We live in the streaming era. What started as a cheaper alternative to traditional cable has turned into something that feels like cable spread across a bunch of different subscriptions.
Getting all the major streaming services, even on the cheaper ad-supported plans, will set you back around $80 per month. If you go with the premium ad-free options, the price skyrockets. Then, if you want one of the top streaming cable services, you'll need to almost double that amount.
Add ESPN for sports and suddenly your monthly bill is more than $160 per month — which is more than most people spent on basic cable when that was still the main way to consume entertainment.
So I decided that rather than picking and choosing which services to keep, I dumped them all and went with a mix of free options and just not watching as many shows and movies as I normally would. I gave myself one month to try it so I could weigh having about $90 in my pocket (I didn't have a streaming cable service to begin with, so there was nothing to drop there) versus the FOMO feeling of not being able to see the new releases.
Here's what happened each week:
No paid streaming: Week 1 (June 21 - June 27)
I started this little test on Sunday, June 21, so I missed out on a lot of content. For example, "House of the Dragon" season 3 debuted on the first day, but fortunately, I haven't watched the first two seasons yet (I planned to wait until the entire series dropped and then go with the binge strategy). "Avatar: The Last Airbender" season 2 also hit, but to be honest, I couldn't care less about it, so I didn't feel like I was missing anything.
The final season of "The Bear" started on June 25, which definitely made me a little sad as I enjoy the show. However, it's not one I'm totally hooked on, so I was able to get by knowing it'll be there later.
"Avatar: Fire and Ash" dropped on June 24, but I actually didn't notice it until the following week, as I was deep in the Scary Movie franchise for week one. "Little Brother" debuted on Netflix at the end of the week, and while I was passively interested in it because I'm a wrestling fan (something else I was unable to watch without a paid service), I didn't feel too awful skipping it.
For the first week, these were the main releases that gave me a little FOMO, but they were pretty minor, especially since Pluto TV brought it hard with some big movies that kept me entertained. With "Scary Movie" dropping in theaters earlier in the month, it added the first five movies in the series for everyone to catch up, and I ripped through all of them (the latter three films aren't the best, but they're still good for a laugh).
Between work, family life and watching kids' content during the day (thankfully, he's 9 and doesn't follow the latest releases, so movies on Pluto TV were satisfying for him), these films were enough to fulfill my watching needs for the week (along with some golf YouTube content before going to bed at night). "The Sheep Detectives" would have probably caught his attention, but thankfully, we saw it in theaters.
Week 1 (June 21-27) difficulty rating (1 being easiest, 10 being hardest):
- 3 - I would have liked to have watched "The Bear" and "Avatar: Fire and Ash," but I could live without them
No paid streaming: Week 2 (June 28-July 4)
Now, this week and next would've been nearly impossible for soccer (football) fans, which I am not. The round of 32 started on June 28, then the round of 16 kicked off on July 4, and the rest of the tournament went on from there. Some games were available for free, but if you wanted to see the finals and the biggest matches, you needed subscriptions. For me, this was a non-issue, but it could've easily been the breaking point for some.
Outside of the biggest sports event that had everyone talking, I realized that "Avatar: Fire and Ash" launched the previous week and I was very much looking forward to watching it. Should I have gone while it was in theaters? Probably. But the fact remains that I didn't, and I was definitely feeling some FOMO not being able to catch it on Disney+.
And then July 1 rolled around, and my sadness increased exponentially: "X-Men ‘97" season 2 dropped on Disney+, and I was left out in the cold.
Another show I was interested in watching before the next season was "Silo" — with season 3 launching on July 3, it seemed like a good time to get in. But I didn't get a chance to watch it before shutting everything down, so there's another show I will be left out of watching for the time being (I'll have to re-up Apple TV at some point to catch it, as I don't see it going to a free service anytime in the future).
So with what I didn't watch out of the way, let's talk about what I did actually watch. Quite simply, I watched a lot of YouTube. I caught up on videos from pretty much every major YouTube golf channel from the past few months that had slipped through the cracks. I watched live concerts of my favorite bands from old-school Woodstock broadcasts to modern pro-shot stuff. I discovered Angine de Poitrine through a random YouTube recommendation.
And I dove into the Pluto library for older movies I might have missed or just wanted to see again. My childhood crush Alicia Silverstone's classic "Clueless" arrived, so I took a trip down memory lane with it. "The Matrix Revolutions," by far the worst movie in the series in my humble opinion, came to Pluto, so I gave it a second chance (I stand by my original opinion; it's a bad, bad, terrible, awful movie). Mix in the requisite kids' movies, and we had an okay week of entertainment for the family while I cried inside about not being able to see "X-Men 97."
