With 200+ channels available, I found myself turning on the tv and simply surfing through channels for large amounts of time----never really finding much to watch, but spending lots of time doing it.

When I cut the cord back in 2011, it was a little bit of a hard switch at first (especially for the kids). But pretty quickly we found that instead of channel surfing, we watched what we wanted to watch and stopped the surfing. Cut down meaningfully on the amount of tv being watched.

Additionally, with the streaming services, I have much better control over what my kids watch on tv. I can put in place restrictions and have a history of everything that has been watched. That has further reduced the amount of unwanted content in my home.

There is a cost savings element for me, but that is not a huge amount (maybe $25/month). The real key is that I was able to reduce the total amount of useless time in front of the tv for me and my family, gained greater control over the type of content that comes into my home, and have access to the vast majority of programming I really want.