What’s the thinking behind removing the cable physically? Never heard of that.
Oh it was a completely ideosyncratic if carefully considered decision, in aid of spending far less time being passively entertained at a time when my real life offered ever more intriguing options, just as I was also becoming aware that a human lifespan is not infinite. I hasten to say I'm in that age group that learned to read before there were TVs and I am pretty sure that has influenced my attitude towards video. I've never understood how a lot of people leave their TV sets on while not watching, as though they are part of the room's furnishings, and expect themselves and guests to conduct conversations around whatever's on that little (or huge) screen.
Anyway I was happy to leave cable television of that particular era behind: the middle of the first decade of the new century brought infotainment as permanent supplanter of TV news, the rise of artificially discordant cable "talking heads" programs, more gratuitously violent dramas, voyeuristic, hypernarcissistic "reality TV" and a raft of mediocre cable channels from which "to choose" a package.... albeit without ability to construct la carte bundles of viewing options.
My then ongoing old house renovations beckoned, and I had moved upstate permanently, so my gardens became a main attraction in daylight hours during the season. My quilting-related interests more than filled the evening hours then and shared winters with a booklist as long as interstate 80. So what was I paying a cable company for? The right to catch the latest scripted soundbites of ever more contentious politicians? I could read about the issues related to those remarks in the newspapers.
My decision to detach from the whole cable thing came after I had lent my TV set to an elderly neighbor while his kin were shopping for a new one for him. Realized my life didn't miss a beat the whole time, and so when the set was returned to me I didn't hook it back up right away.... a dangerous moment there for the cable company, as it turned out. Meanwhile iTunes had begun to offer digital downloads...
No regrets, even if it's fun to stream entertainment sometimes over DSL that finally got fast enough here to bother with it. Still feel like life's too short to sit in front of a screen for how long it takes video to get the point across while demanding you invest your eyesight. Don't mind audiobooks or podcasts because I can sew or cook or do chores at the same time.