Cord-Cutters Are Not All Young Hipsters

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If by "young hipsters" they mean "people tired of being bent over by the cable company," I guess we can all be considered hipsters now. ;)

Utter the phrase “cord-cutter” to the average person and the image of bearded, binge-watching young urbanites will instantly spring to mind, but the full picture of people without a traditional pay-TV subscription is a bit more complex. According to data from Nielsen Media, cable cord-cutting is being driven not just by younger consumers, but also by low-income households, and often households where at least one child is present.
 
I actually just turned off U-Verse TV last weekend because the only thing I've watched since I moved into my new apartment in October was the Doctor Who Christmas episode and the last season of Nurse Jackie. Any time I ever try to watch something, I feel like I need to take a class in navigating the stupid cable box. Too many useless channels, you can't search by channel name, the DVR functionality was complete crap (if I wanted to record the first run of a particular show it had no way of adjusting if the air time of the show changed, so it wouldn't record the show). The end result is I often end up needing to download the show anyways.

Netflix/Prime/Hulu/etc are nice because you don't have to bother recording the show you want to watch plus its commercials and you aren't bound to a contract to keep your price down and have to renegotiate it every year by threatening to cancel service. Cable companies need a much more modular approach to their system if they want to survive the era of cord cutting, rather than stupid bundles that people might want 1 or 2 channels out of 500.
 
I haven't had or watched cable tv in many years. Scheduling apart, commercials are the ultimate deal breaker. When you start watching the things you love continuously without interruption, there is no going back to that every 12 minutes pause for 5 minutes so we can blast you out with a bunch of silly crap nonsense.
 
I cut my cord 3 years ago, no regrets I miss fox business its a great channel but not worth a cabel bill so I listen on Sirius. Cable is shit I'm tired of being told what to do. Whether it's government or people or companies I'm just tired of it. I spend my money now where I get everything I want and if a company doesn't do that they don't get my money no matter how much I like something specific they provide
 
Cut the cord 2 years ago. We are a family of 5 in a tiny Canadian town. Cable rates kept going up while there was nothing worth watching. Netflix (CDN version) + Crunchyroll (Premium) means there's always something to watch and no useless ads.
 
I'm planning on cutting the cord at the end of the month, and hopefully it goes well, and I'm using part of the cost savings to increase my

My wife, son and I mostly watch Netflix, but I'm going to try a HD antenna in the hopes of getting the locals, other than a couple shows on them I'll have to figure out something for the Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead (is AMC still free on, was it Roku?)

Not to hijack this thread, but does any current cord cutters have any advice for someone just about to cut the cord?
 
I'm planning on cutting the cord at the end of the month, and hopefully it goes well, and I'm using part of the cost savings to increase my

My wife, son and I mostly watch Netflix, but I'm going to try a HD antenna in the hopes of getting the locals, other than a couple shows on them I'll have to figure out something for the Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead (is AMC still free on, was it Roku?)

Not to hijack this thread, but does any current cord cutters have any advice for someone just about to cut the cord?

SlingTV.
 
I'm planning on cutting the cord at the end of the month, and hopefully it goes well, and I'm using part of the cost savings to increase my

My wife, son and I mostly watch Netflix, but I'm going to try a HD antenna in the hopes of getting the locals, other than a couple shows on them I'll have to figure out something for the Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead (is AMC still free on, was it Roku?)

Not to hijack this thread, but does any current cord cutters have any advice for someone just about to cut the cord?

You can try Sling TV. It's 20 bucks a month. it has AMC. I did get it for the occasional basketball on ESPN and TNT.
 
Isn't it all just "television"?

I cut cable because of advertisements:

In program advertisements
Length of advertisements
Number of advertisement sections

Don't pay to watch advertisements. Simple.
 
This grumpy bastard got broke, so had to cut the cord. Finally got un-broke, too bad for them though. Grumpy bastard decided he liked cheap commercial free goodness.
 
Not to hijack this thread, but does any current cord cutters have any advice for someone just about to cut the cord?

