I'm nearing Year Six here in Japan

[chronovore]

I've been gone long enough that some of the basic operations expenses of living in the USA have changed and I can't really visualize them. Can someone fill me in on the status of common monthly entertainment and communication expenditures? Whenever I think about what people are paying in the USA, I always picture some massive heap of bills being paid just for regular stuff.

Here's what I picture:

• Cable/Satellite TV reception
• Internet provider (may be bundled with Cable)
• Phone/VOIP/Cellphone
  
• Tivo monthly charge (may be bundled with Cable/Satellite, if set-top box is installed
• NetFlix / Blockbuster and/or GameFly
• Xbox Live
  
• MMORPG fees, such as World of Warcraft, Everquest, etc.
• Satellite radio, or Rhapsody / Launch
  

When I look at that, I see a couple hundred bucks, every month, going out into the ether. I can't fathom it. Some of it's unavoidable, but some of it appears redundant. Is it?

While I'm asking, is it common for people to have their home phone line served through their internet provider? Or are people switching to mainly cellphone service now?

My wife and I both have cellphones; if my cellphone wasn't paid for by my work (and therefore not really mine), I think we'd ditch the home land line and just go all-cellular.

FWIW: When I last was in the USA, the cable in my area was delivered over TWO separate coaxial cables, and required a manual A/B switchbox on top of the machine to access each discrete line. If you wanted to VHS record anything, you had to make sure that the switchbox was on the correct setting for that particular channel and program. The last time I visited the USA, my sister was playing music through radio stations delivered through her cable service, and played through their home theater setup; direct service radio is still commonly used in Japan, and costs people about 7000 yen a month. Yikes! I've been trying to get some people to switch to internet radio.

Comments

[andrewv.livejournal.com]

It can be kind of expensive. I have net, cellphone, and Xbox Live. If you buy Xbox Live by the year, it's not so bad.

I don't have a landline, which confused the hell out of my landlord. I also don't get TV/cable (and so, of course, no Tivo) and just torrent/DVD all my television shows. I enjoy TV a lot more with crystal clear pictures and no interruptions. And I can finish d/ling a torrent of the east coast feed before a show airs in California, so it's not like I even have a time delay. I have an iPod and got a new car stereo with an Aux In jack, neatly avoiding satellite baloney.

I'm thinking of getting NetFlix just cause I think it would save me money (buy fewer movies) as well as increase my breadth-of-watching.

Anyways. Yeah, it can be really expensive. Which is why you kind of have to pick and choose your entertainment poisons.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Neat! I was hoping you'd respond, because you're capable of making a direct comparison between the two regions.

I've been wondering if people have been more willing to eschew landlines if they're already on cellphones. Landlines seem like a vestigial limb.

What are you doing for an ISP? Is it expensive compared to Japan? Reliable?

[andrewv.livejournal.com]

Internet is like $50 / mo and it sucks. No other options to speak of. It's like 1MB DSL (download), 128 kbps up.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Internet is like $50 / mo and it sucks. No other options to speak of. It's like 1MB DSL (download), 128 kbps up.

ASS-TACULAR!

wow thassalotta stuff Uncle Bob!

[hedr-goblin.livejournal.com]

I don't think we could afford half of that stuff... although, being IN the game industry means you could get some money back in taxes if you count it as research? dunno.

I have my cell... $50 (roughly)
Netflix... $20
Library card (free in theory, but really, if you look at late fees... $6)
Rhapsody... $25 quarterly? (something like that)
Internet provider (and thus, most cheapo land line available, which I don't even have a phone plugged into)$60

no cable, tivo, or online game services of any kind. We don't watch tv (except for Netflix).

I turned off the cable and random TV watching, about the time that I became a single parent. It was just one more thing that was sucking money and time. We play a lot of board games, and read to each other a lot... and make good use of Netflix. I have memberships to my favorite museums, and we like drawing together, sometimes.

We've tried cooking together, but so far,it's been a dismal failure, as I can't seem to live up to the high standards of the establishment. Six year olds are brutal.

Re: wow thassalotta stuff Uncle Bob!

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Six year olds are brutal.
NO DOUBT! On the other hand, it's nice to receive an unfiltered, brutally honest opinion now and then.

So you are in for about US$135 per month for this stuff, and that's without cable TV. Wow.

Is there any reason you're using Rhapsody instead of Pandora, or even a regular internet radio channel? I've met another guy who is a complete fan for it - I just don't understand it.

