Kill Your Cable And Habit

There's a 50/50 chance I'm going to be moving to another apartment in the next few months.  There are many questions, from "which one" to "how the hell did we get so much tupperware," but another one came to mind that's more serious and Geekonomic:

Do I need cable?



See, getting a cable subscription was a norm for awhile – you got TV and internet.  One package.  Fine.  Then I found AT&T was better in my area, and dropped the "internet" part.  Now that I'm evaluating a household that may be radically different, I'm wondering if I really want or need cable anyway (except, perhaps, for very basic)

I have the internet in any number of forms.  I see a lot via Netflix, I probably should be using Crunchyroll, and there are other options.  In fact there's only five TV shows I actually watch deliberately, and I can get them online.

Cable provides a lot of stuff, but the question arises – do I need it?  Really need it?  Or am I just used to it?

It struck me that really, I'm just kind of used to getting it.

I'm used to random surfing here and there, or putting on the Weather Channel for noise or just "seeing what's on TV."  This is me, whose habits are a bit limited anyway as, well, I have other stuff to do.  Yet the habit is still there.

How much of the cable company's television subscription, how much of Dish network, is just because people are used to having it?  What happens if that changes?

This is a big issue for Kill Your Cable, because if a lot of subscriptions are just habit, what happens when habit changes?  What happens when other options make people question this habit?  What happens if a lot of people discover the habit is not a need?

Now it looks like my household is ditching cable.  It's a habit and the habit is over.

I'm wondering how many other people are doing the same?  If we start realizing cable is habit, that's going to create another radical geekonomic shift.

- Steven Savage

  • http://profile.typepad.com/genjipress Serdar (Genji Press)

    Cable? I haven’t used it for years now. I don’t miss it one bit. Then again, I was never big on broadcast TV to begin with.

  • http://www.stevensavage.com/ Steven Savage

    It’s actually been fascinating to investigate the options, and seeing how much is habit. All it takes is these habits being broken for a massive shift in the industry to occur.

  • http://www.megamistudios.com Rob

    I was never a big TV person to begin with. Books, games and music have always been my drug of choice, so like Serdar, I don’t miss what I don’t see.

  • http://sites.google.com/site/taylorspolynomials/ GregT

    I admit, I kind of like the ability to multitask, in terms of doing email or online roleplay (and pose-waiting) while watching television… at best, you need two windows for that sort of thing (or two computers), at worst, the show sputters and has load issues as you try to run a flash game at the same time.
    The other thing I do is actually watch shows when they’re on; I’ve never bought into the “watch them when you like” thing, because then I never seem to make the time for watching them, or I end up in some marathon session that saps some of the fun. Plus, I’m out of the loop when colleagues have seen it. Also for sporting events, kind of impossible avoid spoilers if you wait, and do they necessarily show the local team on the ‘net?
    So even though I’m moving myself, I can’t see myself dispensing with it just yet. But I can see potential for a shift there.