After many years we dropped Direct TV. Before that, we dropped our cable (after 20+ years of service) just keeping the Internet access.
Got Rokus and Tablos.
Paid the yearly guide for Tablos and pay subscription for Discovery+ and OAN. That's it. We have the family Netflix and Tidal HiFi subscriptions, but that's it. We don't need/want any more. So our bill has dropped tremendously.
For sure, I don't need to pay 100 bucks a month to keep a service that will "allow" me to purchase Pay Per View... seriously?
Why do they have commercial in TSC and HSN? Why do they have ads in infomercial programs?
I never watched ESPN, CNN, MSNBC.. etc. etc... FNC has gone nuts too... so, since many of the channels we watched are OTA anyhow (SoCal... clear shot to Mt. Wilson north of us) I don't need Direct TV and all of its shows that I never watch but they charge me for ( I tried to dump ESPN, CNN, MSNBC.... no way... stuck with their carriage fees...).
Why should I pay carriage fees to Direct TV for local OTA channels when I can get them clearly with a roof antenna and store them in my PVRs?
Sports? Forget it. It was nice that they broadcast the Spanish SuperCup over OTA but they cut out and didn't show the after game ceremonies... instead switched to some inane badminton or something of that "caliber"...
Le Tour de France... well I missed that... I might figure out how to get it later. Normally we do 90% of our watching via the PVRs anyhow.
Yes, it is sad that so many services want their cut... but, OTOH, it allows me to apply a scalpel.
If only it were like Amazon... One Ring To Rule Them All. Amazon doesn't charge me (OK, my daughter pays the Prime fee)... they do charge a premium in many things ( The Home Depot finally got smart with their online sales... Costco is not... many retailers charge me a huge cost and time delay for shipping... seriously ) but Amazon is convenient... and they don't charge me unless I buy something. Nice... I don't have to buy towels if all I need is toilet paper.
Yes, greed is gonna kill the streaming fee model.