Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Sling TV are slowly killing the Industry I'm in. I see the big picture. But my Millennial children don't get it. 18 to 35 year old cord cutters like to brag about the money their saving. All the while paying 61 dollars for internet. 7.99 for Hulu. 9.99 for Netflix. 8.33 for Amazon Prime and 20 dollars a month for Sling T.V. just to get ESPN 1 live.
66.99 starting March 3rd, actually. Another rate hike, YAY! /s
If I had cable TV (almost 6 years free), I'd probably still have at least Netflix, because Netflix offers me things that Cable doesn't and for a fraction of their price. OnDemand generally only works for the current season stuff (which can be covered by Hulu Plus for a lot of things). Netflix is also $7.99 a month for streaming only. I haven't had their disk service since they split the services in two. It's 9.99 if you want the option of 1 BluRay disk out at a time, instead of 1 DVD.
I didn't have Amazon Prime for their streaming service, just the spread-out shipping costs. Their browsing capabilities were crap. Even with the shipping, I didn't buy as much from them last year, so whenever it came up for renewal in December, I cancelled it to save some cash to go towards the house. And saying that people are paying 8.33 for just video is disingenuous.
I don't have a HuluPlus account, as there wasn't enough stuff on there that I was interested in. Plus, if I wait between 3 days to a week, the current episodes will show up there for free.
If I want to see any shows the next day, I prefer to buy a season pass on iTunes or Amazon Video for it. This is only 2 or 3 shows a year.
As far as SlingTV goes, I got it because I was interested in DIY, HGTV, and Cooking Channel/Food Network, putting me in the $25/month tier. I'm probably going to drop it, as I'm tired of those f'ing "Building Alaska" commercials. It's a good start, but not quite there. The app doesn't work with Chromecast or AirPlay, so that's another downside. For this fix, I'll go back to streaming episodes from those networks on Ulive.com (with minimal commercials).
And for local stuff? OTA antenna. The new house came with an older attic model that works really damn well. Super grateful for the digital signal conversion push, even if it did subsidize a bunch of conversion boxes that people really didn't need.
If I wanted "Cox TV Advanced", (the second tier, first one with OnDemand), it's $40/month for 12 months, but 74.99 after that (for up to one year).
This doesn't even include the Receiver rental, which is required for OnDemand and/or PVR capabilities (an additional 8.99 per month). Add in the monthly taxes and service charges, and even for the first 12 months, you're still paying about 60$ a month, and then almost $100 a month after that, and for 220 channels, of which I'd watch maybe 20 or 30? Theoretically, you could call and threaten to cancel at 12 months, but that's just an idiotic practice.
No thanks.