Streaming services & cord-cutting

[Ashful]

I finally convinced my wife to cancel cable TV service. Trouble is, she still wants to keep the house phone. I haven't checked the latest pricing schemes, but in the past "triple play" was cheaper than internet + phone alone... that may still be the case.

But what I'm finding over the last year, is that the few streaming services we carry never seem to have the content we are trying to access, at least without so many commercials as to kill any desire to watch. We carry Netflix, Amazon Prime, Tubi, Hulu, and have access to Max thru Verizon. But now everything seems to be on Pluto, Paramount, or one of a hundred other streaming services I haven't signed up for.

It seems the market is ripe for a common "EZ Pass" type solution, that just gives one access to all or most of these streaming services, and whenever I think the market is ripe for anything, it usually means someone way smarter than me has already started offering it.

What are those in the know doing, these days? I'm tired of being asked to sign up for another new streaming service, every time I try to access some old movie or sitcom. Worse yet, I don't want to sit thru 15 minutes of advertising for every 26 minutes of content.

 

[Duds13]

I'm in the same boat. Right now I am stuck with Spectrum (Rectum) and paying $285 a month for cable, internet and a landline. Keeps going up every month it seems. I honestly hate the thought of switching to streaming because I like being able to channel surf and that just seems like a PITA with the streaming services. I have a Roku in the bedroom with the Spectrum app and I hate how I have to switch channels. Plus, while the streaming services were once a better "deal" I think they have all increased their pricing where it's little to no savings.

I honestly don't see any reason why we can't pick channels we want and pay for just those. I get so many channels I have no desire to watch, but if I get rid of certain packages I lose channels I do watch,

I should just get rid of TV altogether

 

[Ashful]

I suspect it wouldn't take much to swing you away from "channel surfing". Being a child of the 1970's, I'm all too familiar with it, but it's hard to imagine now going back to watching anything constantly interrupted by television commercials!

We installed 10 large flatscreen TV's in our house when we moved in 12-15 years ago, and now we really only use two or three of them, and exclusively for streaming. Verizon actually obsoleted and disabled the set-top boxes we have installed now, and sent us a huge crate of new ones about 7 months ago... and I still haven't bothered to even plug them in.

We are currently paying about $250/month for triple play, which is way too much. But since my wife won't give up the land line, I'm not sure I'll find a phone + internet plan much less than that. My best bet might be to just return the boxes, downgrade the TV plan to their lowest (we currently have some "premium" channels), and sign up for more streaming services.

If anyone ever worked out a service that subscribed one to all of the major streaming platforms, they could probably charge $60/month and still save people money.

 

[stoveliker]

I pay $216 for 4 Verizon lines and 5g Internet.
Plus $15-20 total for Hulu and Netflix (which we barely use).

 

[all night moe]

Good to see ya @Ashful .

We have Spectrum here. I agree with the rectum terminology. It fits. The GF's nephew brought it here early summer. Just internet and TV.....what a waste. He, along with my GF's son, do next to nothing but play Xbox and PS5. He's in his early 40s and the kid is 22. 6mons later and still glued to it.

If it was up to me we would still be using the good ole antenna. We had a very cheap version that got us a few channels plus ROKU streamed NETfixed on the internet provider we were using. Satellite web was a rip off too.

 

[bigealta]

I finally convinced my wife to cancel cable TV service. Trouble is, she still wants to keep the house phone. I haven't checked the latest pricing schemes, but in the past "triple play" was cheaper than internet + phone alone... that may still be the case.

But what I'm finding over the last year, is that the few streaming services we carry never seem to have the content we are trying to access, at least without so many commercials as to kill any desire to watch. We carry Netflix, Amazon Prime, Tubi, Hulu, and have access to Max thru Verizon. But now everything seems to be on Pluto, Paramount, or one of a hundred other streaming services I haven't signed up for.

