If You're An Adult With A Job, You Should Have Cable. Period.
So I'm currently in a battle of with my roommates over whether or not to get cable. I wasn't going to blog about this, but it's been dominating my life the past week so I figured I needed to say something. Right now we have a small device that plugs into your TV that grants you access to services like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube etc.
It's only fifty bucks, but the problem is you have to stream the content from a device (laptop cellphone, iPad etc) to get it onto your TV. In theory it's great, but in reality, like most 'streaming' technology, it's a fucking nightmare. Not only is our internet not strong enough to support the stream, the image quality is horrendous. I'm not a snob when it comes to image quality either, I'll slum it and watch something in 720p if I have to, but when you stream to your TV off of a device the difference is always noticeable. That's a fact.
But that's not even the real issue I have with not having cable. The real issue is that it's wildly inconvenient. You have to solve a fucking puzzle just to watch a show- you have to know what time your show is on, what channel it's on, figure out if you have a login for said channel, stream it to your TV, and then hope the internet doesn't shit out so you can watch in real time. Oh and by 'real time' I mean two to three minutes behind the rest of the world because there's a 'processing delay.' Better stay off twitter! Not only that, we have fucking jobs. There are three of us. The lowest package on cable is $137/mo., the next one up that includes HBO and Showtime is $147/mo. Divide that by three and you're paying $49 per month. Which isn't too bad considering three drinks at a nice restaurant in New York City will run you about sixty. Just go out one less night a month and your costs are covered.
Then you have the whole issue of having people over. Which I don't do often, but you want to be able to come home and flip something relevant on to have in the background to break up the silence. Imagine walking into your place with five people, sitting down, then grabbing your computer to watch a streamed version of whatever it is you have a log in for? That's embarrassing. Want to watch the Pats game? Better hope the stream works! What about the Presidential debates that I missed the other night because an episode of The Bachelorette was buffering for twenty minutes? Better hope the stream works! Oh and you can't switch backend fourth between the two because that'll give your TV an aneurysm. But hey, we're saving fifty bucks a month!
The solution is simple: get cable. PAY FOR THE CONVENIENCE. I understand that some people legitimately can't afford it and that's fine. But for most of us, all it takes is on less night out a month and your costs are covered. You can even spend that night in watching TV. The best part is that you don't even need to know what's on, you can just come home and start flipping through channels! It's that easy! There's no worry of "will I be able to watch that game" or "do I have that log in?" - it's all right there.
I don't want to say that having cable is a necessity, but it's about as close to a necessity as it gets. It's a status symbol. It says, 'I may not watch all the channels I'm paying for, but I like having the option.' So if you have a job and you can afford it, you should have cable. Not a cable work around - cable. And if you're mad about that take you can go fuck yourself. Have a great day.
PS: Apologies to the roommates if they're reading this, but I kinda hope they do.