Cut the cord!

[utee94]

Oh, and I tried to get dual 38" curved Ultrasharps, but the execs took all of those.  My boss has a 40" monitor sitting on his desk.  Which is kind of ridiculous actually, you have to sit back to see it clearly...

[betarhoalphadelta]

LOL... I recently got a new laptop at work and was talking about how I needed all the adapter cables for my monitors for the docking station. The old monitors were kinda flaky too. The IT guy said "well, those are old, and they're not corporate issue. Why don't I bring you some new 27" monitors from [utee's extremely large computer company] to replace them?"

So now I've got two 27" on the desk. Which isn't as nice as what utee's got, but hey, at least I can get SSDs and HDDs real cheap from my company ;-) 

Before I posted about Linux, I did some research on PlayOn. Apparently you can run it in a VM, but people have had some issues running it in a VM successfully due to resource needs. 

[utee94]

Nice.  I've got twin 27s at the office, but I haven't actually been to my office cube in a couple of weeks.

[Thumper]

I work from home only.  The company supplies a laptop with docking station and three 27" monitors.  The monitor size is OK but I could use two or three more.  I probably won't bother changing the setup as this I will be retiring in 14 months.

I moved into this house a little over a year ago and it has been streaming only.  My previous cable was $127/mo which I replace with DirecTV Now for $40 with tax.  DTV Now includes HBO which I didn't have before so that is a big plus.  I got in early and got the Go Big package for that price.  I believe it is $65 now.

I have Netflix and Amazon Prime but I had those when I had cable so it isn't an additional cost.  I added PlayOn for a $50 one time charge and I have CBS All Access for $6/mo.  DirecTV Now has local stations for 75% of it's viewers but I'm in the 25%.  For the rare occasion I want to watch something on the other network stations, I just use the free apps.  DirecTV Now does include NBC Sports and Fox Sports and I can watch ABC Sports via the watchESPN apps.  I didn't miss any games I wanted to see so it was a successful first year IMO.

[utee94]

How much is your Internet-only access?  That factors into your total cost as well, not just the DTVN expense.

If I unbundle from my current Spectrum (formerly Time Warner) cable package, the internet climbs from around $30/month to around $60/month.  So adding another $50-$65/month or so for one of the streaming services, takes me back up to the $110-$125 range. I just rearranged and renegotiated by Spectrum package down to $132/month all-in, so at this point unless I could save $30 or more per month, I'll jut stick with the convenience, ease, and reliability of the cable package.

[Thumper]

Internet prices here (Cox) are awful.  This year mine went up to $80/mo.  $132/mo for internet and cable sounds really good.  Cox bundles are about $139 for the first year then goes up to $179.  That doesn't count their bogus "broadcast fee" of $9.99 and "sports rebroadcast fee" of $6 then the adder for HD of $5 per TV and set top box rental after the first year.  Add taxes and everyone here with Cox is paying $200/mo.

[utee94]

Well, to your point, who knows what Spectrum is going to decide to charge me NEXT year.  The constant monitoring and haggling is certainly tiresome and one of the major reasons I've considered cord-cutting.

For now $132/month isn't bad.  I can actually cut that another $6/mo by getting rid of the one NON-DVR set top box I have.  I've been testing the Spectrum app and it works pretty well through my Smart TVs.  I have one TV that's not Smart, but a $30 Roku express works well and will pay for itself in 5 months, so that's my next cut.

[betarhoalphadelta]

Cox is terrible here as well. I think I spend about $98/mo on Internet, but I do have a higher-end speed plan. Even so, internet-only if I dropped speeds would only *maybe* drop to ~$60-70, and for that I'd have to buy a modem (which I have been planning but putting off) so I don't have to pay their stupid modem rental fee.

[betarhoalphadelta]

I would point out, however, that I wouldn't live without internet, so it's not like internet itself is an added cost. But yes, sometimes internet cost do go up when you're not bundling. I'm not sure it goes up enough to be worth it.

[utee94]

I would point out, however, that I wouldn't live without internet, so it's not like internet itself is an added cost. But yes, sometimes internet cost do go up when you're not bundling. I'm not sure it goes up enough to be worth it.

Yeah, like I said above, for me if I unbundle, the internet-only price goes up about $30/month, which just about eliminates the savings I'd get from dumping the cable TV portion and going with streaming options.
It's almost as if this giant corporation has performed some type of analysis and determined the optimal price for keeping me and other would-be cord-cutters...

[betarhoalphadelta]

Yeah, like I said above, for me if I unbundle, the internet-only price goes up about $30/month, which just about eliminates the savings I'd get from dumping the cable TV portion and going with streaming options.
It's almost as if this giant corporation has performed some type of analysis and determined the optimal price for keeping me and other would-be cord-cutters...

Remember three things when you do the cost analysis:
1) The cable TV portion (and the phone portion if you're paying home phone) may have a bunch of added taxes, fees, etc that often don't get included in these cost analyses. 
2) If you're already paying for Netflix, or Amazon Prime, don't count those in your switching costs. Because you're paying for them on top of cable today.
3) Depending on your watching plans (particularly with the live streaming TV), if you are going to subscribe seasonally, as I do for CFB/NCAAB, make sure that you only account for the months you're paying for the streaming plans. You can't just add/drop with cable the way you can with streaming. If you're not going to make use of that, so be it. But if you're going to drop the live streaming TV services during offseason for sports, you need to include that in the analysis.

[utee94]

I get what you're saying, but it's not really a factor for me.

1) $132 (soon to be $126) is my all-in price including all taxes and fees.  If I dropped cable TV, my all-in price for internet-only would be about $62 including all taxes and fees.  So adding $50 worth of streaming services from Sling or DTVN or Vue or whichever, takes me back up to at least $112.  At that point, I'm not saving enough money to put up with the additional complexities and idiosyncrasies of streaming.  I'd be fine with it, but my i s c & a aggie wife already has a hard enough time simply switching the TV to watch a BluRay.  So it would need to be a very large savings for me to sign myself up for being the sole channel-changing agent in the house.

2) I already have Amazon Prime and am not figuring it into the financial discussion above.  I do not have Netflix and have no interest in adding it.  My wife would probably like it but she already has access to and watches more than enough crap TV.

3) If it were just me then I'd likely drop TV during the offseason (though there isn't really much of that since I watch Formula 1 starting in March, and watch football through December).  But there's no way my wife would go for dropping the streaming TV, so it's a year-round decision for me.

Like I said, they've done some pretty careful analysis to make sure they're priced exactly where they are, for those who would consider cord-cutting.  If I had a Google or AT&T fiber option for internet-only I'd have more options, but currently at my house, I don't have that.

But I do appreciate the continued discussion and insights.  There will likely come a time when I'll cut the cord anyway.

[Thumper]

$126 is a smokin' deal and I would go for that as well.  My last cable bill was $127, did not include HBO or internet and that was over a year ago.

[utee94]

Yeah, it's not bad.  Spectrum has dropped prices from where Time Warner was, at least in my area.

I should mention that this is the very most basic package, no HBO or other premiums.  It has ESPN and ESPN2, FS1 and FS2, NBCSN, and CBSSN, plus LHN, and all locals.  So it covers my sports desires well enough.  It also has AMC and most of the channels my i s c & a aggie wife likes, so it should do, for a while.

But they will inevitably try to start bumping up the price, and renegotiating (aka threatening to leave) gets pretty tiresome year after year.