It seems the market is ripe for a common "EZ Pass" type solution, that just gives one access to all or most of these streaming services, and whenever I think the market is ripe for anything, it usually means someone way smarter than me has already started offering it.

What are those in the know doing, these days? I'm tired of being asked to sign up for another new streaming service, every time I try to access some old movie or sitcom. Worse yet, I don't want to sit thru 15 minutes of advertising for every 26 minutes of content.

Pretty much identical situation here with wife, multiple streamers, and verizon.
I have triple play at $186 in NJ. Supposedly a "grandfathered" rate that i'm basically told by verizon i should be thankful for, and if i dropped the landline it would be only a few dollars less.

In Utah i only have an antenna and get about 10-15 stations.
I'm very fine with that.

 

[bigealta]

Really the only thing i need from fios is internet and CNBC.

 

[bogieb]

I have Comcast for TV and internet. I WFH, so use the internet intensively. My cell phone is thru a separate provider. I do not have a landline.

I cannot use antennae because even according to the online channel checkers, I would be lucky to get 1 channel (my local channel - which is only rated at "fair" reception). The one antenna provider that has a repeater in my area, has about 20 channels that I should be able to get - most of them are stupid things like HSN and the rest I don't have any interest in.

My internet/cable bill is just under $200/month (it just went up a couple of $ this month). I do not pay for extra things like HBO or Paramount+. I don't even do Streaming. I have an old, old package that I'm grandfathered into. I looked into cutting the cord, but internet itself is the majority of my bill and to get the core of what I watch would be close to what I pay now - with more headaches and potential problems than I'm willing to go thru.

 

[Gearhead660]

I have a hard time justifying spending $100-200/mo or more for TV and internet. We just have the ol' antenna for TV. Get all the major networks. No wifi. Got mobile hotspots on our phones if we want to use our laptops.

 

[gthomas785]

We don't watch much TV. I have an Xfinity internet-only plan. Wife was able to talk them down from $125 to $58 a month by threatening to cancel. We have 2 T-Mobile lines for $120 which comes with unlimited data and $7 off Netflix coupon so we have Netflix. That's about it. If there's a show I want to watch on another platform I'll sign up and set a reminder to cancel it after a week or two.

Roku makes it pretty easy to sign up for new streaming services but if you want to cancel you usually have to call or go on their website.

 

[zrock]

Personally i hate streaming services like above i like to channel surf. We have prime, netflix, paramount+, and crave (do not get crave the volume sucks on it as its only setup to stream in surround on apple products, so it only streams in mono and low volume). With all these streaming services i still don't get to watch what i want that i get on cable. I can spend a hour going through channels on the streaming services and still not find what i want. With all these streaming services every show known to man new and old should be available. THen you have the not available in canada option as well i find this really stupid we watch the same show on cable but cannot stream it as it is not available in canada.
The only time i like my streaming services is when im traveling as it gives me something to watch on the plane

 

[stoveliker]

With Roku you can search on all services at once. No need to look for something in each separate service. One search tells you on which platform (in Roku, but that encompasses almost all platforms is my layman's beliy) it is available

 

[Murray01]

Wow, interesting posts. I always thought that our internet/TV packages were more expensive in Canada then the US, apparently not. We deal with SaskTel, a provincial crown corporation.
Internet $80
Land Line $44
TV. $75 with 5 theme packs added on
Total. $199/month

Before SaskTel upgraded their line into the lake we had to have satellite TV and satellite Internet at a cost of $150/month each.

 

[zrock]

Wow, interesting posts. I always thought that our internet/TV packages were more expensive in Canada then the US, apparently not. We deal with SaskTel, a provincial crown corporation.
Internet $80
Land Line $44
TV. $75 with 5 theme packs added on
Total. $199/month

Before SaskTel upgraded their line into the lake we had to have satellite TV and satellite Internet at a cost of $150/month each.

