My fellow Earthlings,

It has been a little over 7 years since we ditched cable, and it’s been interesting to watch the evolution of Cord Cutting. It has gone from a back-room whispered, almost hush-hush dirty little secret to a mainstream topic of conversation and a valid choice to consider. In September of 2019, PC Mag reported that the majority of US households – a whopping 74% – have a streaming service.

Over the years, there have been some attacks against Cord Cutting – many of those attacks coming from cable service providers themselves. The leading criticism being that you can’t actually save money, and may actually end up paying more than just holding onto your cable or satellite service. I won’t go into all of the details and the math here, but this is fundamentally false with a few exceptions – the biggest being consumers who feel driven to sign up for multiple streaming services.

It also brings me back full circle to I point I have repeated over and over again, and will continue to repeat. That is, saving money isn’t as much of a driving factor as is choice and quality of programming available. The fact is, perhaps the greatest outcome of the growing popularity of Cord Cutting has been what I like to refer to as The Split Off Effect, in which networks have decided to create their own streaming channels with their own content and original programming. Perhaps the highest profile example of this has been the successful launch of Disney+ as well as the highly anticipated launch of NBCUniversal’s peacock.

We have literally gone from “how in the world will I make this work?” to the point of having a dizzying amount of choices! Which, in my opinion, is a good thing. We are no longer pigeon holed into having to accept bloated, over-priced cable bundles with little to no choice in what programming we receive, to an almost overwhelming amount of cable free choices.

So how do you make sense of it all? How do you choose from the hundreds, even thousands, of streaming channels / services you may see in the channel store of your device of choice? A great place to start is Consumers Advocate’s in-depth reviews of some of the more prominent, well known content providers as well as others many may not be familiar with. The team of researchers there have taken the time to analyze each service based on criteria such as Plans & Trial Periods, Supported Devices, and so on. You may want to do yourself a favor and bookmark this site, as the team keeps it updated (last update as of this writing was February 15, 2020). Also, don’t forget to visit my Bare Bones Cord Cutting article, in which I highlight what I still consider to be some of the best FREE options available.

As always, please feel free to reach out with any comments or suggestions and stay tuned for more reviews and picks as the world of Cord Cutting continues to grow!