Americans quit subscription streaming services in droves as cost of living continues to climb, report finds

[buzzycrumbhunger]

54. I ditched satellite over a decade ago.

Pissed me off to pay for over 1000 channels when I only watched about six of them. DirecTV laughed when I asked why we couldn’t order a la carte, so PFFFT! I bailed.

I got enough teevee through my T-Mobile with free Netflix, Apple TV, and Hulu.

Oops—until they announced Hulu was no longer free. Little harm done there. Then they said Netflix wasn’t free anymore, and soon after, AppleTV was going up, but we could get a deal at $3/mo.

Except I rarely watched AppleTV. Just nothing really appealed. And Netflix rarely drew me in, either.

It amazes me that having the TV on was a constant background noise growing up and now? It drives me nuts unless I’m really watching something. I have better things to do than watch mediocre shows, and I like the quiet otherwise—especially compared to the hours they spend trying to sell you crap in between snippets of the actual shows. I can’t even remember the last time we even thought about going to an actual movie. Unless it’s something truly irresistible (LOTR!), I don’t see it happening.

It’s interesting how they’ve continually jacked up prices on all the streaming stuff and ignored the fact that more and more of us are fine just doing without. (Wishing I’d bought that t-shirt ages ago that proclaimed, “The joy of not being sold anything!”)

I read constantly (hooray for freebie book lists!) and am much happier playing stories in my head—without commercials. I doubt the entertainment industry has the awareness to wonder why people are actually tuning out these days. Maybe we’re just tired of being led?