then, Rat.

Aye, Rat. That’s The Name of the Game!

https://tinyurl.com/2cw4dntl

And that’s why I resolutely avoid either cable or streaming….

I think I’m paying for streaming services about what I was paying for very basic cable, but it’s much more “dense” with shows I really like this way. I’ve also got an antenna, which I haven’t been using but I’m glad to have it as a free option and for truly local news and such.

I get four subchannels from one network, and I’ m not allowed to use an outdoor antenna.