Catching Up With Modern Society.
My cable company sent me a nagging letter saying they were upping the price of my legacy "unlimited" cable/internet/phone plan by $20 a month. They said it was no longer adequate for needs of today's users (I hadn't noticed), and I should move up a notch or two and join the cyber revolution for only $50 a month more. My first inclination was to tell them to get bent.
Then I thought about it.
Our home phone? We usually ignore it and let it go to voicemail, screening calls. The only people that call it anymore are autodialers and telemarketers. My father worked for Ma Bell for years, then Baby Bells after that, so nostalgia was the main reason we kept a landline. Reluctantly, I dialed up the switchboard and had Mabel patch me through. Once connected, I had to set down the handset because I left the account number in the other room and the cord wouldn't reach. Once that was all sorted, I had them discontinue the phone portion. Once the line went dead, I shed a tear because I've had that same number for 18 years now. Now I have to learn a new one. I guess this gives me an excuse to learn my cell phone number.
Cable? I think I'm the only one who watches it regularly anymore. Everyone just sits around streaming stuff. iPhones, iPads, Apple TV, Macbooks... Sometimes they stream while they're sitting in front of the cable TV, ignoring what's flickering on it. With the streaming services available today, cable doesn't make any sense for us anymore. I can stream sports channels that show cycling and ski races that my cable provider never offered. Cable TV was just a huge time-suck for me anyway, keeping me from important internet surfing. An added streaming service here or there, and I wouldn't be losing any content that I didn't already click by. I'd also gain back AMC for my zombie fixes (my cable provider dropped it last year).
Internet was the last bit. Our old rate was quite slow, so to get a good speed and data package, I had to get the top-of-the-line gigabit plan. All told, it was $35 cheaper a month than my legacy plan, $55/month cheaper to their revised pricing, and $85/month cheaper than what they were wanting to move me to. It was exponentially faster as well, so not only would I have lots of money for streaming services, I'd have the data to use them. Seems like a no-brainer.
We'll see how this works. We'll have to adapt to new ways of getting content, and they may prove less efficient than clicking through 800 channels to find something to watch. I may lose interest, which wouldn't be a bad thing.
I need to streamline things a bit to cut down on waste. I need a better reason than nostalgia for doing things the same old way. Sometimes I just need to change things up.
Now I just need to figure out how to hook my rotary phone up to this super-fast internet doohickey.
Then I thought about it.
Our home phone? We usually ignore it and let it go to voicemail, screening calls. The only people that call it anymore are autodialers and telemarketers. My father worked for Ma Bell for years, then Baby Bells after that, so nostalgia was the main reason we kept a landline. Reluctantly, I dialed up the switchboard and had Mabel patch me through. Once connected, I had to set down the handset because I left the account number in the other room and the cord wouldn't reach. Once that was all sorted, I had them discontinue the phone portion. Once the line went dead, I shed a tear because I've had that same number for 18 years now. Now I have to learn a new one. I guess this gives me an excuse to learn my cell phone number.
Cable? I think I'm the only one who watches it regularly anymore. Everyone just sits around streaming stuff. iPhones, iPads, Apple TV, Macbooks... Sometimes they stream while they're sitting in front of the cable TV, ignoring what's flickering on it. With the streaming services available today, cable doesn't make any sense for us anymore. I can stream sports channels that show cycling and ski races that my cable provider never offered. Cable TV was just a huge time-suck for me anyway, keeping me from important internet surfing. An added streaming service here or there, and I wouldn't be losing any content that I didn't already click by. I'd also gain back AMC for my zombie fixes (my cable provider dropped it last year).
Internet was the last bit. Our old rate was quite slow, so to get a good speed and data package, I had to get the top-of-the-line gigabit plan. All told, it was $35 cheaper a month than my legacy plan, $55/month cheaper to their revised pricing, and $85/month cheaper than what they were wanting to move me to. It was exponentially faster as well, so not only would I have lots of money for streaming services, I'd have the data to use them. Seems like a no-brainer.
We'll see how this works. We'll have to adapt to new ways of getting content, and they may prove less efficient than clicking through 800 channels to find something to watch. I may lose interest, which wouldn't be a bad thing.
I need to streamline things a bit to cut down on waste. I need a better reason than nostalgia for doing things the same old way. Sometimes I just need to change things up.
Now I just need to figure out how to hook my rotary phone up to this super-fast internet doohickey.
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