40% of Americans Predicted to Cut the Cord by 2030

DooKey

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Believe it or not, but at least 85% of Americans are still using traditional pay cable. However, according to market analyst TDG Research, as many as 40% of all Americans will overcome this addiction by 2030. TDG has always been bullish on the future of TV as an app and they are making no bones about the fact that this is indeed where the market is going. I know I kicked that nasty cable habit this time last year and I'm loving my streaming/over-the-air life now. It doesn't surprise me a bit that almost half of us here in the US are going the streaming route in the next decade or so. You can read the PR here.

Cost is a major driver of this shift: the cost of bundling a few favorite streaming services together still pales in comparison to the average cable bill. TDG found that two thirds of cord cutters and “cord nevers” (people who have never paid for cable) said service expense was the key reason they do not use legacy pay TV services.
 
Since we switched to streaming, it has been really nice.

But, there are still some warts to deal with and they are the primary reason I know a lot of people have not gone to streaming yet.

Sports is one reason. To get sports, in real time, seems to cost a lot more, relatively speaking, than any other service. I use OTA to get the few sports I do like to wach on occasion, pairing that with a Tablo so I can record and watch it when I want, from any room I want.

Then there are certain television shows, like Dr. Who, where you have to buy the season from Amazon Prime to watch it and that adds up. I am sure there are *other* alternatives, but most people I know want to do things on the up and up.

Still, I have a number of converts under my wing and they are getting warm and fuzzy with it.
 
I joined the streaming side back in September and ain't going back to cable or satellite.
 
I'm still having a hard time seeing this. Absolutely no-one I know has "cut the cord" in a legal fashion.. the ones that claim they have are using Kodi boxes for example.
Personally I looked into it and just paying for Internet from Comcast was $3 cheaper than Internet + Basic TV... a whole whopping $3. If I bought an antenna for $100 that would only take me 33 months to break even.. doesn't seem worth it. Not to mention I already have a HDHomeRun Prime and the cable card from Comcast is free... I would have to buy another tuner also since the Prime doesn't support OTA.
Of course I've never subscribed to HBO/Cinemax/Showtime from the cable company and I don't need ESPN, Fox Sports, etc. I will pick up HBO Go for a couple months for GOT each year but that's about it.
 
farscapesg1

You can build your own antenna for much less. Even can use old rabbit ears if you want.

I dropped cable tv years ago. Who can pay 180 a month for cable, Phone, Tv is crazy. Thats a car payment! It's $40 now just for weak broadband.

Not many good shows on anyways.
 
Enjoy your savings while they last - since the Cable providers are also our ISPs we can expect them to price accordingly to make up their lost revenue.

This and it's not going to be any different than a cable subscription anyways as your ISP is going to do the same packaging to your internet as well. There really is no point...
 
The price of the ISP is going to go up. The prices for the streaming packages are going to go up too. We're just in this little honeymoon spot now, even though all of the services are immature today.

In the end the STB will shrink or be swallowed by the smart TV, but we'll be right back where we started.
 
I'm still having a hard time seeing this. Absolutely no-one I know has "cut the cord" in a legal fashion.. the ones that claim they have are using Kodi boxes for example.
Personally I looked into it and just paying for Internet from Comcast was $3 cheaper than Internet + Basic TV... a whole whopping $3. If I bought an antenna for $100 that would only take me 33 months to break even.. doesn't seem worth it. Not to mention I already have a HDHomeRun Prime and the cable card from Comcast is free... I would have to buy another tuner also since the Prime doesn't support OTA.
Of course I've never subscribed to HBO/Cinemax/Showtime from the cable company and I don't need ESPN, Fox Sports, etc. I will pick up HBO Go for a couple months for GOT each year but that's about it.

I've been cable TV free for awhile now, years actually. We only use Netflix, something I had while I also had cable, would continue even if I had cable. No illegally downloading anything, if I don't have access to it, I simply go without seeing it.

Also, the difference in packages seem low (internet & TV, VS only internet). But once you factor in taxes and box rental fees, your back up there. Keep in mind that people tend not to want the minimum... So now you're going to be adding on HD, DVR, etc.

I guess it comes down to a self control issue. People want everything and feel they deserve such, thus why your friends have to steal the content they feel they need to consume.
 
The price of the ISP is going to go up. The prices for the streaming packages are going to go up too. We're just in this little honeymoon spot now, even though all of the services are immature today.

In the end the STB will shrink or be swallowed by the smart TV, but we'll be right back where we started.

Sadly, I think you right
 
The price of the ISP is going to go up. The prices for the streaming packages are going to go up too. We're just in this little honeymoon spot now, even though all of the services are immature today.

