What is the point of cable?

I hate getting in my cable bill every month. Not only do I hate having to send this company money because it is just one more bill to pay, but I hate it because of the fact that this is a cable bill.  To me, cable is a pointless service that I shouldn’t ever have to actually pay for.

I have Netflix, like thousands of other people in the United States. I pay ten dollars a month for hundreds of television shows and movies. All of this comes without commercials and without any sort of advertising to interfere with whatever I’m watching. Even though Netflix is extremely cheap and there are no advertisements, I will be canceling it in the next month. I’ve come to realize that even though Netflix offers a lot of things to watch, I don’t watch them.

Yet, I still have cable.

I watch a lot of channels on Youtube and enjoy finding new things to watch. I like to watch shows on Hulu and find shows from Comedy Central that are already posted online. When I watch all of these things, I know that I will be getting advertisements at the beginning of the video. In a forty-five minute program, I only get three short commercial breaks. In total, to watch forty-five minutes of a show I only have to watch five minutes of commercials. And it’s completely free!! I have every show that I want available at my fingertips. If I so choose, I can stream an episode of Doctor Who or Sherlock that is available in the UK but not in the US, completely free and without any advertisements. Online, I have access to any movie or television show that has been made. For only the cost of my internet.

Yet, I still have cable.

I work forty-five to fifty hours a week on top of spending ten hours at school or studying and five hours of ballet. I don’t really have time to watch television. If I do have time to watch television, I want to be able to relax and not worry about annoying commercials interrupting the plotline. So, I usually don’t even turn on the television unless there is a Stars game on. When I’m home alone, I put on music and clean or cook or read or paint. I might make a vlog (yes, I have one I’m currently editing and will be up Friday evening) or work on homework. If I’m really enjoying a class, I might even read ahead. I might spend time research a topic that peaked my interest earlier in the day. I might work on writing a blog post.

Yet, I still have cable.

I love watching the Dallas Stars. But, being in Texas, hockey is not the priority and is therefore not shown on a public channel. If the game is out of town and on a weekday, I usually can’t watch the game. Since October, I’ve spent over $2000 on hockey tickets. I’ve been to roughly fifteen hockey games so far this year, and will be going to a few more before even the playoffs begin. So, I don’t watch the games on television during the week and I spend a ton of money going to the games. Yet, I still I am willing to pay for a cable bill when I usually only watch one game a month on my own television.

What exactly is wrong with me and why am I so attached to having cable? I have this service that I hate paying for, I never use, and I just generally loathe. I have several other services that I can use for free or a fraction of the price. Why can’t I just let go of cable? I spend more money actually going to hockey games and going out to watch them than I can justify to myself while having cable. Why is cable so important? Why do I have such an attachment to this cable? And why is everyone the exact same?