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