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The average NBA player makes $5,000,000/per year. And where does that money come from? Your INVOLUNTARY pocket through outrageous prices for cable TV.
Everyone who is not interested in having overpaid useless athletes pick their pockets should go through their cable bill and drop down to tiers that do not contain sports networks, or as few as possible.
I will be cutting all of this out effective January 1st. I will drop down to the lowest tier possible. We pay for these stupid sports contracts through the back door. No more.
I will definitely look into this. If I had to pay I'd rather see my money go to the betterment of the country rather than professional athletes, their agents (lawyers) and sports team owners.
Not true. Well, in a way, yes. But they charge you MORE to just get internet alone without tv. Comcast charges $90+ for just plain internet and $89 for bundled tv and internet. So we are stuck with basic cable which we seldom watch.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thefragile
Aren't there any other service providers in your area?
Even where they don't, it's really an oligopoly. We have a choice of Comcast, Verison FIOS and AT&T DSL, the prices are all about the same and I am sure once Comcast introduces usage caps so will Verison.
We need real competition, or be prepared to pay thorough your nose for basic services.
I don't think that cable is the answer, there should be a better technology for Internet access.
I haven't forgotten but it's just not possible for people in my situation. I pay $42.50 for TWC. I have one step above basic cable. That's it. Because I live in an apartment building on the ground floor, I can't get reception without an antenna and I am not allowed to put one on the roof.
I have a great indoor antenna that worked in my previous apartment which was in a better location so I know it can be done but it's all about location, location location.
But I understand that people do want premium and sports channels they can't get with OTA TV. They can get that on cable so that's why they have it.
My apartment's in a similar spot, bottom floor of a three story building, halfway underground, right next to the parking lot with two cars parked 10 feet from my window, plus power lines running past and close to this side of the building. I found one spot in my apartment that I get reception with my amplified Mohu Leaf Ultimate antenna. And it must not be a fluke because after I found that spot I noticed another reviewer on Amazon mentioned it was the only place they could get reception as well.
My antenna's about 10" from the ceiling right where my front wall (has a long window) and interior wall meet. The Mohu has two holes to put push pins through to hold it up on the wall. It's actually placed on the interior wall, but the edge of it is right where the walls meet. I get every local station fine, only problem is when it gets very windy. My personal video recorder the antenna is connected to needs a perfect signal. Also, if I don't have the amplifier plugged in the antenna doesn't pick up anything.
Interesting. I was just discussing this with my husband, because we don't have a package that includes Starz with our satellite TV, but I was able to add Starz to my Amazon Prime membership for $8.99 a month. I don't mind paying that. What I DO mind paying is what comes to over $1000 a year for a bunch of junk I never watch, just to get the few channels that I enjoy watching.
I am home alone a lot due to my husband's work schedule. When he's gone, I rarely even watch anything other than streaming stuff via my handy little Roku box. And yet we're paying over $100 a month - SIGNIFICANTLY over $100 a month now that I think of it - we're subsidizing crap!
We have been a cable/satellite-free household for something like 8 years now. Using an antenna doesn't work where we live, so for the longest time we just had internet/landline bundles through AT&T and used a Roku player to stream Netflix and Hulu. We had to deal with the constant yo-yoing of pricing where we would be offered some amazing low "offer" for a year, then at the end of the year have to call and negotiate another "deal." This last year they were unwilling to play ball, and after our service went from about $58/month to over $90 with them insisting that was the most competitive pricing available (and they kept trying to get us to do the tv bundle to "save"), I fortunately discovered that a local internet/phone provider (https://www.sonic.net/) was offering a comparative service to what we were getting with AT&T (they had just built infrastructure to our part of town in the past year or so) for a permanent fixed rate of $55.78 a month (fees included). So we signed up and haven't looked back.
I also stopped subscribing to cable or satellite TV two years ago. I have a tiny antenna for digital OTA TV which picks up all the big networks in HD and also a bunch of obscure channels (~100. Almost all useless).
With two TIVOs (DVRs for the channels I get via antenna), HBO now (my only monthly subscription) and apple TV (on demand purchases, no subscription) I get all the content that I want. It's amazing how well HD works via internet. The picture quality from HBO Now or Apple TV purchases is stellar.
I did like cable in the past but sometimes in the last few years all the channels that I used to watch (HGTV, DIY, Nat Geo, Discovery, TLC, Bravo, Comedy Channel, Travel) decided to either switch to marathon programming (how I hate that) or stupid ghost shows or endless fishing shows.
Not interested in sports channels and I'd rather get a root canal before I watch those horrid "news" channels.
And that for $100+ a month? I don't think so.
I am amazed when I turn on one of those channels when I have access (e.g. in a hotel) and they still have non-stop house hunters or rehab addict or ghosts or some stupid cooking competition.
Hah! Watch Gold fever sometimes out here in Arizona. Some grizzly old fat belly swirling around some muddy water and dirt in a pan for 30 minutes. The last minute you get to see a speck of yellow if the camera zooms to 90 on a close up. Next week it's the 2 hour special on sluice boxes.
After two seasons I realize that the only excitement in small gold mining is spending the money.
The basic package is ok for filler, but missing quality channels such as Bloomberg, and then if I want Hist 2 I have to get another $30 package just for the 1 Tesla documentary or something interesting on NatGeo like locked up abroad a different $20 package.
Never forget original cable Select/On TV....................you will never have commercials
If I could have paid for only what I wanted, or at least blocked the stupid channels so I didn't have to scroll through them, I would have paid for cable. Now I'm too used to no ads to deal with that stuff. It's all ads (on a paid service - WTF?), and the shows just endlessly repeat. And even worse, the endless repetition within the shows themselves, because half their audience has only just stopped channel surfing. Some mildly interesting event is teased three times, then shown four times in the one episode, all voiceovered by a bloke with twelve testicles.
I am amazed when I turn on one of those channels when I have access (e.g. in a hotel) and they still have non-stop house hunters or rehab addict or ghosts or some stupid cooking competition.
I'm always surprised when I'm in a hotel and House Hunters is on for 12 hours straight....haven't they made any other shows in the 5+ years since I left cable? LOL Apparently, not!
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