David and I gave up cable years ago, we'd debated it for awhile since like everyone in our age group we had ALWAYS had cable. But it had gotten very expensive and the one thing we noticed was even if we had over 300 channels, at the end of the day we just watched four on a regular basis. In reality more than half of those channels were pure crap - infomercials, religious channels, etc... they just tell you all those channels to make it sound like you're getting a bargain. One of our first visits to Jackson and Brandi changed our minds - they had Net Flix and YouTube - no cable! It was different, a bit unwieldy at times - instead of a channel guide you have to navigate through genres, not everything you watch is there, some of it is just plain weird. Have never wanted to watch a Korean Rom-com series and there is a ton of stuff from Indonesia, India, etc.....some of which just does not translate well. But someone must be watching it or it wouldn't be on there.
We had to play around with it a bit - Net Flix of course, Hulu for the other TV shows, and Amazon Prime seems to cover it all. I found you could buy just a channel and I subscribed to CBS for a the last two seasons of The Big Bang Theory. Or you can buy the DVD series and then just subscribe for a couple of months - I got Game Of Thrones for my birthday which covered seasons one through seven - David was more addicted than I was! - and then we did HBO for a couple of months to finish out the series. I did the same with True Blood but in reverse - I watched season one through five on Netflix and then bought the final two seasons on DVD. I got a trial of Showtime free for two months but cancelled it after the first week, I am not paying an extra ten a month as 90% of their line up was just tired old crap I can watch anywhere else. I watched two movies and then retired it. It's a little extra work but we save a ton of money, the internet is only $40, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon video (which is included in your Prime account so it doesn't cost) comes to about an extra $20 - since we no longer have a land line our total cost for internet and television is $60 a month.
The downside? Ugh, Binge watching. It's unavoidable - I actually have the same problem with my ereader since you can buy an entire books series at once. On regular TV series are weekly, so you've got to wait each week to see your show. On the internet it's like the Golden Corral Buffet and you've got your big pants on. All the time. You can find a series and watch it til you're drooling, eyes glazed over. We started watching Supernatural - neither of us had ever seen it but after the first couple of episodes we were hooked. We ripped through years of shows in mere weeks, on the weekend we could do a month of shows in one sitting because there's no commercials either - the shows are 40 minutes as opposed to 60. Then you hit the wall, Sam and Dean have been resurrected 10 times, kidnapped, possessed, beaten, chased, amnesia.....Series One, Series Two, Series Three... it begins to lose it's novelty, not again with the Resurrection Glow Treatment. Then it's work, you are just trying to get to the end of it. Then you get to the end of it, feeling somewhat accomplished - and now you have nothing to do. So I've been trying to break it up, watch another program for a little while. I started watching Anne With An E, a remake of Anne of Green Gables which I love.
I watched 4 episodes last night.
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