In the end the STB will shrink or be swallowed by the smart TV, but we'll be right back where we started.

When Net Neutrality goes - you can be sure we'll be back at right where we started as the prices will go up and the speeds get slower.

I'm going to need to watch Stranger Things 2 before the 14th.
 
farscapesg1

You can build your own antenna for much less. Even can use old rabbit ears if you want.

I dropped cable tv years ago. Who can pay 180 a month for cable, Phone, Tv is crazy. Thats a car payment! It's $40 now just for weak broadband.

Not many good shows on anyways.

Depends entirely on location. At my old address, not even a multi-directional roof-mount antenna would pick up OTA channels reliably. TVFool, Antennaweb, etc. listed it as a dead zone for OTA. I've never been able to stomach a $180 cable bill to begin with, and thought my $110 bill was way too high when most of the people I know couldn't see how I lived with out the premium channels. Internet is important to me (work remotely) so cutting it back to a 60/6 connection was about as far as I would go. 60/6 Internet + basic tv for $3 difference just made more sense for my area.

I've been cable TV free for awhile now, years actually. We only use Netflix, something I had while I also had cable, would continue even if I had cable. No illegally downloading anything, if I don't have access to it, I simply go without seeing it.

Also, the difference in packages seem low (internet & TV, VS only internet). But once you factor in taxes and box rental fees, your back up there. Keep in mind that people tend not to want the minimum... So now you're going to be adding on HD, DVR, etc.

I guess it comes down to a self control issue. People want everything and feel they deserve such, thus why your friends have to steal the content they feel they need to consume.

I get that.. I guess my point is I don't see 40% of my friends/coworkers/acquaintances dropping their HD/DVR/etc. for OTA legally anytime soon. For me, I haven't used a company supplied DVR for over 10 years thanks to BeyondTV, then SageTV, and now Plex. I can see that number dropping for Kodi-type setups though. In the grand scheme of things, I just don't see 40% of the US cable subscribers deciding that DVR and sports aren't important anymore and being able to wait 6-12 months before watching the latest season of American Idol or NCIS-whatever.

I could be wrong though as I can't see how so many people consume TV/movie content on phones, tablets or even computer screens that aren't 32" or bigger on a regular basis.
 
I personally believe as more people do slowly switch from paying for cable to streaming services those prices will begin to go up slowly, along with ISPs deciding to either not raise data caps so they can bill you for the "overage" you use each month or sell an addon for your ISP pacakge of "unlimited" data for an extra $50 a month. just my thoughts.
 
This may change if more studios pull out from Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime to start their own like Disney is.
 
I won't be cutting the cord anytime soon because I can't get the shows I want anywhere else, or I would have to subscribe to way too many services to do it. I had Netflix for a long time, but they kept removing my favorite shows and movies (and the selection was terrible anyway) so I dropped them. I had Hulu briefly for one show I was watching, but it takes me so long to get through a season that it was just cheaper to buy the DVD's.

I'm still waiting for a single service that has ALL of the content. Every TV show, every movie, all on demand. I would pay a small fortune for that. But it'll never happen because the content creators are also the content distributors, and they all want their exclusive piece of the pie.
 
Cut the cord a long time ago, I would say I miss the sports and certain events but really those were best watched with Beer, Wings, and Nacho's and the Bar is just easier for that anyways. But as more people cut, guaranteed the internet rates go up to make up the difference in their profit margins and the studio's will each gradually start making their own streaming services to keep their revenues in house and locking their content as exclusive to them.
 
Yeah too bad my FIOS internet only plan is a whopping $10 cheaper than the triple play which includes HD cable and phone service. $10 won't even pay for Sling (which I did try and did not care for too much).

FIOS is my only real reliable option. I've had a cable modem and it went nuts every time it rains.... it's the same cable box in the alley for the last 30 years, only the company name stickers change.
 
We switched to streaming about 3 years ago now. After a while, you really don't miss much and as back catalogs catch up to where you left off, everything becomes new again. We knew we'd have to give up some programming, you can't have everything, but we made it work and it really cut both our monthly budget AND our TV watching.

Now if only the NFL would let me pay them $100 to view just my team. Sigh. Instead they continue to re-up that exclusive deal with DirectTV like a bunch of chodes.
 
Local Cable Co. are fully aware of this and have been for years now. Rate increases every other year for their services at every level and data usage caps. Prior to the caps and net neutrality they would throttle internet service speeds.
 
Once NN is gone, the ISP's will put all the streaming services out of business since they compete with their cable TV service. Netflix won't be so affordable when the ISPs have a 89.99/mo fee to unblock the Netflix servers. VOIP services will meet the same fate.
 
