My daughter and son in law did that this summer. As far as I know they are happy they did. They too had Direct TV. Of course they also have an outside antenna for local channels.

Sue

we use only internet...no tv. I don't miss it at all

I think it depends on your life syle and how big a role tv plays in your life. Only you can answer that. I like the convenience of cable and DVR and can afford to pay the bill. I stay home a lot and feel like I can justify the expense because tv is a major source of entertainment for me.

We have Dish for TV and internet -so there is no way we could stream video. Satellite internet has data caps - so I would use my allowance in about 3 movies or less. :(

I think we would really miss the regular Dish TV stuff though. One luxury we will keep I guess.

For myself I would go nuts without regular tv. Being alone now I just don't know what I would do without my tv. I don't like watching movies on my computer. Its just what you are used to and your needs.

I agree with Fran. Although my cable bill is over $160 a month, I can afford it, and since TV and the Internet are important forms of entertainment for me , I'll stick with it. My internet is amazingly fast and I can get a gazillion channels but only watch a few cable ones. Even though I have a 25 inch desk top monitor, I prefer to watch movies on my super large Sony TV.

I'm not a big tv person and would never pay for cable, but I use a site called viptv.net for any shows I might want to watch. Some are free but most cost a little bit of money. You pay for credits and each episode is usually 2 credits. The more you buy, the better deal you get. Last time I spend $10 and got 80 credits, but my sis spent $100 and got 2000 credits or something crazy like that. I rarely use my credits so they last me forever.

The ONLY time I wish I had cable is football season. We get Fox and the major networks for free with our antenna and just have to go out on Thursday nights or Monday nights if we really want to see the game. Our local bar shows them all. It works for us and besides a little bit of money here or there to get something online, we pay zero for tv.

jennmo' Me TOO!
The games are the only real factor that causes me to debate about it. I don't follow any of those weekly drama shows and I'm not news junky enough to keep if for that reason. If there is anything newsworthy happening it's available on-line timely enough for me (I don't need to see the "real time" car chases). Being the horrifically dry documentary/gardening/science type of programming follower that I am it seems I end up on one of the cheap internet channels most of the time anyway.

Taking the money and going out to see a game or two with the most beautiful each month? Money shifted to a good cause and better spent! It's over, bye DTV (not that I didn't enjoy our relationship).

I will let you know how the cancellation goes. I've heard that it can be a hassle. I've been happy with the service for these years it would be a shame to make me unhappy at the end.

Thanks for the input guys. :)

We can stream Netflix and Hulu and Youtube (which has tons of shows) on our big-screen TV, as well as shows from the internet. Personally, I could probably do just fine without cable TV or satellite, using some of the saved money to buy certain series through iTunes. The rest of the family would never hear of it, though. I think it depends, at least in part, on whether you tend to turn on the tv to watch specific shows, as I do, or whether you click around to find things you like, as the rest of my family does.

Yes - I got rid of cable except just the very basic level for network TV reception. I have a Roku device and stream more than enough video through that to meet my needs. I've even discovered some much more interesting things than the useless blather that was on cable TV. I don't watch a ton of TV though which was why I found cable TV to be such an enormous waste of money. I dumped the Comcast bundle so also got rid of the land line and I'm saving $120 per month. Should have done it a long time ago.

I bundled with UVerse couple months ago.

Been with UVerse several years, except my phone and now I'm totally UVerse.

I have cable with a DVR, Hulu Plus, Netflix, and a Roku box.
I would drop cable, but I still record several shows that
are 'web only' on Hulu Plus. And I get local news with cable.

There is a new gadget that will act as a DVR.
I know very little about it but we have thought about getting
one and dropping cable TV. It would save us about $45/month.
I wish I could talk to someone that has the gadget linked below.

Pooh Bear

Here is a link that might be useful: Simple TV

I have been trying to get DH to drop EXPENSIVE cable for years. But he wants his ESPNs. Everything I want to watch is on the net (usually a day delayed) except for 2 AMC shows I love, but I can get them on Hulu or Netflix next season. We are paying over $100/mo. for the ESPNs. AARRRGGGHHH!!!!

So you download the free ESPN app to your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, and stream it to your Apple TV box. Then cut your cable.

With this arrangement he can also watch ESPN and its sister channels on his iPhone/iPad on the go.

lee -- we don't have iPads, iPhones, iTouch, or Apple TV. Plan B?

I dropped cable and satellite about 10 years ago and no regrets. Now with digital TV there's more channels with better programming to watch so I generally have enough to feed my TV need. I justified broadband several years back and that's been worthwhile. I needed it for work and justified it that it was a lot of entertainment to cover for lack of cable/satellite. It's been fine. I watch a lot of stuff on the internet and I have a relatively slow broadband service.

Nobody can make your decision for you. Check out what's on antenna and learn to search the internet. You'd be surprised what you can find on there. I watch lots of movies and shows and can avoid trash like Duggers, Dancing and Degeneres. And I can skip a lot of commercials which is a great thing during political campaigns! The other advantage is if I'm distracted, need to use the bathroom, answer the door/phone, doze off or something, I can pause and come back and watch it.

we have thought about doing that BUT once NetFlix lost this last big contract w some movie studio DH found alot of what he wanted to watch was gone. personally i can not live w/o the DVR! we both work all day 5 days straight, go to workout in the evenings for 2 hours and the few hours I have avail during the week (about 6 hours over 5 days) I don't want to waste watching commercials nor can I see what I want w/o taping it. mind you usually I only watch DWTS and local & international news and occasionally a nature show or old movie. for the $80 a month i pay for Centurylink cable w medium fast cable modem i think it's worth it. ~ liz

aah, the WatchESPN app isn't what it used to be, now that satellite/fiber/cable TV cartels have had their legal pull on content providers. So ESPN, ESPN2, and their other major sister channels are only available over the internet if you subscribe to cable or fiber TV that offers ESPN and then log into your TV provider's website the first time. ESPN3 is still available to anyone online, but that service was neutered a few month ago under legal pressure so although they have lots of contracts with the major sports leagues, don't expect the games you want to see to be on it.

I'm sure there's a way to get around these restrictions but i'm not a very good hacker....

I always watch Hulu & Netflix while traveling aboard by using vpn.

Here is a link that might be useful: Unblock Netflix