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Have any american dakkanauts cut the cable? If so what alternative did you go to? Hulu? Sling?

I may be cutting the cable soon, I have netflix already but don't use it much. I was thinking of sling and digital antenna for local stuff.

I'd appreciate any advice anyone here has.

Not US, as I’m in the U.K.

I’ve relied solely on streaming services for the past few years, as I can’t even get a satellite signal in my flat.

At first it was a “I’ll see how it goes’ arrangement. But I’ve never looked back. No more adverts during programmes, unless I’m watching All4 (a free streaming service for Channel 4), or watching something live on NowTV.

I’ve possibly overdone it on subscriptions (Netflix, Prime, BritBox, Disney+, WWE Network, NowTV). But those are easier to ditch than a TV Package - and I can dip in and out. Looking at ditching NowTV this month, and Netflix once this season of Discovery has finished.

Should they air something I’m keen to see, I can wait for a complete release, and sign up again for a month or so.

When I lived in the US, I never used cable. Had a TV (projector actually), but it was just hooked up to a computer and used it for netflix, youtube, itunes, blurays, whatever and we used it as a cinema room.

Living back in Australia, I haven't owned my own TV in the past 15 or so years. I've had housemates who owned TV's, but again I just plug in the laptop and use it like that.

But then if I get overly bored with TV I throw on a video game, so never been overly bound by what being broadcast on the idjit box.

I find Netflix and Disney+ keep me entertained enough.

I’m OK with missing some stuff. Including the crazy prices the cable company was charging. It’s bad enough just for internet.

I haven't had cable in 10 years. I have Netflix and the amazon prime video thing, but tell the truth I don't tend to watch those all that much. Most of the stuff I follow nowadays is on youtube and podcasts.

I've got a little chromecast thingy that I can take whatever's on my computer screen and throw it up on the TV. So if I need to watch something like the superbowl, or a politically neutral dakka compliant news debate, or the olympics or some such other thing, I can just stream it from wherever the company throws it up online.

The funniest thing to me and my partner recently was that we were watching cable news for the first time in several years during the politically neutral american everyone fills in a bubble on a piece of paper and puts it in a big box festival, and they didn't actually bother streaming their commercial breaks online. They'd just put up a little intermission screen that said "COMMERCIAL". And every time, it was long enough that we would entirely forget that we had the news on and it would just hardcut back on with swooshy graphics and loud music and we'd both jump a foot in the air.

Just a solid 5 minutes of silence in which we'd have enough time to get engrossed in whatever we were doing, or get a conversation going, and then

SWOOSH BOOM CLANK I'M NEWS JOHNSON WITH NEWS CO HERE WITH AN IMPORTANT NEWS!

Honestly, I've never paid for cable in any place I've lived as an adult, any place that had it (like dorms) it was provided as part of the housing cost, and even that was many moons ago. In the last 16 years, I've had access to cable TV for less than 36 months.

For me personally, I'd only watch a couple channels, everything else was just noise, and even those couple channels I'd only watch a couple things, and for those I'd have to watch at specific times and sit through ads that feel like someone physically crapping into my skull. Ads alone are enough reason to not watch cable.

I've always been able to find much more convenient and accessible ways to watch stuff than cable, it's gotten to the point where there's so many avenues for quality content that even torrenting/pirating stuff feels like too much work, and I don't know anyone my age or younger who buys cable these days.

I never even had cable, and I am OLD!

I have a Netflix account as well, and I use it semi-regularly. I have to admit, it has been going down hill as Digital Streaming has Balkanized so badly over the years. I have thought about cancelling it a lot recently and going with NO Streaming service at all.

Honestly, I find stuff to watch on YouTube and Tubi a lot. Sure there are ads, but I don't watch enough TV to care. All the Ads actually seem interesting and novel to me because typically I haven't seen them before!

I ignore local stuff as it is mostly terri-bad and I can find game highlight recaps on YouTube or elsewhere if I am interested in a sporting event.

Cut it.... you won't look back.

You tube tv is pretty good. if you have amazon prime, you get prime tv for free.

I got rid of cable and threw out my tv a decade+ ago, been using primewire and YouTube watching everything I want for free.

Yep. Cable is a scam; there's nothing on it worth the money. If you have a decent internet connection streaming is the way to go.

