It was good knowing you but it is time for us to part ways. I was an early cord cutter adopter. Did it back when it was unthinkable to most. My only pre-requisite was that I needed Nickelodeon since my daughter was still young. I came across something called directvnow. It was $30 or $35 a month back then. Since I was what they called an early adopter or beta tested they even gave me an extra $5 off a month for some time. It was great.
Then it changed names a few times, AT&T bought them and they changed the name a couple times: AT&T Stream, AT&T TV… Now we have settled on just Directv.
Through all the changes and all the new app downloads, I stuck with them. So why the change of heart?
Value vs Content
Their cheapest service is now $85 a month. That’s cable company money. I then started flipping through the channels and it hit me. I passed the baby channel, nick jr, Disney jr, Spanish channel, two hallmark channels, three QVC channels, two PBS channels, a freaking Scientology channel amongst other crap and realized I only watch a handful of channels if I watch tv at all.
Then I flipped through those channels. Absolutely nothing was on. Junk. All junk. The content was either old movies I had already seen 10 times during my life, or content made for the people you would find in the movie Idiocracy. If you haven’t seen that movie, please watch it. It is worth getting that reference alone.
My theory is all the good and new content has gone to the premium channels and I’m left paying a premium for gutter worthy shows and movies.
If I wanted that, there is plenty of free content found at: Pluto, Tubi, Freevee, Roku Channel, etc – That is if I wanted to just veg in front of the tv and watch something I didn’t have to think about and wouldn’t change my life. But without the Roku channel, where else would I find Robocop: The Series. I did seriously watch that for a few minutes though.
I’m debating on getting “SlingTV” to try that as the price is right and they have what I’m looking for, but as someone that just doesn’t watch tv much, I guess the question is: Is the draw of TV over?
I mean, let’s be honest: At this point we are basically paying far too much money to just be watching crummy commercials. Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.
So I cancelled my DirectTV streaming subscription that will end mid-June. Not sure what I’ll do then but I have a feeling the day will pass and I won’t really be missing anything except the latest alien astronaut theory… But I suppose I’ll live.
