I've been off of TV service for going on 4 years now. I can't tell you how much this one decision has benefitted my life! I originally made the decision to save money, since I had already been primarily watching Netflix shows and movies more often than TV networks. But then another side effect revealed itself immediately after canceling my cable service... I started watching WAYYYY less television than I ever did before. The wife, too. We both noticed that the TV stayed off more than it was ever on, and that lack of background noise has been peaceful. Then we noticed that while we watched anything on Netflix, the lack of commercials helped us to stay focused on what we were watching so that we really get into our shows more. We never realized how badly the commercials affected our television viewing experience until they were removed from our lives, and it has been wonderful.
We started off using a Home Theater PC that I built for the purpose, but soon I realized how unnecessary that was, and bought a Roku to replace it. The HTPC was repurposed as a DAW for recording music in my home studio. So I have been using a Roku for several years now, until just a few months ago when I bought a Chromecast, which has completely replaced the Roku. Now we just call shows up on the smart phone, through any app necessary, whether Netflix, or YouTube, or whatever, and stream it straight to the TV, without the need for an extra streaming box. I gave my Roku to my parents so that they, too, could cancel their cable service. I recommend everyone do the same, actually.
The only down side to this type of TV watching is that you can't watch stuff that is being aired on the networks as it is being aired. In other words, you can't be the type that NEEDS to watch the brand new episode of whatever so that you can talk to your friends about it the next day at the water cooler. That hasn't been a problem for us. We couldn't care less about waiting. A lot of shows require us to wait an entire year before they show up on Netflix, if at all. Other shows require us to wait until the following day, before it shows up on the network's website or app, like HBO and Showtime. (If you have friends who pay for premium channels with their cable service, ask them for their password to access the on demand service... These networks have openly announced that they have no problem with password sharing). And things like sports games are probably completely inaccessible to streaming boxes. It's a good thing my wife and I don't give a fuck about sportsball.
Life has gotten so much better since I gave cable the middle finger. I didn't even expect 90% of the benefits that resulted from it. I would say that there is literally only ONE thing that has sucked about not watching regular TV anymore: because we don't see commercials, we never see any movie trailers, so we never know what movies are coming out or when, so it's a big hassle every time we want to have movie night, because we don't know what to watch! But we are remedying that by utilizing more word-of-mouth recommendations by friends and family.
We started off using a Home Theater PC that I built for the purpose, but soon I realized how unnecessary that was, and bought a Roku to replace it. The HTPC was repurposed as a DAW for recording music in my home studio. So I have been using a Roku for several years now, until just a few months ago when I bought a Chromecast, which has completely replaced the Roku. Now we just call shows up on the smart phone, through any app necessary, whether Netflix, or YouTube, or whatever, and stream it straight to the TV, without the need for an extra streaming box. I gave my Roku to my parents so that they, too, could cancel their cable service. I recommend everyone do the same, actually.
The only down side to this type of TV watching is that you can't watch stuff that is being aired on the networks as it is being aired. In other words, you can't be the type that NEEDS to watch the brand new episode of whatever so that you can talk to your friends about it the next day at the water cooler. That hasn't been a problem for us. We couldn't care less about waiting. A lot of shows require us to wait an entire year before they show up on Netflix, if at all. Other shows require us to wait until the following day, before it shows up on the network's website or app, like HBO and Showtime. (If you have friends who pay for premium channels with their cable service, ask them for their password to access the on demand service... These networks have openly announced that they have no problem with password sharing). And things like sports games are probably completely inaccessible to streaming boxes. It's a good thing my wife and I don't give a fuck about sportsball.
Life has gotten so much better since I gave cable the middle finger. I didn't even expect 90% of the benefits that resulted from it. I would say that there is literally only ONE thing that has sucked about not watching regular TV anymore: because we don't see commercials, we never see any movie trailers, so we never know what movies are coming out or when, so it's a big hassle every time we want to have movie night, because we don't know what to watch! But we are remedying that by utilizing more word-of-mouth recommendations by friends and family.