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Another price increase for YouTube TV?

We “cut the cord”, or more appropriately, cancelled our DirecTV service back in 2009. We’ve been an over-the-air HDTV, streaming, or “video on demand” household ever since. Before taking this leap I had done a comparison of costs and highlighted DirecTV was costing us $1,080 a year. Adjusting that for inflation that is $1,582 in 2024.

Today we subscribe to many streaming services. Neflix, Hulu, Apple TV, Disney+, Paramount+. But the one thing that none of them can get us is live sports. For that, I’ve relied on YouTube TV. I think it is expensive, but it is the “best” way to get live TV. I first signed up for YouTube TV in 2019, and the prices have gone up wildly. The amounts here are the full amounts I was billed, not the list prices.

Month Amount
March 2019 $43.01
May 2019 $53.75
August 2020 $70.21
November 2023 $79.58
January 2025 $90.48

13.58% annual growth rate. If we inflation adjust the $43 the price would be $53 today. Instead we are $80 and soon to be over $90.

I paused my subscription. The frustrating thing for me is of all the services we subscribe to YouTube TV is used the least, and is three to six times more expensive than any of them.

I’ve been waiting for the various sports that I care for to go direct so I can get just what I want. But if the past is any indicator, this will actually just result in an even more expensive service. Maybe it is time to go back to the over-the-air HDTV.

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This two-way comment system that @manton has setup with Bluesky is pretty cool to see in action. I replied to a comment left via a Bluesky authentication on my blog and it showed up as a post on Bluesky a few moments later. Pretty cool! 👏

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Christmas tree is up at the cabin. 🎄

Decorated Christmas tree with Santa topper and Peanuts tree skirt in a wood-paneled cabin room beside a large window.
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First time for the kids and I in the newly renamed Magic Pines Sit & Soak. Awesome. 💧🔥

Three people in blue robes and towels smiling beside a steaming hot tub on a patio with evergreen trees behind them. Adult man and two teens with braces smiling in a steaming outdoor hot tub surrounded by pine trees Urban Wing wood-fired sauna with polycarbonate panels and a stainless chimney, beside an ACE wheelbarrow loaded with firewood, on a snowy patio Harvia wood-burning sauna stove with glowing fire and sauna stones, beside a wooden bench inside a polycarbonate panel sauna tent
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We are all a constantly changing process.

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Saturday morning at the lake. Delicious coffee. Wooden wick candle. Writing on my blog. Preparing the Weekly Thing. Lots of hygge. Good stuff.

Minnesota souvenir mug on a colorful hand-painted table beside a glowing candle and open laptop keyboard
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Just tried out the new photo collections feature on micro.blog and it is pretty great. I created a page of coffee photos. ☕️

This is a fun and new way to index into the photos that I have posted. I like it.

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Frosted window.

Auto-generated description: Delicate frost patterns intricately cover a window with a wintry scene visible in the background.
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Wait a second… Connections can use pictures? 🤯

iPhone screen showing a Connections puzzle game with 16 illustrated icons including a bed, saw, rat, zipper, comb, and bank building.
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Cookie Decorating

Tammy’s sister Corinne and her husband Denny hosted a cookie decorating class. They made a hundred cookies ahead of time and had a variety of different colors of Royal Icing. Denny even had pages printed of patterns for us to learn the proper technique. His cookies came out incredibly nice.

Auto-generated description: A person decorates holiday-themed cookies with icing at a table, featuring designs like Santa and reindeer.

We had a wide variety of skill. 😊

Auto-generated description: A baking sheet displays a variety of colorful, decorated Christmas-themed cookies.

I did three. My gnome was my favorite and I thought it was reasonable for a first go at it. The sweater was fine but a tad boring. The snowman however looked like it was straight out of Nightmare Before Christmas. Looked like some scary evil thing.

Auto-generated description: Three decorated cookies shaped like a Christmas sweater, a gnome, and a snowman are arranged on a sheet of parchment paper.

So, I had to eat the snowman. 😏