Week 2 (June 28-July 4) difficulty:
- 8 - Missing out on "X-Men 97" season 2 hit me hard, and I'm excited for this all to be over so I can go watch it now.
No paid streaming: week 3 (July 5-11)
I'm not going to oversell it here: This week was pretty easy for me. Looking through the new releases from Netflix, Hulu and Disney+ and streaming as a whole, nothing really caught my eye. Sure, I'd normally watch the PGA Tour's Genesis Scottish Open, but it's not a tournament I can't live without (we'll get to that next week).
"Hamnet" looked good, but it's a movie I feel I need to watch. The Netflix doc "Shipwrecked: Nightmare at Sea" looked interesting, and I'll probably watch it at some point if I ever resubscribe, but if not, I won't lose sleep.
Pluto and YouTube carried me through week three without issue — I watched some of my favorite movies from my teenage years: "Friday" and "Next Friday" (I skipped "Friday After Next" as it's just not very funny). Then, I went even further back, jumping into "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" and "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls." Finally, I tickled my horror fancy with "Pet Sematary (1989)" and "The Cabin In The Woods," a couple of classics.
Week 3 (July 5-11) difficulty:
- 2 - It honestly could be a 1 for this week, but I added a single point because I still really want to watch "X-Men 97."
No paid streaming: Week 4+ (July 12-20)
Everything was going pretty well, with "X-Men '97" being the only release I truly had FOMO over.
And then the middle of July knocked me on my streamless butt with the release of Netflix's "The Hawk" and the airing of the Open, one of the four biggest golf events of the year. Sure, Will Ferrell's "The Hawk" was getting mixed reviews, but after thoroughly enjoying "Stick," the last big golf comedy series (on Apple TV), I really wanted to watch (and review) "The Hawk."
Could I have asked for a media screener? Sure, but that felt just as against the spirit of this test as pirating it. So I suffered through not being able to formulate my own opinion on the show.
How did I deal with the crushing lack of the Open, which broadcast on a mix of NBC Sports, USA Network, Golf Channel and Peacock? I just didn't watch it. It was hard; I don't usually miss any of the big golf tournaments, but I was committed to this experiment. I did listen to the No Laying Up podcast, which recaps the event each day to keep up with what happened, and I watched highlights on social media, but I didn't sit down and watch any of the event live. It was a sad Thursday-Sunday for me, but I made it work.
OK, that's not entirely true. I did get to see a little of the tournament at restaurants. For example, I played golf on Saturday morning, and the event was playing in the clubhouse, so I watched a bit. But it felt more like a tease than a satisfying viewing experience.
Other than that, in week four, I didn't watch much. Maybe the strain of missing two big things I really wanted to see was too much for me, but I just played a lot of Diablo IV. It had an expansion recently and a new season rolled out, so I dug in and leveled up a Barbarian. It was actually quite enjoyable, and it felt good to dive into one of my favorite video games again.
Week 4+ (July 12-20) difficulty:
- 10 - Everyone's difficult week will be different. Maybe "House of the Dragon" was the big release for you, but for me, "The Hawk" on Netflix and The Open made me realize I really can't live without paid streaming services.
No paid streaming: Final thoughts
In the end, not having paid streaming services is kind of a bummer.
FOMO is a very real thing. From live sports events to new movie releases, there's a lot of content out there that people are talking about, and if you're not willing to turn to illegal means (which I wasn't, both because it's illegal and it would kind of defeat the whole point of my test if I could just pirate anything), you will feel like you're not part of things.
So what's my ultimate advice after a month of depriving myself of the latest entertainment? Pick and choose which streaming services to keep each month. It takes a little effort, yes, but Tom's Guide's own Kelly Woo makes it easy with her monthly pieces on which services to cancel based on goodies slated to come to each one.
Obviously, your tastes will vary, and there might be a show or movie that you care about that makes you subscribe, but she'll give you a nice baseline from which you can work.
Obviously, if money is no object and you don't feel like putting in the effort, just subscribe to everything and forget it. But if that's not your situation (it's not mine, for sure), then your best bet is to be smart about what you keep active.
My ultimate conclusion after all this is that the streaming landscape is actually more annoying than cable. Instead of managing cable packages on one service, now we have upwards of 10 different subscriptions to worry about. It's great for the companies; they can nickel and dime us with increases that feel small — a dollar here and 50 cents there — but add up over time.
It feels like we're rapidly approaching a breaking point where there are just too many streaming services available, and people are going to get frustrated; I sure did, it's the whole reason I did this test.
But unless the cancellations happen in large numbers, nothing will change, and we'll be stuck jumping between multiple services to keep up with the content we want. Sure, you can survive with the ad-based freebies out there, but it's hardly ideal.
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