GatorDeb

I spend $49 a month on Amazon Prime (mostly for the shipping), HBO Now, Showtime Anywhere, Netflix, and Hulu. We don't have cable but I'm the only one who watches "TV"). Sooo many sales and I haven't bit (I also calculated that it'd take me 5.5 years at two hours a day to get through my unwatched physical media).

Really enjoying HBO and Showtime the most (making it through Game of Thrones, in the middle of Season 3, and I want to watch Web Therapy and Penn & Teller BS on Showtime, among many many others). Web Therapy was very good from the 10 minutes I sampled.

No more Redbox, discs, cable, purchasing digital media, etc. Who else completely cut the cord of purchasing?

TheBigDave

I still have cable which runs around $200/month for Internet, TV + Premium channels, and Phone. I have a large family and some of them are stuck on cable.

I also pay around $40/month for streaming services like Netflix, Prime, Hulu, Crunchyroll, Funimation and AcornTV.

I'm done buying physical media. I've got a library of about 2000 BD/DVD, and I'm slowly selling them off. I may keep 200-300 rare movies. But if it's available on streaming, I'm getting rid of it. We moved into a new house about 8 months ago, and haven't even hooked up a BD/DVD player yet.

Eddie W

Almost...I still have Tivo for OTA recording. But everything else is streaming. Netflix/Amazon Prime/HBO Now/Showtime Online/Spotify fits almost all of my entertainment needs. For MUCH less than I was paying DirecTV. Plus I'm not subjected to the mess of reality shows & commericals that basic cable has devolved into. I feel much more satisfied with my overall experience with streaming.

printerati

We were close last year (Netflix + Hulu + Amazon Prime, scaled physical media purchases way back, and only used OTA/antenna for live sports), but then we finally got fiber in our area. The promotional bundle of home phone + basic TV + 30 Mbps internet increased our existing home phone + DSL bill by less than $5/month, so we went for it.

I still haven't watched live TV since March Madness, but at least there were no OTA signal hiccups.

funkyryno

I probably do about 90% of my movie and TV consumption via streaming. The rest comes from the occasional Redbox rental or library loaner.

With that said I just bought the Blu-ray director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven yesterday on a whim for $5. First disc purchased in a while.

Shannon Nutt

How much are you paying for your Internet service though? When you add that in, it may not be a whole lot less than a standard cable package.

Geofferson

I tell myself I may make a switch next year. Honestly am waiting to see if Sling will add any more channels.

The lineup in my head would be
Tivo/OTA - locals
Sling w/HBO
Prime
Netflix
Hulu+ w/Showtime

GatorDeb

$75 but he needs it for work and uses it for gaming so we would be paying that either way. We share it with tenants, once they move out in three months I'm getting us a better deal.

OldBoy

i honestly couldn't live without cable and DVR as sad as that sounds...

joeblow69

We've cut the cord, and just have hulu and amazon prime. The hardest part for me, is not being able to have a network on in the background while I'm doing stuff. I used to just have Cartoon Network on. We can kind of do that now, but it ends up being a marathon on one show, which gets old. Wish there was an easier way to tell Hulu "take this batch of shows, and play all their episodes randomly, like broadcast!"

mhg83

I'm one of the rare types that never had Cable. Growing up my Parents never bought cable. It was either OTA channels or VHS/DVD/BLU. Once moved out i thought of getting cable but at that point I didn't spend much time watching TV but would rather Read or Play Videogames. And then Netflix came along.

30 MBPS internet $75

NETFLIX $8

I'm pretty satisfied

PhantomStranger

That is still the standard for almost all people. I think going streaming-only leads to a very limited selection of programming, mostly cheaper content the services can acquire.

I understand why people cut cable, the monthly cost keeps going up without much added benefit. The monopolies in charge show a pronounced anti-customer agenda.

RichC2

I have 100mbps internet and local channels w/ HBO (cheaper to combo) that I pay $71 a month for.

$20 for Sling, $8 for Netflix, $2.50/mo for Hulu.

So about $100. Still better than the $180/mo they were trying to charge me.

If I watched more TV then it would have been more difficult, but I really don't and never have. I did also pay $20 to subscribe for the season for Mr. Robot, but that was paid for in credits.

kgrogers1979

Source?

That may be true with the older generations, but everything I have read says that the younger Millennial generation really doesn't care about cable much at all. In fact, many Millennials are called "cable nevers" because they have never had cable and never plan to get cable.


Not really. Netflix + Hulu covers almost everything except sports. I cut the cable cord last winter, and I honestly don't miss it at all.

Alan Smithee

I'm 42 and have never had a cable subscription in my name. Closest I've had to having it was in 1989 we got a one-month free trial (and immediately cancelled, as the quality was horrible!), a few months in 1994 when I lived with an idiot roommate who wanted it (quality on most channels was still horrible) and finally in 2001 when I moved into an apartment and the cable was still on for a few months as the last tenant had forgotten to cancel it- still all-analog then and quality was a bit better than before but still too many channels in mono and of course nothing worth paying for. With the amount of media I have, I really don't have any use for movie channels telling me what to watch and when to watch it.