  • Decide if you can survive without cable sports and cable news. Nothing kills a room like a house guest trying to watch the local ball game on your TV and discovering you're cord-cut.
  • Find out if you have decent OTA reception in your area. Local news is important if severe weather rolls around.
  • Consider if you're willing to pay-per-episode or buy season passes (Amazon/iTunes/Google Play) to the cable-only shows you still want to watch. If you're aren't willing to buy, will you be willing to wait a year for those shows to show up on Netflix/Amazon Prime? Are you willing to go thru pirated sources to get your Walking Dead or Game of Thrones fix?
  • It is not uncommon for cord-cut households to exceed their ISP's data cap. SuperHD on Netflix is 5-6 Mbps; and that piles on fast if that's your only entertainment. Find out what how your ISP penalizes you if you do.
  • Your ISP / cable company will probably charge you an arm and a leg for just internet service without bundling additional services. This is how they're dealing with vanishing cable subscribers.

I'm 47. Have never been a hipster. I cut in 2009, and the only channels I really miss are The Weather Channel and Turner Classic Movies. But more importantly, my viewing habits have changed to where I dislike watching live TV. It's not the commercials- it's simply the time sink and the inability to pause. I did the 90day trial of SlingTV and cancelled last month. I can't recommend it unless you have to have ESPN. The quality of the linear/live stream is not as good as on-demand, and it never will be.

But full-disclosure, I have a lot of cord-cutting devices to feed the three TV sets in my home. Two TiVo DVRs, two Rokus, a Fire TV, two Fire TV sticks, a HDHomeRun and a roof-mounted antenna. Subscriptions to Prime, Netflix and Hulu. But I'm still saving hundreds compared to cable boxes/DVRs/cable cards to feed those same three TV sets.
 
I don't really count as a cable cutter since my internet is provided by cable, and the base 80 or so channels come through if you have cable internet regardless of whether you are paying for cable or not with my current provider..

I don't really watch TV except Netflix occasionally though, so maybe it does count.
 
Cord cutters aren't really cutting a cord at all. They're like changing how they view the exact same stuff they were watching before. Its more like cord exchange not cutting. It might be less expensive. It might not have commercials. It's still passively watching video content.

Cutting the cord, I think, would mean getting rid of all little video boxes like cable, Roku, Fire TV, Google TV or whatever else and kicking the video watching addiction altogether. It's pretty easy to do. I did it and I miss it like not at all, though I do admit that it was pretty hard the first couple of weeks until I figured out there's a whole other world of stuff to do and that it's okay not to constantly be surrounded by TV noise (OMG those people that like have a TV on all the time because they're uncomfortable with silence...they're scary to me now.)
 
Young people have too short of attention spans to endure the 10 minutes of commercials per 20 minutes of content.

...And nor do I.
And $70 cable vs $8 Netflix is a pretty obvious choice, too.

Unless you need specific content that isn't (yet) available online, there's just no damn value proposition with cable TV.
 
I watched Netflix for 6 mo's cause I froze my DirecTV account due to moving afterward and charges, yada yada yada. Anyway, Im still in my DTv contract. I caught an episode of Blackish (s1e19)....so funny how they made emphasis on commercials

The kids were filiming a "real world" film and watched an old version of the Real World. They mentioned how horrible it was to not have DVR and sit through the commercials and how once you watched something it could never be watched again, obviously until it came out on VHS/DVD. I cant find a quoted script, but I was laughing hard at the nostalgia it brought.
 
Cord cutters aren't really cutting a cord at all. They're like changing how they view the exact same stuff they were watching before. Its more like cord exchange not cutting. It might be less expensive. It might not have commercials. It's still passively watching video content.

Cutting the cord, I think, would mean getting rid of all little video boxes like cable, Roku, Fire TV, Google TV or whatever else and kicking the video watching addiction altogether. It's pretty easy to do. I did it and I miss it like not at all, though I do admit that it was pretty hard the first couple of weeks until I figured out there's a whole other world of stuff to do and that it's okay not to constantly be surrounded by TV noise (OMG those people that like have a TV on all the time because they're uncomfortable with silence...they're scary to me now.)

Naaaaaahhh, your getting a little bit too pedantic. The term is never literal. Most people that are cord cutters still have internet through that same cord. No need to go Amish on our asses.

Simply put: Did you give up traditional (paid) Cable or Satellite TV? Then you are a cord cutter. cord-cutter is the term for the disruptive force against their historic revenue stream

Like mentioned above, even if you get and enjoy basic channels OTA, or pay for alternatives like Netflix, Prime or even Hulu, then you are still a cord cutter.
 
