I canceled HBO today, again. I decided HBO wasn’t worth it to me after upgrading to HD back in ’04 and they continued to crop movies and normalize sound today. Despite HBO continuing this practice, HBO Go and three months free pulled me back in last year. The thing is the free months are over and while $17 a month isn’t going to make a significant impact to my budget, I just don’t use it. The movies are still unwatchable and the original programming is still too few and far between. Even with HBO promising to add 5.1 to HBO Go, I doubt I’ll ever choose to watch it over waiting and renting the Blu-rays. Ultimately it just comes down to me not seeing the value and part of that is because of the competing services from Netflix — I’m not talking about Netflix streaming wither which as far as I’m concerned is “just for he kids.” I’m talking about the Netflix tried and true disc business. For $1 more a month than HBO charges, I get to watch 1+ new release movie a week in the greatest sound and picture quality available today, and my kids get to watch all the Hello Kitty and Thomas Trains episodes I’ll allow; on the big screen, my cell phone or our tablet. With all that, who has time to watch HBO?
I cancelled after Comcast blocked HBO Go on my Roku.
Yep. I agree about HBO and about Netflix. When Netflix went to separate plans for streaming and for DVDs, I went the DVD route simply because of the catalog.
FiOS offered me HBO for $8.50/month for 12 months. I added it on because I was curious to see HBO Go. I’ll probably keep it for a year, but you’re right, $17/month is crazy.
If you’ve already seen all of the original series, forget it. Watching 1 episode a week is not worth the dough, I agree. Luck is looking great, though.
Movies? Those are for netflix and redbox.
If you haven’t, HBO GO is worth every penny for full runs of Sopranos, Wire, Deadwood, OZ, SFU, Curb, Rome, Band of Brothers…on and on. Basically about 12 of the 20 best shows ever.
You want to watch shows like Sopranos or Band of Brothers without surround sound and with compression artifacts? Personally I’d prefer to rent the Blu-ray Discs and see them in perfect video and sound.
My problem isn’t so much the $17 per month you have to pay HBO, but the $45 per month that you have to first pay the cable co before HBO is even an option. They do have some decent original programs, but they’re not worth $62 a month when there are so many free ota alternatives.