I'll NEVER give up media for streaming-only; and I'll still watch the news on over-the-air TV when it's something important (not too often).

PhantomStranger

84% of all American households have some form of cable TV service in 2014 from a quick hit on Google. 11% use some form of streaming as a cable replacement. That is good enough for me to qualify as most people. Your mileage may vary.

Millennials only make up 25% of the current U.S. population if you stretch their ages to be as generous as possible. Their influence is mostly at the margins since their purchasing power is even more limited than their sheer size.

You can do the rest of the research yourself.

RichC2

Yeah, and I'm sure many realize they don't utilize it nearly enough to justify what they're paying for. Cutting the cord is a big step for some people though.

kgrogers1979

You originally said "almost all" not just "most people." 80% isn't almost all, which is why I doubted you. 80% may be the majority, but it's far from almost all.

Those are 2014 statistics too. 2015 is going to be even lower as more people cut the cord.


Yeah, many people are just too stubborn and/or set in their ways to actually change. The baby boomer generation is enormous and most of them are like that, old and stubborn and set in their ways. My 60 year old parents are baby boomers, and they still have cable TV, but they hardly use it much. They will never cut the cord though simply because they aren't tech savvy enough to figure out streaming media on their own. Cable TV is what they are used to, and they will stay with it. A lot of older less-tech savvy people are like this.

Statistics like those PhantomStranger posted can be misleading because baby boomers are a huge percent of the population, but many of them don't watch much TV. Most TV programs appeal to younger audiences which don't have as huge of a percentage in the population, and most younger people aren't subscribing to cable. The whole "cable never" thing I mentioned before is very true. Many young people will never subscribe to cable because they simply don't want it. The number of cable TV subscribers is just going to keep decreasing and decreasing as the baby boomers die off and the younger Millennials start taking their place.

BobO'Link

I watch 90% physical media with the rest split between streaming and cable. So far I've not found a streaming service or group of services that provides the programming I prefer. I keep cable mainly for my wife (she will not watch physical media, even if it's a favorite show, and would find streaming a hassle).

I get local news from the paper, national news from various online sources, weather from NOAA online, and have no use for sports.

Streaming doesn't offer the variety I want nor the guarantee that a program/film will be there next week, much less next year. The year I was at my son's house for Christmas and couldn't find a single "classic" Christmas movie on the services he had proved to me streaming was not a substitute for a good collection. I can see streaming easily replacing cable for sampling shows and the odd on-off program, but not my collection.

Like Alan Smithee, I'll NEVER give up physical media for streaming. However, I *would* cut off the cable service in a heartbeat if it were not for my wife.

kgrogers1979

Yeah, I should clarify that while I have cut the cable cord, I do still buy Blu-rays. Streaming to me is a replacement for cable, but not a replacement for owning movies and TV shows I really love.

Streaming is good for rentals of movies and TV that are good for one-time viewings. I still buy the BD of anything that I love and will rewatch over and over. I am much more selective of BDs that I buy though compared to 10 years ago when I was buying DVDs at an alarming pace. I used to buy the DVD of anything, but now I only buy the BD of the things that I truly love and plan to rewatch over and over. So I only buy maybe 5 or so BDs per year, because honestly I have found that there are very few movies and TV series that I truly love enough to rewatch over and over. The vast majority of movies and TV shows are only good for one viewing, and I am perfectly fine with "renting" them via streaming.

DJariya

Streaming doesn't have an indefinite lifespan. All 9 seasons of 24 are on Amazon, but what's stopping FOX for launching their own streaming service in xx years after their deal with Amazon expires? Licensing deals always expire and have different parameters. Many shows on Hulu only have the last 5 episodes posted now because that's how their licensing deal is arranged. If you don't have time to watch Flash or Arrow right away and are weeks behind, this arrangement that The CW has with Hulu would screw you over if you fall into week 6 without seeing the the 1st episode.

Seems like many networks and studios are starting their own streaming service to mixed results and opinions. I enjoy streaming to an extent, but it would become a huge hassle if I had to locate my favorite Sunday night shows (the busiest night of the week for avid TV watchers) during the regular TV season from 5 or 6 different services/sources as opposed to having them all sitting their waiting for me on my Directv DVR.

FiveO

I pay $60 a month for cable internet. $100 a year for Amazon Prime and then Netflix...$8 or whatever it is.

Couldn't be happier.

Last July Charter wanted to up my bill from $150 a month to $195. No way.

I have 320 movies on VUDU / 1800+ DVD's and 300+ Blu-Rays. Movies and Netflix are just fine with me. I save around $1500 a year.


Edit: I haven't watched any sporting events in 10 years.....(not a sports fan in any way) and I get all my news on the net. Its a win/win for me.

thematahara

200mbps Webpass Internet for $500 a year
$20 for Sling TV
$15 for HBO Now
$8 for netflix

~$85 a month

DaveNinja

I cut the cord 3 or 4 years ago.
got netflix, amazon prime and MLB.tv. also an HD antenna

PhantomStranger

Assuming the '1979' in your username is your year of birth, you do realize you aren't a Millennial? That is either Gen X or Gen Y, depending on how one sets the cut-off.