Chopped it, what, 7 or so years ago. Had HD DirectTV and, well.. F that. Probably had zero TV for a year and then made a real nice OTA antenna array. Between Netflix/Amazon (I switch back and forth quite often depending on programming) and good old OTA, I have more crap than I have time to watch it.
 
I've been a cord-cutter just over a year now, and love it. OTA is awesome, even though I only get 40 channels, but that's where the internet kicks in.

cut the cord = get more choices. Weird.
 
My family "cut the cord" long ago, but I bought them Roku awhile back so they'd actually have something to watch.
 
I haven't cut it. Once I can get all my sports through another means then I'll be all over it. Sling TV looks promising but no DVR support and it doesn't have all the channels I actually watch.
 
If it was up to me, I'd cut the cord. Too much money, for too many worthless channels.
However, the family still has some shows they like to watch that are unavailable elsewhere.
Plus I have a HTPC/DVR with a 4 channel tuner, so we just record anything we might be interested in and watch it later (and skip the commercials). Rarely do we ever watch live TV, and when we do, it's usually the news.

It would be easier to cut the cord if I could at least get local channels, but I get no TV channels as I'm on the wrong side of the hill from the transmitters.

Now, COX is changing their service. No more analog channels, and no local clear Qam channels. Everything is going to be encrypted, so every TV now requires a cable box. That removes the main reason I stuck with them, the ability to connect a couple other lightly used TV's (like in the guest room). Guess it's time to haul these old tube TV's to recycling since we rarely watch them anyways, and when my current discount with COX runs out, I'll have to compare the pricing to satellite.
 
If it was up to me, I'd cut the cord. Too much money, for too many worthless channels.
However, the family still has some shows they like to watch that are unavailable elsewhere.
Plus I have a HTPC/DVR with a 4 channel tuner, so we just record anything we might be interested in and watch it later (and skip the commercials). Rarely do we ever watch live TV, and when we do, it's usually the news.

It would be easier to cut the cord if I could at least get local channels, but I get no TV channels as I'm on the wrong side of the hill from the transmitters.

Now, COX is changing their service. No more analog channels, and no local clear Qam channels. Everything is going to be encrypted, so every TV now requires a cable box. That removes the main reason I stuck with them, the ability to connect a couple other lightly used TV's (like in the guest room). Guess it's time to haul these old tube TV's to recycling since we rarely watch them anyways, and when my current discount with COX runs out, I'll have to compare the pricing to satellite.

I have cox have been using a HDHomerun prime for a few years now. Its $2 a month per cablecard. This method has saved me a bunch of money not having to pay receiver fees. Where I live I don't get certain channels through OTA.
 
Will be cutting the cord in a week. Sling TV and Hulu along with OTA antenna will provide plenty of content for my house. Living on a fixed income I had to cut expenses and Direct TV was one that just had to go....
 
My aunt cut the cord, and neither she nor her wife could ever be confused with young or hipster.

If it weren't for a few specific channels, I'd cut the cord myself. I could survive with streaming-only content, but some of the stuff I live on would have to be obtained illegally, and I feel like at least some of what I consume should be done legally.
 
I cut the cord two years ago and I think the best sign that it was a good move is I don't even think about cable/TV and not having it anymore.

I thought there would be teething pains after I pulled the plug, but not a single one. TV has become such utter crap over the past 20 years, and anything at all that's worth watching eventually comes to Netflix/Amazon/HBO Go.
 
Ditto. Cutting, with glee. Swapping internet provider, as well, just to emphasize the point to TWC.
 
Naaaaaahhh, your getting a little bit too pedantic. The term is never literal. Most people that are cord cutters still have internet through that same cord. No need to go Amish on our asses.

Simply put: Did you give up traditional (paid) Cable or Satellite TV? Then you are a cord cutter. cord-cutter is the term for the disruptive force against their historic revenue stream

Like mentioned above, even if you get and enjoy basic channels OTA, or pay for alternatives like Netflix, Prime or even Hulu, then you are still a cord cutter.

Well I do get that the term is broadly applied to people who are like giving up conventional TV services AND there's nothing wrong with keeping some video entertainment around...there are people who grew up with it and it's important to them so go for it.

