We’ve all read about the “cable cutters” who have dropped their pricey cable TV subscriptions in favor of an ala carte collection of streaming services that gives them access to the programs they want without paying for stuff they don’t.
Jennifer and I find ourselves in the more expensive category of having signed up for various streaming services while retaining our cable subscription.
Our cable service is Verizon FIOS. (Verizon doesn’t like their FIOS service being described as “cable,” but as far as I’m concerned a fiber optic cable is still a cable.) We’ve always paid the extra 13 bucks to add HBO to our FIOS package because it has interesting and distinctive shows just often enough to make it seem worth the money. That also gives us access to HBO’s streaming service, which was recently rechristened “HBO Max.”
When Netflix came out with its streaming service years ago, that just seemed like a no-brainer.
Then Amazon added a streaming service to its Prime membership. I was paying for Prime anyway, so that seemed like a gimme.
I thought we were going to draw the line there. Once in a while some other streaming service would offer a show I really wanted to see, but when that happened I simply subscribed for a month, binge-watched the series, then cancelled the service. I subscribed to STARZ for a month to watch the sci-fi-ish series Counterpart starring J.K. Simmons. I signed up for a trial subscription to Hulu to watch the long-delayed fourth season of Veronica Mars. And as I wrote recently, we just paid for a month of Disney+ in order to watch the filmed version of Hamilton.
When it came to long-term streaming subscriptions, though, I figured HBO, Netflix and Amazon would be more than enough. But a few years ago CBS debuted the series Star Trek: Discovery, which they made available only on their paid CBS All Access streaming service. Jennifer and I are both dyed-in-the-wool Star Trek fans, so we had to sign up. As a bonus we were able to watch The Good Fight, the spin-off of The Good Wife, which we’d watched throughout its broadcast run. CBS All Access has kept us hooked with additional Star Trek series, Star Trek: Picard and the new animated Star Trek: Below Decks, which we had doubts about but are enjoying so far.
My Apple TV device gives me the option of renting movies that aren’t included in any of our streaming services, but I realized that there were movies I wanted to see that weren’t available online at any price, so I subscribed to Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service last year to be able to watch those.
When I bought a new iPhone in December, it came with a free one-year subscription to Apple’s new paid streaming service, Apple TV+, so Jennifer and I have watched the debut seasons of The Morning Show and For All Mankind.
And this year Jennifer kept hearing about British TV shows that were only available on Acorn TV or BritBox, so we added Acorn to our Amazon subscription and, when Jennifer had seen what she wanted to see, swapped it out for a subscription to BritBox.
Yikes. Even not counting the free subscription to Apple TV+, that’s seven paid monthly subscriptions. Am I a little embarrassed to admit that? Yes. Am I going to drop any of these services? No. Particularly during this time of pandemic-related isolation, when going to the theater, concerts or the movies, not to mention restaurants and bars, are off the table, I want to at least be able to watch the movies and TV shows I enjoy.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to watching Orphan Black on Amazon Prime. I have four and a half seasons to go.