A Year Without Cable, Week 7: You Are Not Alone
If you’ve cut the cord, your Sunday evenings are probably a lot like mine in that you have to avoid all social media. A few monsters out there feel the need to live-tweet Game of Thrones, which is neither a news conference nor a live sporting event. In my mind, these are the only two acceptable things you may tweet about as they happen.
I am purposely leaving out your date, the birth of your child, etc. Take note.
Anyway, back to Game of Thrones. Should you not get to watch it on HBO GO that night, your Monday is just as much a trip through a minefield. Every corner you turn and every cubicle you walk by could be the location where you overhear a crucial plot point. Even if you don’t move, you’re still potentially in danger. Sometimes people come to you and don’t even have the decency to ask, “Did you see Game of Thrones last night?” No; instead, they’ll just fly right into their disbelief about such and such character, who died an especially gruesome death.
Living in a world where people pay twice as much as you per month to see something a day earlier? It’s tough, man. But when you feel like you’re traveling in this cord-cutting world all by yourself, relax and remember that there are others traveling with you.
According to Experian Marketing Services, cord cutting is no longer limited to the few and the brave. There are 7.6 million households doing what you’re doing; that is 6.5 percent of all households in the U.S., and that number — calculated in April 2014 — has gone up 44 percent in the past three years.
The cable-less home is on the rise, and the growth of this trend will be tough for providers and media companies alike to ignore for much longer.
So just keep that in mind whenever you grow tired of hiding from spoilers. The number of people who time-shift their TV viewing experiences? It’s growing. The number of people who choose not to subscribe to cable TV service? That number is growing, too. And there are plenty of like-minded souls out there already. You’re not alone as a cord cutter, and the trends say that you’ll have lots more company in the years ahead.