I just think that if you're gonna do it, the best thing to do first is to try going without altogether for a few months. Like set something realistic like 3 months so you can get over the psychological withdraw symptoms and everything as well as figure out how to get information and entertainment elsewhere. Also, giving yourself a huge superiority complex and looking down your nose at TV watching people as less than you helps a lot. Then when you do get a chance to see TV again, you'll feel sort of disgusted by the big screens, commercials, rapid flashing from one stimulus image to the next to keep your attention and other stuff. It's a weird feeling because it's both awesome to be able to distance yourself that way and sad to see how many people can't.

On a side note, the short attention span thing is mostly, I think, in older people that grew into TV. People who are younger and don't assign importance to it or are accustomed to watching all the time have a much greater ability to focus on a single thing-y for longer that older people who are TV watchers can't.
 
No idea what the sudden craze is surrounding "cord cutting"
I did this back in the 90s. I didn't have cable, (didn't want it), had a beeper, and when the company issues me a cell phone I dropped my land line.
I was a young buck and I stayed out and going; never home much. This didn't change till I got married. Wife objected to not having a phone or cable like we were on skid row.
Back to a land line and Cable TV until about 2 years ago; dropped both again. This time she was agreeable since even she thought cable programming was garbage. We both always have a cell phone strapped to our hip; why do we need a land line?

Skid row isn't so bad. :D
 
I'm currently (Until the end of August), contractually obligated to pay for cable (technically IPTV) because it was the cheapest way to get the Internet access I wanted and I didn't have the option of many different providers. I don't actually watch it, most shows only have 22 episodes a season and there are 52 weeks in a year. That means most of the time it's nothing but worthless reruns of crap I've already seen. Add that the artificial (especially because it's IPTV) abstractions of "channels" and "timeslots" and it's like the old-time media providers simply don't want us to pay them any money. They could easily have profitable services that people wanted, but instead they'd rather just continue providing 99% unwanted content. It's idiotic and I'm cancelling as soon as I can.
 
Cut cable almost 10yrs ago. Have antenna & Media Center. Subscribed to Netflix 2yrs ago. No cell phones either. Leave a message @ the beep.
 
All the REAL hipsters buy their content on iTunes at ridiculous prices.
 
Cut the cord months ago, very happy with my $120.00 a month savingzz. I got a good antenna and the Tivo OTA for the wife's programs, she loves it. I want to get Sling TV but I really really wish they had a DVR! Does anyone know anything about that or what is coming down the road?
 
I have cox have been using a HDHomerun prime for a few years now. Its $2 a month per cablecard. This method has saved me a bunch of money not having to pay receiver fees. Where I live I don't get certain channels through OTA.

I've never had a cable box, and I don't want one now.

I have a cable card with a quad tuner in my HTPC, so we always watch TV through the computer.
I might move our XBOX 360, so I can use it as an extender for the HTPC, and use it to watch TV in a different room.

We also have COX at work, where we have several large TV's we use as monitors during meetings.
These TV's are also connected to cable, so now I have to install cable boxes on all of them so they can continue to use them occasionally as a TV :(
At least they have a new mini cable box I can shove behind the wall mount TV's.
 
We had the "package" plan .. phone and 4 million channels .. saved a $100 a month by going with netflix and plex for viewing entertainment .. and then using Nettalk Duo for our home phone. I have an HD antenna hooked up, but we never watch local TV .. Commercials Suck!

We kept the Live Gold account active through our multiple Xbox 360's and now our XBONE.

everything we do is watchable through our 3 computers, Roku 1 and Xbone.
 
I've had people in their 50s and 60s ask me about it. Problem is usually they don't have broadband.
 
I've never had a cable box, and I don't want one now.

I have a cable card with a quad tuner in my HTPC, so we always watch TV through the computer.
I might move our XBOX 360, so I can use it as an extender for the HTPC, and use it to watch TV in a different room.

We also have COX at work, where we have several large TV's we use as monitors during meetings.
These TV's are also connected to cable, so now I have to install cable boxes on all of them so they can continue to use them occasionally as a TV :(
At least they have a new mini cable box I can shove behind the wall mount TV's.

That is what I do with mine I had the quad tuner but switched it out of the two HDHomerun Primes.

I put xbox 360s in all the bedrooms. I buy them off ebay for around $70. After a year its alot cheaper then you pay for receivers.
 
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