[jrref]

As most know, the cable companies are in trouble because although they knew customers would "cut the cord" they never realized or planned for it to happen so quickly. Here is a very interesting article on the subject.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/othe...37f03436&ei=35

[village dreamer]

thats because over $200 a month bill. 50 years ago i paid $7 a month i was making $7 per hour then. and nooooo im not making $200 a hour now.

[Pugchief]

Originally Posted by jrref

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/othe...37f03436&ei=35

This literally happened to me 4 years ago. Standard dance: Cable bill comes, price went way up, called Retention Dept with usual expectation of some "secret deal" that would revert the price upon threat of cancellation. Not this time. They told me they wanted customers to stay with internet and get rid of TV, so they cut my internet price and doubled the speed if I would switch to YouTubeTV, which I did. Saved about $50/month initially.

When the Boomers die off, cable TV will cease to exist. My kids cut the cord years ago and only use streaming services.

[villagernewbie]

Originally Posted by village dreamer

thats because over $200 a month bill.

I'm jealous. lol

We like lots of options, so with X-Finity (including internet and several purchased movies a month) - ours averages over $400!

[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by villagernewbie

I'm jealous. lol

We like lots of options, so with X-Finity (including internet and several purchased movies a month) - ours averages over $400!

Xfinity must love you.

[collie1228]

My first cable bill was about $7.00 too. At the time I thought it was crazy to pay that much for TV, but it gave me about a dozen choices on my TV. My last bill from Comcast was over $200.00, and it gave me over 200 stations, although I only watched about 5 or 6. I now have a smart TV and get my stations by internet, which costs me less than $100. Why anyone would pay Comcast any more for cable TV is beyond me.

[villagernewbie]

Originally Posted by Stu from NYC

Xfinity must love you.

They better. lol

I've had to call twice now, because I tried to buy a movie and a code showed up that wouldn't let me purchase the movie. Come to find out through a long phone call, I was told that they put a dollar limit per month on accounts and apparently we had reached it.

Problem solved though, because after they looked at my monthly bill history - they were happy to raise it each time.

[rsmurano]

40 years ago, I had a 12’ dish in my backyard and I got thousands of channels over 18 satellites for the cheap.
Then went to dish network for decades. I stream everything (hi res music, stream music from my server to the cars, and a few tv channels). I tried cutting dish network out 2 years ago. For a decade before, I negotiated my dish network bill to almost what it costs for YouTube tv alone, for their deluxe package. To get everything we watched on dish network, we had to subscribe to multiple streaming services which made my overall cost more than dish. When you have multiple tv packages, it was hard to remember what tv service showed this sports game or series. On dish, we know the 3 digit number of the channel we wanted to watch, easy.
On the streaming services, the recording feature sucked at best or non-existent. Don’t believe that you can get to anything that has ever been streamed, you can’t and I proved this to a provider. Dish, I have many external disks with hundreds of shows that we have record decades ago.
You can’t stream YouTube tv from anywhere in the world. True, but over 10 years ago I was watching my dish network tv recordings from my hotel room in Germany.

Right now I negotiated a monthly cost from dish network with a 3 year price freeze that is cheaper than the cost of YouTube tv and the other streaming packages we needed.
So it’s not always better/cheaper to CUT THE CORD!

[Battlebasset]

I put up an attic antenna with a booster. All of the networks from Orlando. About 60 stations in total, but only about 30 that would have anything you might watch. I've got a few streaming services - Netflix, Amazon Prime and Paramount/Peacock from my Walmart+ membership. ESPN+ during college basketball season.

Now that you can buy a day pass from Sling to see that one game on ESPN you want, I don't feel a strong need to get any of the "all you can eat" buffet streaming services, like YouTube TV.

[daca55]

Yep the cable companies thought they had us forever and kept hitting us with increases until many of us said we are not going to take it anymore. However the venues we went to have not learned from the downfall of the cable companies. I cut the cord many years ago and went to Hulu. At that time I was paying around $50 something a month for their service. I still use Hulu and I am now paying just under $90/mo. Platforms like Hulu may very well go the way of cable companies if they are not careful!.

[G.R.I.T.S.]

Originally Posted by jrref

As most know, the cable companies are in trouble because although they knew customers would "cut the cord" they never realized or planned for it to happen so quickly. Here is a very interesting article on the subject.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/othe...37f03436&ei=35

Tho we said we were finished with at&t, we bundled 2 phones with air internet and subscribe to YouTube tv. YT is expensive but still much less than Xfinity. We watch a lot of college sports and DVR favorite shows.

[raananh]

The idea to pay $$$ and get many channels which most of them you do not want or need, ALSO to be available at a specific time to watch a specific show with no option to pause, replay, etc is a 1970s concept.

And all this "pleasure" comes with annoying ads.

For much less, or for free, you can get a Roku and similar devices to watch all main channels, with a Search, Pause, Replay, etc including video-on-demand of almost any show/movie.

That cable companies simply try to squeeze as much $$$ as possible before they disappear. They know they have no future and even with charging much less, people will leave them to much better optios.

[DonnaNi4os]

I mark my calendar to the week before my “package promotion” is set to expire. Then I call XFinity and renegotiate my contact. I pay $122 a month including cable and internet. I have plenty of speed and basic channels plus ION and a few others. I’ve been with them for 7 years. Don’t wait until you get the high bill. Be proactive and act before your “promotion package” expires. Once they raise your bill it’s too late.

[raananh]

When you pay $$$ to the cable company, most of the money is divided and given to every channel in your line-up.

Probably more than half of the channels you finance are channels you do not want or watch.

You are financing channels you hate or do not agree with (e.g. fake news channels or garbage channels with garbage social agenda against your belief or social norms).

On the other hand, channels you may be interested in are not available unless you pay even more $$$ to include even more channels that you do not want / support.

This is so messed up. Actually, this was a clever formula to finance propaganda and indoctrination channels.

Cable should have been A-La-Carte, "choose and pay what you want to watch", but then, most channels would have died long long time ago.

[JRcorvette]

Originally Posted by Pugchief

This literally happened to me 4 years ago. Standard dance: Cable bill comes, price went way up, called Retention Dept with usual expectation of some "secret deal" that would revert the price upon threat of cancellation. Not this time. They told me they wanted customers to stay with internet and get rid of TV, so they cut my internet price and doubled the speed if I would switch to YouTubeTV, which I did. Saved about $50/month initially.

When the Boomers die off, cable TV will cease to exist. My kids cut the cord years ago and only use streaming services.

We did the same thing and YouTube TV is much better than Cable TV!