Yep. Get cable internet where all possible.

Then, just stream whatever... I have amazon prime, netflix and CBS All access. My wife has Hulu, Disney+ and AppleTV.

And all of those are still cheaper than the cable TV packages we've had.

US with Hulu, Disney+ and Netflix. If not for the preferences of others in my household I would probably go down to rotating Hulu/Disney vs Netflix monthly depending on what I wanted watch.

 Easy E wrote:
I never even had cable, and I am OLD!

I have a Netflix account as well, and I use it semi-regularly. I have to admit, it has been going down hill as Digital Streaming has Balkanized so badly over the years. I have thought about cancelling it a lot recently and going with NO Streaming service at all.

Honestly, I find stuff to watch on YouTube and Tubi a lot. Sure there are ads, but I don't watch enough TV to care. All the Ads actually seem interesting and novel to me because typically I haven't seen them before!

I ignore local stuff as it is mostly terri-bad and I can find game highlight recaps on YouTube or elsewhere if I am interested in a sporting event.

Cut it.... you won't look back.

If you watch youtube via your PC/laptop plugged into your TV, you can use an ad blocker.

It's good to support channels you watch frequently by not blocking the ads, but I haven't found an easy way to block ads on youtube in general while allowing ads on specific channels.

It increasingly seems like it's harder for content creators to make money off YT's business model anyway, so a lot of folk you can donate through Patreon or through superchats on live streams.

Got rid of cable a couple years ago, currently getting rid of streaming services. HBOMax and Netflix are not worth it imho.

We have a Plex server set up, converted all our DVDs to the cloud a while ago and can watch them anytime we want. Most of our local newscasts are on YouTube, we catch up on things a couple times a week. I know I could get an HD antenna but haven't found a good reason.

While recent events have turned me off sports, there's ways to get live broadcasts...

Honestly, we spend more time videoconferencing with relatives than we do watching TV.

UK person here, so not quite the same as US market, but I've found that streaming pretty much works for us and have never paid for cable/satellite TV. Not sure if it's the same in the US but we have a pretty flexible system in the UK so when it came to watching GoT, for example, we just subscribed to NowTV for a couple of months instead of tying ourselves into a contract with Sky.

I've found that as long as you get over the dreaded FOMO it doesn't massively matter which services you use. There'll be something on all of them and when there isn't YT is becoming my go-to for brainless visual entertainment.

I've been using automated usenet apps to feed my Plex server since about 2009, has worked well for me.

We haven't cut the cable yet, but are probably going to soon. All of our TVs are smart tvs, and even Comcast is pushing their streaming TV app on us rather than set top boxes. We'll have to keep them for the internet.. but for TV we're going to use Sling for live TV, and we already have Hulu, Disney, Netflix and HBO Max but that's included with comcast right now. I'd like to maybe add CBS to the list for those star trek shows.

Commenting from the UK here, Sports is the big area that I've 'cut the cable for'. I've got no interest in Football (soccer) but the major sports channels (Sky and BT Sport) don't let you cut that element out of the package, even if I just wanted to watch MotoGP on BT sport for example. I know the cost of those access rights is what keeps the monthly premiums so high, so it works out much cheaper to go for internet streaming service instead. Eurosport package is pretty reasonable, I get some tennis coverage as part of Amazon Prime, and direct streaming from Motogp.com and NFL Gamepass if I wanted to watch that (although there is a Monday night free-to-view channel which I've been subsisting on for the time being, along with the BBC's limited highlights coverage.

Brit here. Never bothered with cable/satellite. Could have got a cheap satellite deal through our broadband provider but wasn't worth it. Our TV came with Freeview built in which when combined with Netflix, Disney +, Prime Video and BBC/ITV Hub (both free anyway), it easily covers anything we're interested in.

I did have NowTV for a while (got 3 months free in that McDonalds Monopoly subscription). I used it for GoT and Chernobyl before cancelling. Nothing else of note on there and the app was absolute crap to navigate.

I've watched maybe 60 minutes of free to air TV in the last year.

Netflix, Disney+ and youtube is enough for me.
I am not a subscriber for youtube but just watch alot on it.

I would consider Amazon Prime as they have some great shows but the sheer volume on Netflix and the targeted stuff on Disney+ and 2 kids and wife to watch them as well mean I have way more than will ever need.