Great Debates: Should you cut your cable cord?

“Question Everything” opens the floor for debate of pop culture topics–serious to whimsical, sublime to ridiculous—that have no right or wrong answers but certainly elicit a wide spectrum of intense opinions. Hopefully reading these different perspectives will open minds, challenge thinking and maybe even provoke a change in what you believe. Let’s discuss!

Is cable TV essential, or should you cut the cord?

EW’s Critics Make Their Cases

Keith Staskiewicz says:

Does anyone actually like their cable company? They overcharge you, offer the obstructionist customer service of a late-era Soviet bloc government, and have such a chokehold monopoly on us that their slogan might as well be “What are you gonna do, not watch TV?” Of course, these days that’s like the whale-oil consortium asking “What are you gonna do, not wet your lantern wicks?” There are more than enough ways to watch your favorite shows without double-paying these corporations for cable and Internet. Sure, there are a few shows and events worth watching live, but most of those are on otherwise accessible networks or are uploaded the following morning to a streaming site. So the next time your on-demand options are three weeks behind, or your cable box’s interface makes you want to punch someone, just call up your provider and tell them you’d like to set up an appointment for some time between 1pm and never.

Nicole Sperling says:

Why won’t do it? Easy: Sports. The last bastion of live television has quite a hold on my family and no amount of streaming work-arounds are worth the prospect of not catching the last few innings of the World Series (seriously, would you have wanted to miss that Eric Hosmer steal?) or the final seconds of a Laker play-off game — should the Lakers ever make it into the playoffs again. It may be short-sighted — and more expensive—to keep paying that cable bill but nothing beats the camaraderie high-stakes sporting events brings my family and friends. The cheering, the groans, and the funny asides are all worth the price of admission. Plus, who are we kidding? I can’t keep track of any more passwords.