One foot, 4 toes out the door

It's about price for me. My bill went up $12 (like most others did) two billings ago and another $35 this last billing period ('promotion' ended). My total is just shy of $150, and we don't have any of the movie channels (HBO etc.).

We can afford D*, but the $150 is getting under my skin. the nearly $50 more in two months woke me up. I've been loyal. I've never had (except for the time it takes) a really bad experience with a CSR - likely because of this board (thank you all who have been there for me) and my own technical savvy.

However, after a month with YouTube TV (as a test) and our long standing subscriptions to Netflix and Prime Video along with purchasing some shows that cost extra (mostly British crime drama) to stream from Prime we've decided to move to YTTV. Even my wife (not at all tech oriented - could care less) can handle it without complaints while using our Roku and Apple TV boxes. I'm not factoring in the cost of our broadband because we've always had it (since it was available), and need it for our two voip phone systems (personal and business) anyway. It's Charter Spectrum and they have no data caps.

All of the sports channels we use are on YTTV.

So, in the end, for me it's $65 vs. $148 and the psychological impact of that. There's a lot of streaming services we could subscribe to for the difference - with no penalty for cancelling after a month or two.

I will likely call them within two weeks to make it 'official'.

 

Didn't check with them. Probably should have, but didn't. I tried most of the streaming services instead. I was with them before DirecTV and wasn't happy at all.

 

Your definition of 'near'? When YTTV becomes more expensive than DTV, I'll move back (lol).

IMHO, content delivery will look very different by the time Google's cost goes that high.

 

That's like saying I should add in the cost of the electricity to run the DVRs, the mortgage on the house I keep them in, the water I need to drink to live here etc. As I stated earlier, we would have broadband regardless. If DTV went out of business and stopped transmitting we would still have it.

Unless your ISP has caps, I never understood that argument.

 

We will lose one channel that WE watch. This was a strong consideration (of course).

WGN is that channel, and there is one show my wife records from that channel - Blue Bloods. During our testing period we discovered they are all on CBS All Access. If she wants to continue watching them I'll get that service for $6 per month until she's done with it (and I'll likely catch up on the Star Trek stuff lol).

While on the subject of channels - I've already customized the guide - about as simple to do as it is on an HR54 with one major difference. You can also arrange the channels in any order you like (there are no channel numbers). I've grouped them in an order that makes sense to us. (locals, sports, news etc.). If we want to, we can also have our own logins with our own guide and recorded shows (up to 6 accounts are allowed with a max of 3 viewing at any one time).

Look, I'm not saying YTTV is better or worse than DTV here - only stating the reasons we are canceling. And the reasons important to us may be very different than yours - I get that. Given YTTV gives us 95% of what DTV did for about 44% of the cost it makes sense to move.

 

Yea - I know we are very fortunate in that regard for sure. I keep wondering what 5G might do for us - perhaps release us from the monopoly Charter has over us? Although having only their internet has not been so bad at all.

 

@grover517 - Funny you mention 'portability'. For the first time since February we visited my mother-in-law yesterday - she's 94. She lives in southern Connecticut, which is about a 2 1/2 hour drive each way for us. We had some Chinese food delivered and ate it on her deck outside - nice day.

My wife watched a few of her 'Housewives of wherever' on the way down and back using her Pixel. She never did that with the DTV app. The interface for YTTV is nearly identical on the phone as it is on Roku/ATV/PC. The WAF didn't take long at all for her.

EDIT: Oh, and a number of months back I gave up on my LLC and got a Tablo as a backup for local disputes. (I documented that in detail in the thread about that.) It works great, and gives us all of those sub channels as well.