We've been without cable tv for years now, and when we had tv it was only basic. I got tired of that when my bill kept going up every year with nothing to show for it other than whining about maintenance costs. Now we run those little flat antennas on a couple tvs and use Amazon with Plex. Frankly there isn't much worth watching on tv anymore and with limited free time I generally choose to spend it in front of a game on the PC rather than watching some crap reality show or lame sitcom. I miss 30Rock. If you're a die hard sports fan, yeah you're kinda stuck, so thanks for subsidizing the rest of us.

Like others have pointed out though, this "cord cutting" trend (is it a trend?) will only last for so long. Especially if you're in an area where your tv provider is also your ISP. Once the balance tips over to more internet than tv subscribers, well, nothing to stop them from charging you more to make up the difference.
 
Enjoy your savings while they last - since the Cable providers are also our ISPs we can expect them to price accordingly to make up their lost revenue.

A few years ago we (our neighborhood) got fed up with AT&T and Charter, so we started our own Internet co-op for our neighborhood. It is a non-profit and only charges what it has to charge for service. The connections are 20Mb/s up and down. Not the fastest, but more than enough for streaming. The neighborhood association is looking into hosting a Netflix server. Not sure how that will go, but right now, my Internet service is $35.00/month and it is not going up anytime soon.

I am a happy camper.

Oh, I should mention, our neighborhood also hosts events throughout the year with the revenue going towards continued upgrades of the service. It took a while to get it going, but it has been well worth it.
 
I tried to cut the cord, unfortunately Comcast charges me more for a standalone 150mb line than getting an actual cable bundle. I pay for the plan but none of the cable boxes because they charge $5-10/month for each box.
 
When Net Neutrality goes - you can be sure we'll be back at right where we started as the prices will go up and the speeds get slower.

I'm going to need to watch Stranger Things 2 before the 14th.

What if your wrong?

What if the Net Neutrality issues that so many of you believe are real, are just propaganda from the ISPs trying to get us to do what they want us to do, put our nutz in their hands.

You guys write off Pai as a loser sellout. But he's come right out and told us that the NN rules that the FCC put into place weren't going to actually do the things we think they are supposed to do. He says it's a false fix. These same people who are yelling that we must have NN or the ISPs are going to eat us alive also say the FTC can't do anything to the ISPs, but that's not true either.

Everything about NN was by it's very nature, to prevent anti-competitive practices and protect consumers. Exactly what the FTC is empowered to do. The only things that were standing in their way was the FCC Title II classification of the internet and section 5 of the FTA pertaining to common carrier exemptions. The vote on the 14th will remove Title II and the courts look like they want to seriously consider backing the FTC on Section 5 and common carrier exemptions specifically for common carriers that are also ......content providers.

And the court is waiting for their embanc decision on section 5 until .....drum roll please, the FCC vote on Title II reclassification.

Are you guys really so absolutely sure that we haven't all been lied to on a massive scale by ..... the ISPs, a propaganda campaign of epic proportions designed to get us all to line up and take a fucking from them?

Someone was saying the FTC ain't got no teeth, but AT&T is sure as hell trying to dodge a bite from them on exactly this issue.

Looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, walks like a duck ......
 
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Like others have pointed out though, this "cord cutting" trend (is it a trend?) will only last for so long. Especially if you're in an area where your tv provider is also your ISP. Once the balance tips over to more internet than tv subscribers, well, nothing to stop them from charging you more to make up the difference.

I think this. Supply and demand. The demand diminished on one hand, creating opportunity on the other.
 
What if your wrong?

What if the Net Neutrality issues that so many of you believe are real, are just propaganda from the ISPs trying to get us to do what they want us to do, put our nutz in their hands.

You guys write off Pai as a loser sellout. But he's come right out and told us that the NN rules that the FCC put into place weren't going to actually do the things we think they are supposed to do. He says it's a false fix. These same people who are yelling that we must have NN or the ISPs are going to eat us alive also say the FTC can't do anything to the ISPs, but that's not true either.

Everything about NN was by it's very nature, to prevent anti-competitive practices and protect consumers. Exactly what the FTC is empowered to do. The only things that were standing in their way was the FCC Title II classification of the internet and section 5 of the FTA pertaining to common carrier exemptions. The vote on the 14th will remove Title II and the courts look like they want to seriously consider backing the FTC on Section 5 and common carrier exemptions specifically for common carriers that are also ......content providers.

And the court is waiting for their embanc decision on section 5 until .....drum roll please, the FCC vote on Title II reclassification.

Are you guys really so absolutely sure that we haven't all been lied to on a massive scale by ..... the ISPs, a propaganda campaign of epic proportions designed to get us all to line up and take a fucking from them?

