 |
With streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Sling, HBO, YouTube TV, PlayStation Vue, and many more it continues to get easier and easier to finally cut the cord. Many traditional cable television stations even have their own app where you can watch your favorite shows on.
I myself am one those 56.6 million consumers that do not pay for cable TV. For myself, it is much cheaper to use these streaming services instead of cable. Since I am only paying for internet I just have to find the streaming services that make sense for my budget. One example is Hulu. Spotify Premium and Hulu are giving a deal to college students where it is $4.99 a month to use both services.
Not only is it cheaper for me to cut the cord, but I also get better quality from these streaming services. For most streaming services I am able to stream in 4k, whereas with cable I would never be able to get that type of quality.
There are some negatives that are involved with cutting the cord that may deter some people. One big one is if you do not have the best internet speeds. The recommended internet speed for streaming in HD is 5Mbps and 25Mbps for 4k. This does not sound like a lot, but in some parts of the home where dead zones occur, this could turn your streaming experience into an unusable, buffering mess. Another one that I have personally run into is data limits. Some ISP's have a data limit on their internet, and if your household is constantly streaming you could reach or exceed that limit. My data limit for Cox is 1TB, which I have exceeded in the past and it became an additional cost to buy additional data.
Overall, I do think the benefits of cord-cutting outweigh the negatives. I also believe that streaming is the future of entertainment consumption.
Links cited: https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/13/56-6-million-u-s-consumers-to-go-without-pay-tv-this-year-as-cord-cutting-accelerates/
Questions:
1. Do you still use and pay for traditional cable? Why or why not?
2. What are some of your favorite streaming platforms to use?
3. What are your overall thoughts about this cord-cutting movement?
Hello AJ !
ReplyDeleteI do not pay for cable and have not had it in the household for over a decade. I adopted Netflix very early and never went back, the price for amount of content is a steal. I believe the cord cutting movement is positive thing for competition.
I could not agree with you more, AJ – cord-cutting is definitely a growing trend that is beating cable tv. I also believe the so-called smart tvs are also contributing in this trend as they incorporate different streaming platforms in the form of apps to make it even simpler for a user to select the specific platform and stream content. Personally, I have traditional cable, but do not pay for it (it is part of the “free” services provided by my apartment complex). However, I find myself most of the times streaming content via Netflix or YouTube – by having my laptop connected to my Wi-Fi connection. To me, it is cheaper to just pay for the content you will actually stream by choosing specific platforms as opposed to paying for traditional cable and not watching most of the content available. For instance, my favorite streaming platforms are Netflix and Spotify. Great post about how the cord-cutting movement is disrupting traditional cable tv!
ReplyDeleteHi AJ, I wrote something similar in my blog post focusing on a subscription to YouTube Red. I also believe that cord cutting is definitely a trend today. I no longer pay for traditional cable and didn't even think once about purchasing it when I moved into a house near campus. I currently have subscriptions to Netflix and Spotify which I share with my family. I also have access to other subscriptions like Hulu because of my friends. My friends give me access to their accounts and let me watch pretty much whenever I want. However, there are some limitations to how many people can be watching on one subscription at a time, but it doesn't happen very often where my friend and I are on at the same time. Other than that, I think having a subscription is honestly a way better deal and gives the even better benefits.
ReplyDeleteI personally don't remember when I stopped using cable. I was probably a sophomore in high school when I started to discover services such as YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix. I think this is a great thing. When I watch cable TV at a friends house I feel like I am just watching commercials the entire time. Sometimes the commercial break are actually longer than the show and you just fell like you are wasting your time. This is why I made the switch to streaming services like Netflix. However, there is always an issue with net neutrality at this point. We may be paying the same or more to watch streaming services in the near future if companies decide that they want to charge you more for using services from Netflix or YouTube. In the end, I cut the cable a long time ago and I really don't see myself going back.
ReplyDelete