Today Mr. Rand and I have made the jump. Cut the cord. Dispensed with the services of the local monopoly. Boldly gone where more and more TV watchers are going. We have fired the evil and hated Comcast and decided to rely on a panoply of streaming services which, even collectively, will cost us far less than our ever-growing Comcast bills.

“When in the course of human events” – as they say – something about “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind,” etc., etc.

So here’s our thinking.

We’ve had Netflix since it was a service that mailed you DVDs, and Amazon Prime since Amazon invented Prime. Though we watch them more and more, and cable less and less, it never before felt quite possible to just do without. There’s live news. There’s sports. There’s a dozen or so channels carried on our cable system that we watch with some regularity. Netflix and Amazon don’t seem to replace all that. Or don’t replace it adequately. So what happened?

The final straw. The coup de grace. The killing shot, was our discovery of Sling TV as an option on our Roku box. A little research showed that it appears to have nearly everything we want from cable, at far less cost. As second homeowners, all the more so. One Sling subscription should theoretically – this is all new to us so that qualifier is important – work at both homes, work on computers and tablets, work on phones, etc. In short, one subscription, for a measly $45/mo. (for one of their most comprehensive packages), should work for both of us, almost anywhere.

No more shelling out $10/mo. per box for the rest of our lives to “rent” each of multiple cable boxes (which must cost about $50/ea. to manufacture). On the box concession alone Comcast has gouged us blind for the last 20 years. We have one old box that’s been sitting here for 13 years. (13 x 12 x $9.95 = $1,552.20. Do you think they made a profit?)

No more opening the cable bill in trepidation wondering whether this is the month they’ll decide to just randomly jack up the bill by 30 bucks. No more calling and pleading for a less extortionate package every three, six, or 12 months. And frankly, no more equipment to break, and need repair, by a guy who gives you a four-hour window to sit at home and wait and then he doesn’t show up until three hours after the window closed (if at all).

It’s a brave new world and we’re diving in. We’ll see how it goes, but it’s hard to imagine the frustrations will be enough to drive us back to where we’ve been. Anybody else cut the cord? What are your experiences?