I think my TV/internet is about 150 per month.. But im on a really old plan that i cannot do anything with now such as adding channels, now if i want to upgrade i need new equipment and then the bill goes up about $50 for the same or less chan than i already have.. The cable company's selling feature you can watch record what you want as its all uploaded...lol.. The one reason i refuse to upgrade right now is 5+ years ago they promised i would have fiber, well still waiting but yet every community around me right now has fiber but the community where the fiber is based out of does not have it.

 

[ozarkoak]

Amazon prime because we pay for prime anyway and a bunch of DVD the old lady gets from the pawn shop for $1 a pop. We pay $80 for 100Mbps and VOIP.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

We cut cable 13 years ago.

We have a landline tied to the internet. It was a package deal. It’s only used as a find my missing cell phone tool.

My wife picks up Netflix or whatever every once in a while. She’ll binge watch whatever show she wanted to and then cancels it. Netflix came back to my house a few days ago.

I use YouTube. It’s free, and commercials aren’t too bad.

We had Roku at my house, maybe we still do. I watched 15-30 minutes on it years ago and couldn’t stand the commercials. I haven’t touched the TV upstairs since.

 

[semipro]

With Roku you can search on all services at once. No need to look for something in each separate service. One search tells you on which platform (in Roku, but that encompasses almost all platforms is my layman's beliy) it is available

I've found that searching on the Roku misses most or all YouTube content though.

 

[semipro]

I finally convinced my wife to cancel cable TV service. Trouble is, she still wants to keep the house phone.

We used an inexpensive VOIP service (PhonePower) for years until we recently dropped it to rely only on cellular. Being VOIP, it relies upon your existing (or new) internet connection and a small, cheap, interface between your home network and your house phone (e.g., RJ45 to RJ11). IIRC we paid roughly $45/year for the service.

 

[Ashful]

With Roku you can search on all services at once. No need to look for something in each separate service. One search tells you on which platform (in Roku, but that encompasses almost all platforms is my layman's beliy) it is available

We used to have a few Roku's, but switched them all out for Firesticks (I think we have 4 now?) over the last year or two. If you haven't tried a Firestick, you owe it to yourself! So much better...

Same thing on both though, you just hit a button on the Firestick remote, say "find King of Queens" or "get Season 6 of All in the Family", and it pops up with every streaming service option that offers it, with a default to whatever service(s) have it for free.

More and more over the last year, these services come with advertising. Heck, even my beloved old Amazon Prime, now up to $140 per year, shows advertisements in every program now... unless you sign up for yet another "advertising free" subscription. More and more often, each show I want to watch requires me to sign up for another service, which I would only use for that one program.

I'll have to dig out a cable bill, and see why ours is $250, when most of you seem to be $199. I have some ideas why that may be the case (unpublished line fee + box rentals), but it'd be good to review, nonetheless.

 

[bigealta]

Yeah i bought my fios router so no monthly fee for that anymore. But my boxes are now needing upgrades "early 2025".
So sure that's gonna mean a higher rental fee. Wish i could just by them instead of renting. Not sure why we are so addicted to TV, but we are.

 

[Ashful]

Not sure why we are so addicted to TV, but we are.

This is why we went Roku, then Firestick. Both show a constant list of recommended movies and programs, based on our viewing habits, and culled from a wide range of streaming services we might never even consider otherwise. It turns an otherwise very-stupid "smart TV" into something much more akin to channel-flipping in the days of old... but better!

One thing that can be said for keeping the Fios triple-play, is that they do give you free access to some of the streaming services, as Verizon has deals with several of them. Next time you see a "sign in through your provider", give it a try, you might be surprised to learn you have access you were not aware of previously.

 

[bigealta]

Yes we have had firestick for 3-4 years. It's worked well for us. We mostly use that when watching anything. And my triple play gets me HBO (now Max) and i think 1 other service, Showtime i think.

And yes again,... have used that sign in thru verizon a few times.