Cable is a Rip-Off
Marco just wrote about his frustrations with paying so much for entertainment cable and getting so little in return. I reached this same boiling point a few months back, though my frustrations extended to Internet access in addition to entertainment cable. So, I killed cable and here was my solution:
- We switched from a cable modem to Verizon FiOS. It’s a lot faster for about the same money as I was paying for my cable modem. (Admittedly, not everyone can get FiOS, but there is probably a solution that is as good or better than your cable modem for about the same money.)
- My wife and I already didn’t have a home phone and we still don’t. With mobile phone, Skype, iChat, etc., a home phone is just more money, another number to remember, and another voice mail to check.
- I bought an HD Over-The-Air Antenna and a TiVo Series 3 (the lower-end model). So, we can now record broadcast content in HD for free. Sweet. As bonus, I can use the TiVo Series 3 to view Amazon Unbox content, which includes a pretty extensive TV and movie selection.
- I also bought an Apple TV, so we can view content from the iTunes store on our TV.
- We already had a DVD, so we can still buy or rent DVD content.
So, now we don’t pay for cable at all. We either get our entertainment in broadcast HD for free or we purchase/rent the specific content we want via Amazon Unbox, iTunes Store, or DVD. (If you watch live, non-broadcast sports, this plan won’t work for you. But, that’s not an issue for us.)
The upfront costs of all of this were significant, I won’t deny that. But, the monthly TiVo subscription of $17 is our only monthly payment now for TV entertainment. No cable bill. And, buying/renting the content we can’t get free via broadcast is costing a small fraction of what our cable bill did. Best of all, during the holidays and the writers’ strike, while everyone else is paying $80 or more a month for re-runs and reality shows, we’re only paying $17 for our TiVo.
We’re saving enough money that we’ll probably recoup our initial costs within a year a two. And, I so love not giving the cable company money each month!
