It's not convenience for me. I ditched cable (satellite, actually) because I deem them too dang expensive for the use I get out of them, and because I don't like the contracts. Me and Mrs. DeTiger basically only use live TV during football season and the odd tennis tournament for her. When the SuperBowl is done....bye. Can't do it with cable and it's far less expensive for the months we do have it cut on anyway.
Agree 100%.
We see these articles coming out all the time, and sometimes they seem like hit pieces against cord-cutting. "OMG it's so confusing and horrible! And if I pay for ALL the content in the world, I'll actually end up paying MORE!"
Personally, I save quite a bit of money.
First, f I had cable, I’d still have Netflix, because they have content I want to watch. If I had cable, I’d still have Amazon Prime (I used it for years for the free shipping before ever trying any of their video services). So I don’t include those in any "cord-cutting" price analysis, because those expenses would be incurred whether I had cable or not.
So the question is whether Internet+TV bundle is lower cost than Internet+streaming separately.
Where I live, there is no internet competition, so my only options are expensive. It’s $103/month for internet and $45/month for Hulu Live TV.
Cable offers a bundle of internet+live TV for $110/mo for 12 months, followed by $238/mo thereafter (2 year contract required). Note, however, that this rate excludes all sorts of taxes and fees, excludes any mandatory regional sports charges, and if you have more than 1 TV, you’ll pay additional equipment charges.
It sounds cheaper, but it isn’t.
- 24 months of my current plan: (103+45)*24 = 3552
- 24 months of Cox internet+TV: 110*12+238*12 = 4176, and that doesn’t include all the added taxes or fees.
So even factoring in bundling and their promotional rates, I’d save at least $600 over 24 months, and then save much more every month thereafter.
Even if you factored in 24 months of Netflix (I still don't count Amazon Prime because I almost never watch it, it's all about the shipping--I wouldn't pay for it as a video service if I wasn't a Prime member) at $16/month, I still come out ahead.
The technology is not perfect, there are some conveniences in the user experience that you're missing with traditional services, but I've used Hulu Live TV and YouTube TV so far, and both are still preferable to what we were doing previously. YouTube in particular even has some advantages over cable/satellite that I enjoy. i.e., it has technology that knows when live games are still going so I don't have to worry about extending my recording 1 hour, 1.5 hours, etc. It knows when there are delays, and things are moved temporarily to other channels, so it starts itself and stops when and where it's supposed to. And my fave.....click one button and record every college football game on every channel? Yes please. Unlimited DVR, so what do I care?
What do you think of Youtube TV relative to Hulu Live TV? I originally ruled out Youtube when I moved off Sling as they didn't have the Food Network (a must in my household), but they list it now.
I can't stand the Hulu UI, and think Youtube might be better there. How is their on-demand library? Do they have a good on-demand library, or is it basically all about live and DVR content?