Cutting the Cable

I am living without cable for the first time in my entire life.

As a child my mother always had cable going all the way back to the original cable boxes with mechanical dials and no remote control. I have fond memories of my Father buying a DSS (now Direct TV) dish the very first year they were available. That 18" dish with a single box was like $700 dollars and a real pain in the ass to install but it had this groundbreaking feature called a Guide. That's right kids until that time no cable box had any kind of on-screen channel or programming information, you had to buy a magazine like TV Guide to know what was on. I personally have subscribed to both Satellite TV services at one time or another with other stints as a Comcast subscriber.

So what made me decide to cut my current Comcast service back to just high speed Internet?

Here you go:

1. The number one reason is cost. I was paying $90 for Comcast TV service alone and watching at most a couple of hours of TV a night but usually none. That just doesn't make any sense any more.
   
2. The second reason is that there are now alternatives. Between Boxee's ability to easily pull web streamed shows from their various portals to being able to watch Netflix EVERYWHERE I just don't see the need for Comcast.
3. The third reason is that I watch a bunch of online content that most people consider Podcasts. I watch more of this type of programming than any kind of "traditional" TV. Twit, Revision 3, Current TV, etc.
4. Forth, I was sick of paying outrageous amounts of money for channels I had no interest in. I don't hate sports but there is no way I could justify paying Comcast $5/month for ESPN and NEVER watching it. That's just one example, If I could pay Comcast $20/month and choose just 15-20 channels then that would be awesome.
5. Fifth, I was also paying $13 a month to Tivo because Comcast's equipment is a fucking joke. Considering that Comcast is one of the big proponents of killing CableCard the future have using any device with their service other than their shitty DVRs is becoming LESS likely. I would love to have a Windows 7 Media Center PC stuffed full of tuners but why invest $800 in tuners that Comcast will most likely make obsolete by killing CableCard support.

Soon, you may be making this decision yourself. Apple may be announcing their next genreation of AppleTV devices tomorrow. Imagine having a little box attached to your TV that you could download the NBC app and watch NBC shows or any other content provider you can imagine. Talk about screwing over the cable company.