Why Buy Cable/Satellite TV Service? Higher Rates-More Commercials-More Mindless Blather.

[TheMastersNemesis]

I do not have cable or satellite TV service at home. Usually watch cable while traveling. Still see no reason to use pay TV. Most of cable is useless mindless babble. And cannot find a service that will exclude Fox Noise. Still end up paying for it even if won't watch it.

Cable used to be about having fewer commercials and more content. Now we have little investment in content and programming and more commercials. 1/3rd of time is commercials on almost every channel. And premium channels are not that good either.

A lot of supposedly good channels like science channel, history channel, discover channel, et al that have had good programming in the past play crime, bubba red neck and other garbage repeatedly. So too many red neck programs on so many channels. To add to the misery is more and more and more commercials and so many infomercials in off hours to make you want to scream.

[whatthehey]

1. Especially when there are better cheaper options now

Netflix, Prime et al.

Torrent sites for non-streamed network (and pay cable) shows uploaded ad-free hours after they air.

Internet sites from the outlet or aggregator of your choice for news.

About the only reasons cable exists are technophobes, people shit-scared of "winning" the file share prosecution global lottery, and people getting their armchair vicarious wannabe athlete fix watching 12 minutes of actual action in a football game lasting 3.5 hours of air time (no it's not 60 minutes; that includes all those play-clock seconds before the snap and after the play - 12 minutes of actual play is what you get).

[betterdemsonly]

2. I use my old antenna and a roku box

I am subscribed to hulu, acorntv(bbc-programming, like a&e used to be before duckhunters took over) and curiositystream, which is like discovery, science channel and tlc used to be before they were gutted and palinized. Hulu is 7.99 a month. AcornTv is 3.99 a month and curiosity stream is 1.99 a month. There are many fun free channels on my roku box, so I have lots to watch even if I didn't subscribe to those things. I pay 14.99 a month for my dsl service. I would have that even if I didn't stream anything. I do watch my parents cable to get an idea of the good shows that are on there, then I rent them from services like vudu and m-go. I rented Mr Robot and Manhattan. Didn't understand the appeal of game of thrones. I thought most of the characters were despicable.

[dembotoz]

5. acorn tv......thanks

[mike_c]

3. turned mine off 25 years ago and have never regretted it....

Haven't owned a television since. It's amazing how many more hours each day has when you don't waste them on mindless blabber. Once every couple of years or so I look at television programming when staying in a hotel. It's always appalling. I guess the last time I looked was when the runaway bride was the biggest "news item" in America. That's probably more than a couple of years ago. It doesn't usually take more than 10 or 15 minutes to remind me why I turned that noise off in the first place.

Quitting TV is like quitting smoking. At first you crave it, and can't bear the silence. Then you suddenly find yourself doing more, reading more, being active more, and like a born again non-smoker in a smoke filled room, you just can't stand being around the squawking box. When I go out I try my best to sit facing away from televisions-- so many places simply have them on all the time.

[hunter]

12. Yep. Like smoking.

I do like movies, so that's why we have a television. But that's all it does.

Like you, I've been astonished turning on the television in hotel rooms while traveling.



I look at the remote control like it's covered with cooties and leave it be.

[SheilaT]

4. No TV, cable or satellite here either, going on eight years now

although this isn't the first time I've been several years without a TV.

Back in the 70's when I was without for quite a while, a co-worker assumed I'd be very badly informed about things, especially current events, because of no TV. He kept on being astonished when I was almost always quite up-to-date, and often knew a whole lot more about some topic because I read books. Lots of books. Fiction and non-fiction both. Plus, at the time I kept up with the weekly news magazines. And read the local paper which was The Washington Post.

These days I listen to various public radio stations, cruise the internet, watch almost all of what I want via Netflix or various internet streaming sites.

Whenever a major breaking news story happens, I just locate the local TV stations in or near that city, and they will almost all have gone to live streaming of their coverage. I don't miss much.

Plus, to be perfectly honest, there really is more TV (in whatever form) worth watching (depending a bit on your definition of "worth watching&quot than there are hours in the day. So we all have to make choices. In a similar manner, I really like science fiction as a genre, and I long ago gave up trying to keep on top of it all. I read the stories or novels that appeal to me, and I don't care that I often haven't read the ones that are most popular.

Oh, and the very, VERY best thing about no TV is no political commercials.

[dembotoz]

6. as long as you can get a good internet connection

my option was to get time warner and basic cable was like a tiny bundle add on.

[BlueJazz]

7. I remember the first time I saw an "Info-commercial". I stood there thinking:..

"So people (supposedly) get cable to not have commercials during the 2 hour show and now they're paying for an hour show to sell a piece of junk from Acme Plastic-Trash Company" ?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. We got Roku kissed cable/satellite/commercials and crap goodbye.

[RedCappedBandit]

9. Never have, never will.

I have exactly zero tolerance for commercials and will not pay for the privilege to watch them.

[hunter]

10. Our television is a movie player.

DVD's are cheap at the thrift stores, and video cassettes are essentially free.

Beyond that, our internet connection is just fast enough to support a single channel of video at better than video cassette and almost as good as DVD quality.

Nobody seems to notice but me. My eyes and ears are very well trained to recognize digital video and audio compression artifacts.

[Logical]

11. I love having cable. Big sports fan. ESPN, etc. I will stick with it. nt