Someone was saying the FTC ain't got no teeth, but AT&T is sure as hell trying to dodge a bite from them on exactly this issue.

Looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, walks like a duck ......

If the move were actually good for consumers wall street wouldn't be happy about it. ISPs are up.
 
If the move were actually good for consumers wall street wouldn't be happy about it. ISPs are up.

Wall Street has a ton - and I mean a ton - of energy and capital to spend on stuff like this. They don't always get everything right, clearly, but betting against Wall Street is a tough proposal.
 
That 85% figure might be artificially inflated. I technically still have basic cable because it was bundled with my internet service and cheaper with it than without it, though I never use it.
 
If the move were actually good for consumers wall street wouldn't be happy about it. ISPs are up.


OMG really? There can't be any other explanation for why ISPs are up right now?

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/cmcsa
Hmmm, on the rise until Dec 4/5th, what happened on the 5th? Oh, yesterday's news.

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/t
OK, AT&T down as of the 5th as well. Is it a trend?

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/twx
Time Warner too, my my, I think your on to something.

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/vz
This is getting too good to be true, Verizon is down as of the 5th as well.

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/chtr
Charter Communications down since the 5th.

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ctl
The 5th wasn't a good day for CenturyLink either, what must have happened on the 5th?

What was it that happened on the 5th, something must explain this consistent drop across the ISP sector.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...t-neutrality-vote-despite-pending-court-case/
FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

Followed by;
http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0509/DOC-344803A1.pdf
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission got some good news yesterday when the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit announced it will rehear Federal Trade Commission v. AT&T Mobility en banc.

OK, truth is, it's a minor dip, could be anything. I am not really saying that this small change means anything related to this discussion other than to say that your claim is just as groundless.
 
You guys smh.
Cable is so over rated. I burned that leech off back in 06', and the only reason that I still had it back then was only because I was paying $15 a month for every channel since the wife was working for BrightHouse at the time. Even then I only used it to pirate movies and shows off of the paid channels with a Hauppauge Colossus. In the meantime I was using Bearshare and Emule, than graduated to Bittorent and uTorrent v 3.3.1. With TWC as my ISP with no cap and them not giving a shit about my activities, I get any movie or show I want as soon as it's released. Hell months before it's released sometimes.

Before that I had DirecTV back in 01' that I bought at Wally world for $50 and installed it myself. Got the basic package for $19.99 and found a dude to flash my card(the one with the football player on it) for $100 and had every channel till it got zapped 6 months later.

But nothing compared to the C-band setup I had in the early 90's. No package deals. If you wanted a channel added, you just called them up and told them what you wanted. " That will be 75. a month sir, you can find your new channel on G3-13." I loved that thing until lighting struck the actuator arm. Than I had to go cable. It wasn't that bad back then until it became nothing but reality shows. When MTV and VH1 stopped showing videos and became reality channels, I knew that my cable days were numbered.

I know a lot of you guys don't view piracy in a favorable light, but I'll be damned if I'm going to be jacked for common programming.
 
OMG really? There can't be any other explanation for why ISPs are up right now?

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/cmcsa
Hmmm, on the rise until Dec 4/5th, what happened on the 5th? Oh, yesterday's news.

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/t
OK, AT&T down as of the 5th as well. Is it a trend?

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/twx
Time Warner too, my my, I think your on to something.

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/vz
This is getting too good to be true, Verizon is down as of the 5th as well.

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/chtr
Charter Communications down since the 5th.

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ctl
The 5th wasn't a good day for CenturyLink either, what must have happened on the 5th?

What was it that happened on the 5th, something must explain this consistent drop across the ISP sector.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...t-neutrality-vote-despite-pending-court-case/


Followed by;
http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0509/DOC-344803A1.pdf


OK, truth is, it's a minor dip, could be anything. I am not really saying that this small change means anything related to this discussion other than to say that your claim is just as groundless.

Wall Street was feeling bullish on ISPs when I posted my comment. Stock price changes constantly. ISPs were trending upwards as net neutrality was looking more and more doomed. Look at value over a month. If finance is excited about something it's most likely not good for consumers over the long run. It's a casino, wall street. Short-term wins is the order of the day.
 
Wall Street was feeling bullish on ISPs when I posted my comment. Stock price changes constantly. ISPs were trending upwards as net neutrality was looking more and more doomed. Look at value over a month. If finance is excited about something it's most likely not good for consumers over the long run. It's a casino, wall street. Short-term wins is the order of the day.

Nothing you are saying is false.

Whether it was up, down, or trending is, as I said, most likely immaterial.

I was making my point at the end of the comment that I find it doubtful overall that this has much to do with their stock prices. There are far larger motivators involved.
 
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