Cutting The Cable Cord

They say the only things that are guaranteed in life are death and taxes. That might be true for our grandparents and parents but over the last year, one other thing has been guaranteed in my life. At the end of every month, an email arrives in my inbox from the cable company to alert me that they’ve charged my credit card. I then sit there and shake my head for a few minutes, wondering where it all went wrong.

Exact prices may vary by location and provider but the prices for basic service still easily fall north of $100 per month. Sure, big picture, that doesn’t seem like a lot but when you factor in different package options and additional channels, the price just climbs and climbs. I figured there had to be a better way, so when I moved to Las Vegas late last year, I knew it was time to cut the cord.

Las Vegas cable companies wanted to charge nearly double that $100 monthly rate and then increase that rate after one year of a two-year contract. When it was all said and done, I didn’t even want to think of what the final cost of big box cable would have come to.

I did some research, which consisted of a few Google searches but they didn’t yield many results. Then, good old cable did the job for me. I was watching television before moving to Las Vegas and I saw a commercial for PlayStation Vue, a new streaming product from Sony PlayStation. No long-term contracts, cheap package options, stand-alone channels and streaming on multiple devices. I already owned a PlayStation 4, so I was just a simple download away from “better TV”.

I’ve been a “Vuewer” for just over three months now and for someone who doesn’t need 300 channels, an ungodly priced monthly bill or the hassle of dealing with the cable company; I couldn’t be happier. Sure, there is the 15-second delay that I have to deal with during sporting events, which keeps me from checking my phone or Twitter until commercial breaks but all told, I can safely say that I won’t be going back to the cable company any time soon.