5 Reasons You Should Ditch Netflix and Keep Cable

We’re big fans of streaming video services, here at PCMag. Using an internet connection, anyone with a phone, tablet, PC, or smart TV can watch shows, movies, sports, or anime whenever and wherever they want. With free streaming services, you don't even need a subscription to enjoy convenient, on-demand video.

However, new tech doesn’t need to destroy what it’s meant to replace. Sometimes the old ways feature enough unique benefits to stay relevant. We’ve already expressed why you should think about bolstering your Blu-ray collection instead of sticking with Netflix. In the same manner that physical media has its place, traditional TV has its upsides, too. So, if you're on the fence about cutting the cord, here’s why you should stick to your TV guns. 

1. TV Lacks Algorithms

Streaming services want you to consume as much of their content as possible—that’s the point of their existence. So, they use tech to help achieve those ends. They track what you watch, and use that data to predict what else you might enjoy. They greenlight entire shows designed to satisfy fans of key search terms like “moody drama” or “David Fincher.” While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, there’s something sinister about the algorithm predicting your choices before you make them.

Traditional TV is truly random. You just watch whatever the channel decides to play next. It’s not influenced by anything other than top-level decisions made months ago by clueless executives, and that can be freeing. Traditional TV must service all possible viewers, not just an individual, so it’s easier to expose yourself to a wider variety of material. Right now, the best way to break free from Netflix’s curation is to take advantage of the service's gimmicky Play Something functionality. Traditional TV’s randomness becomes even more appealing when compared to Disney+ and other highly focused services that offer little to anyone who isn’t already a fan of their core brands.

2. TV Is Better Background Watching

Streaming video services are convenient, but they sometimes require a bit of babysitting. After setting up your account on your set-top box or smart TV, you must choose what you want to watch. And, unless you plan to binge an entire season all at once, you then must choose what to watch next. Plus, the app might crash or you might suffer internet problems. These are minor issues in the grand scheme of things, but they make streaming less optimized for setting and forgetting in the background.

Traditional TV thrives as background noise, trash you leave on as you do something else throughout your day like cooking and cleaning. Unless a bird hits your satellite dish, you should have nothing to worry about, not autoplay ads that endlessly repeat or prompts asking if you’re done watching. Discovery+ emulates traditional TV by running 24/7 live channels featuring its shows, and that’s absolutely the best way to gobble up that pure uncut garbage. 

3. Video Streaming Has Equally Confusing Economics

Once upon a time, video streaming services were pitched as the streamlined alternative to increasingly complicated cable packages. Cutting the cord freed you from a web of obfuscated price tiers and channels you didn’t actually want. For a while, that was true.

But now, there are too many streaming video services. In fact, if you subscribe to enough of them, you’re basically dealing with a video situation as confusing (and as expensive) as cable. It even feels like cable, since video streaming services now feature one particular network or theme like NBC’s Peacock or fuboTV’s sports. Disney straight up bundles its three streaming services (Disney+, ESPN+, Hulu) into one discounted bundle. These services may launch with low prices, but they slowly increase subscription fees over time. In addition, internet providers know cord-cutters can get numerous entertainment options with the internet alone, so they’ve also adjusted their prices. 

4. TV Has Less Storytelling Bloat

Streaming video services also fundamentally change how we engage with media. As someone who lacks patience, I prefer receiving every episode of a streaming show at once. I don’t care about talking about a show from week to week, and have little sympathy for folks trying to avoid spoilers. However, when you can watch an entire TV season in an afternoon, creators change their storytelling strategies to adapt to that reality. Streaming storytelling has suffered, as a result.

Too many streaming TV seasons suffer from massive bloat. They devolve into undisciplined, meandering messes since episodes don’t need to fit neatly into 30-minute or hour-long timeslots. Furthermore, episodes themselves become formless blobs that exist only as interchangeable parts in a “ten-hour-long movie.” Thin plots drag on forever, with only tiny payoffs at the very end of the slog, a phenomenon succinctly described as “Surf Dracula.” Traditional TV may be a cheap, cynical experience, but it uses its limitations and decades’ worth of historical knowledge to craft efficient, episodic material.

5. Streaming Content Disappears Without Warning

Streaming services may frequently add new shows and movies, but they also take them away with little warning. Licenses expire, former partners leave to start services of their own, theaters demand exclusivity windows, or someone just forgets to flip the right switch. Traditional TV is equally ephemeral, but its live nature constantly makes you acutely aware of that fact. Streaming services’ illusion of lost-lasting access makes their impermanent reality all the more jarring.

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It also creates more work for you. PCMag publishes monthly guides on what’s coming and going on streaming services, because you need that information just to keep up. We live in a strange future that requires you to be aware of extremely high-level corporate deals to fully understand streaming entertainment. I don’t want to know why a company can put a particular comic book character in its movie, and I don’t want to know how the latest merger impacts my TV options.

Video Streaming Services: What You Should Know

You Can Do Both!

You’re an adult. You can do whatever you want. There’s nothing stopping you from subscribing to a streaming video service, while also holding onto traditional TV. Stream HBO Max on your laptop, while tuning into breaking news on your television. Live TV streaming services make it easy to have the best of both worlds, as long as you’re willing to pay for the privilege of live channels. It’s your entertainment. Make the choice that’s best for you. Just don't forget what traditional TV brings to the table.

For more on streaming, check out our absolutely massive catalog of streaming video reviews and news.