I fought the cord, and the cord won
I had it all planned out. Inspired by Macworld contributor Joel Mathis’s recent piece on the subject, I was finally motivated and ready to cancel my cable television subscription. It didn’t work.
The research phase
I’d done my homework. I’d calculated that I was paying $60 per month for a relatively basic cable package. Once I canceled cable, I’d still need the same company for my VoIP phone service and my Internet. Because my cable provider, Optimum Cablevision, employs a “triple play” bundle, I knew that I’d lose the $5 monthly discount that subscribing to all three services afforded me. So, by canceling cable, I’d save $55 per month on my bill.
To make up for the loss of cable television, my plan was to keep my family’s Netflix streaming subscription and add in two other services: We’d pay $79 a year for Amazon Prime, which includes instant streaming of many TV shows and movies, including a variety of kids shows that Netflix doesn’t yet offer. And we’d pay another $8 per month for Hulu Plus so that we could continue to watch current-season television programming from the major networks.
Because I concurred with Joel’s argument in his piece a few weeks back, I’d also invested about $90 in a new Roku box, since—to Joel’s point—the Apple TV just doesn’t offer support for enough services. Having a single set-top box to stream Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu Plus struck me as a superior offering to the Apple TV, especially when you factor in other channels you can add to the Roku for live 24/7 news programming and the like.
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