I cut the cord; can I reattach it?
We couldn’t wait to move away from cable to streaming services. Now we have more subscriptions than we know what to do with, but can’t find anything. Are we really longing for cable again?
October 27, 2025
If you think hard enough, you can remember it as if it were yesterday. Someone, somewhere, maybe at work, a birthday party, a night out with friends, mentioned it to you for the first time. The word was like a whisper gracing your ears.
Netflix.
There was now a place to simply log in and watch movies, television shows and documentaries. Your cable bill flashed before your eyes. Was this really the end of paying it? Were you saved from the increasingly high charges?
But you held out a little longer. And it continued.
Disney+. Apple TV. Amazon Prime Video. A world of entertainment, commercial-free and at your fingertips. And for less than $10 per month each.
You gave in. You “cut the cord,” eliminating your traditional cable and moving to a world of on-demand binge watching. You had never felt so free.
Until you went looking for your favourite show, and it was gone. Moved somewhere else. Somewhere you hadn’t yet paid to be.
Then the whispers turned to shrieks.
Prime Video! Discovery+! Tubi! Acorn!
It was too much. Every linear television channel you’d ever heard of seemed to be putting its shows on (or losing its reruns to) yet another streaming service, and the costs were adding up. Netflix, Apple and Disney keep raising prices (the latter four times since last year), part of a dedicated attempt to become profitable in this segment of their business, all while cracking down on password-sharing (sorry mom, you’re on your own). The cheapest plans now came with ads (part of the reason you left cable to begin with)!! How did something so beautiful turn into such a chaotic mess?
The Twilight Zone
We’ve now reached the point where for some, streaming is more expensive than cable was! Articles are encouraging viewers to revert back to a simpler time, re-connecting the cable cord we cut. What was the point of switching in the first place?
Even if we did, aren’t the business behind these streaming services just going to grab more content for their own libraries, leaving us back with plenty of channels but no cable to watch?
Well, at least I’ll always have my sport….hey, why isn’t the game on?
Live sports were once seen as a major reason to remain with or come back to cable. Yet south of the border, the NFL’s Thursday Night Football games are now on Amazon (as is Monday Night Hockey and soon, select NBA games [with others on NBC’s Peacock]). Friday Night Baseball can be found on Apple TV and English Premier League games are on DAZN. Casual sports fans who have moved solely to streaming should be able to get their fix without being tied to cable.
But for the die-hards? Or someone who just wants to tune into the games their local team plays throughout a season? Well, take your scissors away from the cord and back up slowly. Now, pick up your credit card. You have several different platforms to sign up for before puck drop.
The advent of the Internet, followed by the rise of social media and streaming, has fundamentally disrupted traditional broadcast television, fragmenting it into numerous segments. Sports broadcasting has certainly felt this impact, but the inherent excitement and live content it offers ensures it can keep attracting, retaining and growing viewership. As streaming services compete to secure high-demand games from the must-see professional leagues, we are witnessing an expansion of the sports media landscape across both streaming and traditional network platforms. Each one is competing to entice and retain subscribers by offering innovative and diverse viewing experiences.
For example, an NFL fan can pay extra for the ability to watch a live broadcast of every live football game every Sunday, stream the ManningCast – featuring Peyton and Eli Manning – during Monday Night Football games, and tune into the NFL RedZone channel (purchased in August by ESPN, leaving things murkier up here in Canada).
At some point, people, even die-hard sports fans, are likely to add up what they’re spending and realize they’ve replaced their traditional cable TV bill with a series of bills adding up to more than what they were spending before. At that point, we may see some services lose subscribers and a shakeup in the streaming landscape. The streaming giants who have secured the strongest sports deals will likely survive because they’ll be continuing to offer the live events that people want to watch and won’t be able to find elsewhere.
The revolution will be televised (sorry, I meant streamed)
So, as you refresh your Wi-Fi connection and try to remember which freaking service you can find The Office on, you start to ask yourself some probing questions. “Is it pointless to backtrack now? Did I take the most consistent thing in my life for granted?” Well, yes to both those questions, frankly.
As companies look to move away from the struggling television business and focus on the profitability of streaming services, we may simply be too far down the road to turn back, with limited options as consumers. Combined with the fact that in Canada services like Netflix employ things like the infinite scroll mechanism, which plays the next episode automatically as soon as one episode is complete (the EU is currently trying to ban this due to its naturally addictive results similar to a recent article I wrote on the perils of social media), it’s an uphill battle for consumers.
“But wait!” You think. “What about one streaming service where you can pick what you want to watch, using one menu to find the right show at the right time. Surely that would take off?”
Ah, my friend. It’s been tried before.
The Relatable Economist is an ongoing written series focused on how the economy, geopolitics, markets and more are impacting our day-to-day lives, discussing topics that matter to you, even if just to share with your friends at your next get-together or in the stands at your child’s or grandchild’s soccer game. Have a topic you want to learn more about? Write to us at therelatableeconomist@omers.com.