Food.Clothing.Shelter.Cable TV. Wait..Cable TV?? Really Cable TV????

There are absolute necessities in life.

1. Food
2. Clothing
3. Shelter
4. Cable TV

I'm hoping that once your eyes hit number four, you did a double take and found it completely outrageous to call cable TV a must have necessity.

Shockingly to me, I'm finding people who treat cable TV as if it belongs on that list of necessities.

Yes I'm shocked.

Listening to people talk about the cable bill, is like listening to people talk about the gas, sewer, and electric bills. It's treated as if it's just another necessary utility. As if one couldn't function without cable.

Entertainment has become a necessity.
No...no...entertainment has become a high cost necessity.

People spend $100, $125, up to $200 a month on cable TV.
They treat the expense as if it's absolutely necessary.

Some may go without gas, or other more important things, just so they can spend all that money on cable.

Have we lost our mind?

Being entertained through a high priced cable package with a vast menu of channel choices is not a necessity.

Cable TV should not be treated like some unremovable grief causing anchor that's strapped to your back against your will. You don't need it. You can live without it. Don't give up more important things just so you can have cable and all of those specialty channels.

We live in a time where you can get access to endless entertainment with an Internet connection.
You can spend $10 a month and get Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc.

There is absolutely no need, whatsoever, to think you must spend $100 or more just to get access to entertainment.

Our minds have been massaged to think entertainment is a necessity.
It's not a necessity.

Ooops, I'm repeating myself..


#END RANT

nice rant, but btw. you take internet for granted

I think some of that is no one wants to be " the weird dude or lady who does not have cable". it can be a pride thing as well as putting too much value on entertainment.

Internet is a necessity for some who are able to work or go to school online. It also can cut back on phone costs because you can use the net to make phone calls.

The only reason I have cable TV is to have cable internet. I have the most basic cable package offered by TWC to allow high speed.

I got rid of my TWC cable & phone & just use their internet & pay $54.00 a month. I use Straight Talk for my home phone & that's only $15.00 a month. If I wanna watch anything,I can just watch it online...plus I own like a thousand dvd's of movies & music concerts,so I have zero use for cable TV.

I´m 1 to 3 only.

I have the internet...I can watch anything i want at any time...why bother with cable tv?

Here in Australia, we do have cable but when we want extra channels to pay for we go via satellite..it's so not worth it. I've never been persuaded to get it, when I'm at my mums house who has it, theres never anything on! I don't watch much TV anyway, I prefer sitting on the computer.

Disclaimer: I do not have cable tv.........but I do have satellite tv/interne/phone a package, BUT I only pay about 35 to 45 dollars a month, so I believe it to be an acceptable expense. Given to what I am forced to pay in taxes to a Government that doesn't have the slightest idea what the phrase "balanced budget" means.......well, goodness, where is the REAL waste?

I do agree that anyone who goes without a true necessity such as food, clothing, shelter, especially when children are involved just to splurge on 164 cable channels and they probably don't even watch 1/2 of them has lost their marbles.......or at least touch with sensibility.

Now, everyone responding to this OP most certainly has internet service......or they are piggybacking off of someone else I suppose........From what I have read lately the internet is becoming more addictive than TV. Saw that on Fox News the other day, and I think Yahoo had an article as well.

In all honesty, there are some days I get up, pour my first cup of coffee and then say to myself............"no internet today..." Then I get to thinking about my friends here, and I know they are going to be wondering where I am, why I'm not posting, and I also begin to wonder.........is everything ok with them? And before you know it...........yup.........I'm on line here at CC.

Necessity? Yes and no................

Yes......because I firmly believe that all Christians benefit spiritually and emotionally from Christian Fellowship, and that fellowship can be achieved here on CC.

No........because.........well, I dunno, lemme work on the "no" part.

There is a lot of truth in the statement "you can live without it." In fact, that statement can apply to many, many things in our lives........we CAN live without many of the things we have. Would our lives have more meaning? Maybe, or maybe not. But I agree that cable TV is something we can live without and still have a meaningful life in Christ.

There really ISN'T that much on TV anymore anyway........

I'd be all about getting my shows through internet only...if professional sports were broadcast in real time online. Sure, I'd save $50 a month by cutting the TV side of the package, but then I'd spend more than that per month buying lunch at the local watering hole to sit and watch the games on their TVs.

there are ways my friend

The first thing I did when I was able to make my own household decisions, was cancel cable. Never looked back. We have Netflix and that's it. I'm paying very very little for internet, but I'll be honest and say that I'd list it up there with necessities. My excuse is that I run a business website and book work on-line, but I'd be lying if I said I would pay for internet regardless. So I can't really look down on anybody for their cable addictions.

Internet has pretty much became a defaco necessity. HOWEVER, if we had true compition in the USA instead of monopolyism. the net bills for high speed would be dirt cheap.

as for cable tv, why would anyone pay for that crap. seriously? why? 99.999% of it is garbage better off without it

I totally get that. I didn't read your whole post, I admit, but I skimmed through it. Me and my husband tried cable at various times, and we finally came to the final final conclusion that IT'S A WASTE OF MONEY. You can subscribe to ustvnow.com and Netflix streaming (which we have for years on Netflix), and also Redbox has new movies for ONE DOLLAR! we cannot get satellite due to where our porch sits and we are underneath a lot of trees; we've asked many times, and they always tell us no. so anyway, we are saving money!! haha fooey on them! (thinking of another word, but cant post there ), and ustvnow is like 20 per month, so if you combine that with Netflix it is still WAYYYY LOWER than cable tv.

, while I stand by my initial comment here, I also have to wonder:

"If Cable TV completely disappeared tomorrow, do we give any consideration to all those whose lively hoods would be directly and adversely effected? How many hundreds of thousands of people would be out of work? What about their families? And then we would have to consider the possibility that if Cable TV no longer existed, would that give rise to "Big Satellite?" Do we face the possibility that satellite service rates would skyrocket when they are the monopoly?"

What about luxury automobiles? What about all luxury items? Are they not sinful pleasures? Do we really need such things to survive? Probably not.........no, definitely not. If we begin to do away with ALL that we don't NEED to survive, would that not have a huge impact on pretty much everything? Would we be better off? Possibly.

It's the "slippery slope" concept that I am considering here. Seems something worthy of consideration in my opinion.

I think that's also the same thing that keeps our home from cancelling our satellite TV. Though we've watched games at my grandparent's house before. That's fun.

I used to think cable was a necessity. Then one day I canceled my service. One of the best decisions I've ever made.

And if I hadn't dropped cable, I probably wouldn't have found my wife. True story.

We have Direct TV. If I lived by myself I would have netflicks or even a digital antenna because I wouldn't care. But my Husband likes it, he pays for it and we are still able to pay for it and eat and pay other bills. But if ever came to a point between food and cable, cable would go.