Today, I cut the cord.

Posted by Matt Farmer on May 26, 2012 · 2 mins read

Today, I decided to cut the cord on my television service.
I’m not doing this based on some magic math that will equate to me saving a bajillion million dollars every month. Although, I will be saving about $30 each month – it’s entirely possible that I will end up spending a little bit more purchasing TV series from iTunes.

For the third or fourth time since I’ve been a Comcast customer, my bill was screwed up. I was billed for not retuning some equipment that I wasn’t supposed to return during my move into the city. While I can, and did, have the bill corrected – so I won’t be paying a dime more than I ought to, it still costs me time and effort every time I have to deal with these situations. Today’s occurrences resulted in me taking two hours out of my day to drive to the Comcast office and talk to someone. Something that Comcast doesn’t seem to entirely understand is that that time has a dollar value associated with it. If I had spent that time doing independent client work, I would have made $100 (assuming a rate of $50/hr). So, I may not have had to pay the additional amount on my bill, but they did, in a way, cost me $100. Seeing as I wasn’t planning on doing any client work today, I really should double my estimate because my liesure time during the weekend is worth double whatever I would make in dollars doing actual work.

So, I’m cutting the cord. I’m going to survive on Hulu+, Netflix, and iTunes. I will continue to be a Comcast customer for my internet connection until an Internet Co-Op springs up in Atlanta or Clear Wireless enhances the speed and reliability of their network to the point where I won’t have concerns about using it in a densely populated area. But one thing is for certain: I’m never leasing equipment from Comcast again, and I’m not giving them a dime more than I have to for the internet connection that I need.