I saw this coming for all the cord cutters---the future does not look bright----
Some will be paying $6.99 for Discovery, $6.99 for Disney Plus (or $12.99 for Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus), then there's Peacock TV free for now, but will be $5 a month (I dont know about your area but AT&T and Direct TV are threatening to pull NBC from their lineups).... And dont forget CBS All Access (Paramount +), Netflix, Apple TV, HBO Max, Starz etc...Add it all up and dont forget you will need to pay for a powerful internet service to stream all this........ But a lot of cable is still tied into live events --- like live news events, the Academy Awards and live sporting events---NFL, NBA, Olympics etc etc....with streaming many events will require you to wait a day to view programming or events......Some believe that cable with EVENTUALLY revert back to just basic packages and you will have to get and pay the rest through streaming....
Here's a report from a Consumer Blog---(its long but good information)
The gist of a recent market report from Ampere Analysis, which took close looks at just how much the average U.S. household spends on video entertainment. As it turns out, cold turkey cord-cutters end up spending about as much as cable subscribers do once they replace their linear cable service with streaming alternatives. That's why Ampere believes the eventual maximum number of streaming services any given household in the U.S. could eventually reach is as high as eight. Over the past 12 to 18 months streaming services have been raising their prices, too. They're still cheaper than cable, but the savings might not be as large as you expect.
And while "cord-cutting" has become a popular term, chances are you won’t really be cutting ties with your TV provider—that same company may provide your internet connection and phone service. That makes pricing complicated to untangle. Bundles are the glue that keeps many of us stuck to a pay-TV package. In addition to the convenience of getting just a single bill for your TV, internet, and home phone services, you often get a discounted rate for internet service when it’s part of this type of package. If you de-bundle broadband from TV, you’re likely to find that you’re paying more for the same level of internet speed.
Also, one of the great things about cable TV is that it provides consistent, reliable signals to your TV set—you turn on your TV and expect to get a picture. Streaming services aren’t always like that, as many of us found out recently during hurricane season, when internet service remained down even after power had been restored. If you relied solely on streaming, you were out of luck. In my neighborhood in the Northeast, for example, FiOS broadband service was out for two days, while some Optimum internet customers had no service for five days.
Also, with streaming the quality of the video you get depends on the available bandwidth, which can vary with the number of users in your neighborhood who are on the same connection you’re using. So you may get a great picture late in the evening or early morning but find that it isn’t quite as good right after dinner, when more people are watching. Companies such as Netflix will dynamically adjust the quality of the video based on the speed of your connection, and they may downgrade the quality of the video to avoid it freezing or pixelating.
Also, with more of us now at home for both work and school, as well as for entertainment, we're sharing our broadband connections and WiFi with more people for longer periods of the day. If you have lots of people in your home streaming content to a variety of devices at the same time, the quality is likely to suffer.
Even your wireless router can affect video performance. Older routers may be slower or use only one frequency band, which can lead to interference from baby monitors, cordless phones, and even microwaves. Newer dual-band routers have two bands—2.4 GHz and 5 GHz—to provide you with a second option. If there are dead zones in your home where WiFi doesn’t reach, routers that create a mesh network could help. A handful of routers now use the next generation of WiFi technology, called WiFi 6, that provide faster speeds and better coverage. But your devices will also have to support WiFi6 to take advantage of the new technology's benefits. Sometimes the problem is with the service itself or the networks’ servers. Many services have had periodic outages, including some high-profile ones, such as the CBS All Access and CBS Sports apps crashing for those using Roku devices during last year's Super Bowl. More recently, both Netflix and Hulu had temporary outages this spring, just as more people were staying home due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
And it’s not just sporting events. Streaming services or network servers can get overwhelmed when a lot of people are trying to watch at the same time. On the day it launched last fall, Disney+ had problems throughout the day. This same issue has plagued HBO a few times, such as during high-profile episodes of “Game of Thrones” and “True Detective.”.....
Also not all the services are available on every streaming player or smart-TV platform. For example, right now neither HBO Max nor Peacock is available on the two biggest streaming media player platforms, Amazon Fire TV and Roku. To see these new services, you'll need an Apple TV or Google Chromecast.
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