Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for March 24, 2021

And how many of those streaming services are you going to actually use?

How many streaming services will you now use?

Bring back video stores!

Real progress will be made when one can drop and not pay for ESPN and Fox Fake “News” from their cable subscription. Myself, I “cut the cable” 25 years ago when the price went over $30/month. Consequently, I stopped getting bills from the cable company, and 10 years later I stopped getting the cable signal when they switched to digital. Really not a bad deal, overall. I haven’t missed it since…

How about an off-the-air antennae? Yes, commercials and you can’t pick when you watch, but it’s free.

I don’t know what they’re streaming, cuz I’m not paying as much as that. Is it a naughty channel?

That’s one good reason to ditch cable.

The good news at our home is that we cancelled the $100+ / month internet connection and went with the $55/month connection that has these qualities:

The price hasn’t changed in several years. Not up, not down. Not even the itsy little addon taxes.

When you call them, a human answers. Usually by the third ring. And about 3 times in 5 it’s the actual human who can help.

It’s fast enough for both Spouse and I to stream something (different)… or zoom… at the same time. Albeit probably not as crisply as we would prefer.

SpeedTest just now tells me that ping-time is 23 ms; 8.78 Mbps download; 1.08 Mbps upload speeds.

And did I mention that there is NO price creep. NO special disappearing deals. NO heavy handed up-selling when you call to complain (because we don’t NEED to call to complain)

I wish I paid $110. Our cable/internet is $260. And that doesn’t include our cell phones. Nor do we have extras like HBO or any of those streaming channels. I called last month to see what could change to lower the bill. The rep was very snooty. Then they sent me a customer survey. Remember the scene in Pretty Woman where she tells the snooty clerk “Big mistake. Huge.” That was my reaction when I got the survey.

Books and comics both are entertaining!

never having to see qvc is worth 10 bucks…

of course, we don’t have any cable or streaming service, don’t even own a tv…

So…there are no ads any more? None at all? No wonder hardly anyone still watches TV.

Idoit box has become very slim and flat these days and become an idiot panel.

No cable, no streaming, no TV reception. Seems to work out okay.

Go without it all for a week, and you won’t miss it at all.

Why do some cable companies offer so many channel’s but nothing worthwhile to watch, IMO.

I pay $95 Canadian per month for cable (includes HBO and other prime channels), landline phone, and 5G internet.

And now people I know are actively bemoaning all of their beloved streaming services losing all of the content they want to watch and splitting it all up. Boy, sure was a GREAT IDEA for all y’all to quit going to the video store and killing all of those businesses, huh?

cable 2.0……

Another upside, there’s nothing good to see, just like cable, but it’s on-demand. You can waste your time at your own pace.

I have to pay around $20 a month for HBO MAX so I can see 2021 movies at home if not going to reopened movie theatres unless I get my COVID vaccine when told to do so (To date on HBO Max at home I have seen via streaming service instead of movie theatres Wonder Woman 1984 the day after Christmas and Tom and Jerry back in Feb. 2021, hope I do the same for the upcoming Space Jam 2 New Legacy movie).

Ditched cable over a year ago and don’t miss it at all. We watch primarily British tv so we stream Acorn and Britbox. We have Prime because of shipping, turn Hulu on and off if it has something we want to watch, thinking of dropping Netflix, and added PBS Passport. Still a fraction of what we were paying for crappy cable shows.

Or you could subscribe to neither and just read fun books.

Speaking of QVC, I recently ordered something from them, and now they are bombarding me with emails

I’m really out of the loop. I’ve read every comment, and no one has asked, “What’s QVC?”

whatever happened to A la carte Cable or Satellite TV? I remember reading something about that many years ago but if it actually exists I have never lived anyplace where its available

But where will you EVER get the opportunity to acquire this unique Diamondelle and Genuine Marcasite heirloom ring at 80% OFF! You don’t get the chance to buy something like that just anywhere.

That IS a significant upside

And that is $10 well spent!

I dropped cable nearly 4-years ago and I haven’t looked back. The money I’ve saved pays for Sling and the dvd plan from Netflix (no streaming) with plenty left in my bank account. I neither desire nor require additional streaming services at this time.

I’m using “Notflix”.

I call it a success.

ut of hundreds of useless channels, only a handful are watchable! Cable is a ripoff…..There are more (scripted) reality shows, stupid game shows and constant reruns of the same for years on end,I can’t stand it anymore. March madness and any sport has 39 channels and preempt regular programming… WHY? This is called…..

D. U. M B. I. N. G.

D. O. W. N.

A. M. E. R. I. C. A.

Maybe we wouldn’t need streaming if people would put reruns on the air more often.

One of my stepsons works for the large television cable/internet/phone provider that I subscribe to. Guess who gets all my irate calls?

Comcast cost $176 a month & keeps creeping up here in our NW Tucson location.

Only $100/month for cable? What non-local channels did he get? Also, how many streaming services provide channels that were available on cable? And how soon will people start complaining about, “Why am I paying so much for a lot of shows I don’t watch?”, the way people complain now about paying for channels they never watch, under the impression that if they can choose just the channels they want, it would be much cheaper?

It’s cheaper to just pick your favorite channels than change services to avoid the Buy-It channels. I do the same thing for the news and sports channels.

Not getting QVC is totally worth it. Think about how much it’s going to save you in the long run when the wifey can’t find anything to buy on tv.

But then again, there are now a bunch of over-the-air home shopping channels. Just delete those from the channel list and you’re good to go.

$110? Subtract what you pay for internet, because you’d have internet anyway, right? That would take it down to say, $60 or so. I have four premium streaming channels, and it runs me $32 a month—$100 less than cable. And like the man said, you can jump on and jump off from month to month when you run out of shows on a channel.Basic YouTube is free, and there’s an amazing array of stuff that people post—old movies and TV series, foreign documentaries—as well as the kitten videos.I inherited a rooftop antenna, and a scan gives me 32 channels in a mid-range market. 25 of them are worth watching. Go to AntennaWeb to see what’s in your area. Then look up “Antenna Man” on YouTube for sound advice on how to get them all.

I cut the cable, ~$150/mo for 500 channels I never watched. I now subscribe to 4 streaming services, pay ~$50/mo for stuff I like (plus way more than I can ever watch) and can rent movies (online) any time I feel like it without worrying about breaking my entertainment budget.

I don’t watch TV stations, so, why cut cable again?

Getting away from the golf channel was my big motivation.

There is one person in our family who would probably save $100 a month or more by getting rid of QVC and HSN

500 channels and nothing on …

I’d take that deal any day. And you can also take away the horrid chimeras that TLC, MTV, and History channel have become…

That actually sounds like a pretty good deal.

Don’t forget the $100 for high speed internet.

I have never had to see QVC.

So who wants to tell Rat that they just give QVC streams away now?

There are no upsides, Rat.

Cut the cable!

With over 30 if not more free (broadcast) channels on TV in an urban area, plus many free resources on YouTube, there is no need to spend that monthly C-note!

How much for a service that doesn’t offer national news?

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