Operation Decrease Comcast’s Revenue (However Slightly)

Yesterday, I took my first step towards reducing the obscene amount of money I pay to Comcast every month for service I don’t really:

• Need
• Want
• Use

I’m not a Comcast hater, necessarily – I have no major complaints about my internet service. It’s fast, reliable, and the data cap doesn’t come close to affecting me at my level of data consumption. The only complaint I do have in that area is the modem I now, as of a recent price increase, have the privilege of paying $7 monthly to rent. No longer. I ordered an identical model for $51.99 + $2.99 shipping from Newegg.com. For the math-challenged out there, that price means that my investment will have broken even after 7.85 months. Give or take. Ultimately, I don’t blame anyone but myself for the money I’ve been wasting for years, but it still stings to think about.

The real waste of money for me is cable TV. My issues with it aren’t especially unique or different from the complaints that myriad commentators have made on the hundreds of times before, so I’ll keep it short:

• I hate paying for the 99% of available channels that I don’t watch or ever want to watch. The History Channel, TLC, and any other channel devoted to reality programming are all included on this list. Also included are the major networks, plus TNT, TBS, etc. Pretty much the only channels I watch are HBO, AMC, and VS and FSN (hockey of course).
• See above

It’s that simple. The television portion of my Comcast bill is about $130. For that money, I’d be much better off renting or buying new episodes of the shows I enjoy from iTunes for $2 a pop (or 99 cents via AppleTV). If you do the math, I could buy 65 episodes a month for what I’m paying currently. Ouch.

After the NHL playoffs end, I’m turning in my cable box. We’ll see how it goes.