Library fees: I was always stunned at how cheap they are compared to video rental late fees. If you manage US$6/month in late fees, you are on some kind of frequent flyer program for books... Which would make sense, considering the number of your book reviews that I read last year.

BTW, US$60/month for the lowest-end internet is SUPER LAME! In Japan there is a lot of competition for broadband companies, so 54Mb/s is about ¥3000 (http://www.google.co.jp/search?q=3000+yen+in+dollars&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)/month. Of course, you'll be more stoked when San Francisco gets free broadband wireless, and I'll still be paying...

Re: wow thassalotta stuff Uncle Bob!

[hedr-goblin.livejournal.com]

I went back and checked my numbers... silly me. I was off in my internet and phone numbers by about $50, in my favor. That's what I get for not paying attention once I set things in motion. I love autopay.

I don't know about Pandora, but if it would let me create playlists and download them onto a shuffle, I would be all over that. I got a cute little iPod shuffle for xmas, and I haven't had the chance to figure out how to play with it yet, but I think Rhapsody is going to make me actually BUY the songs I listen to, in order to put them on my shuffle, and i don't wanna do that yet.

library. *love*. I also get TONS of books on dvd now and listen to them on my commute in the mornings and nights. I think I love that more than watching movies, to be honest. I just finished "pattern recognition" by William Gibson, and got that thing where you are both happy and sad when you get to the end. Listening to "Cold Mountain" now, as read by the author with a soft southern drawl. If I had to, I could get rid of internet and netflix and rhapsody (though I would VERY MUCH miss internet) as long as I could still have the library (although that's kind of cheating because I can use the internet AT the library).

As soon as we get free internet in SF, I will be one happy camper. Maybe free internet will tempt you guys to come back to SF for a few years? (I know, I know... *sigh*)

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Pandora.com - go, check it out - it's different. Smarter than most sites. It finds music you'll like based on what you already like. And then it plays it for you in an endless stream.

iPod - If you have CDs that you like, rip them to your computer, then load them on your iPod. If you like, go to Last.fm and search for this username, and if you see anything you like, I'll burn CDs for you and send them your way. Alternately, I can make .zip files and put them on dropfile for you. Additionally, you can subscribe to podcasts of music you like, and those will load on your iPod as well. I've also found podcasts of old radio dramas, such as X Minus One and the Raymond Chandler stuff. Very keen. For me, my iPod is like a TiVO is used by other people. I find stuff I like, download, buy, rip it, and stick in in my iPod. BLISS.

Free internet in San Francisco does not compete with a soon-to-be-complete, custom built house in Osaka. Especially when many folks rather kindly run their own wireless LANs without any protection on them. Free internet by default.

[hedr-goblin.livejournal.com]

yeah, you win... Custom Built house in Osaka pretty much sounds like a dream.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

You'll see!

[lynchwalker.livejournal.com]

Lessee.

I don't watch teevee, so I skipped out on cable. I pay about $42 a month for a 2MB line from them a month, though.

No landline, and I do a pay-as-you-go phone. I'll probably stick to that, as it's a Virgin, so they ride the Sprint backbone (which seems pretty robust out here). I pop maybe $30 every four to six weeks onto that, depending on how many pics I blog.

Live is $60 a year...or was when I had it. I ditched it, though, because I was really only using it for Halo 2, and was already paying for MMO's.

WoW is about $15 a month, and FFXI is about the same, but you pay a buck for each additional character.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

OOH. You've hit on another thing I'd been meaning to ask about: individual online fees that stack on top of other fees. That would include things like Rhapsody and Launch (mentioned), Audible.com, Pandora has a pay option.

But I also meant to ask about games.

It's one thing to have ISP and Xbox Live Gold, but another to also be paying per-month fees for single-game fees on Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Ultima Online, Everquest... I wonder how many players are paying for multiple accounts. Four games would be like US$60 a month!

So you're spending US$30/month on MMO fees?

[spasmsproject.livejournal.com]

- Cable/internet/landline phone/digital radio: $125/mo.
- Cell phones: $80/mo. (Rob and I share a plan, so that covers us both)
- Movie rentals: +/- $20/mo. (We rent 1-2 movies a week through our cable service. It's digital, so we can play it just like a DVD, and if we really like it, we just pop in a DVD and record it for future viewing.)

And that's it. About $200, like you said.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that round-up.

I'd not considered the DVD-R possibilities of recording; I assumed they broadcast Pay-Per-View with additional copyprotection, like Macrovision or something. I do a low-rent version of this with my kids' old Sesame Street VHS tapes - I play them and record to the HDD recorder, then burn a DVD to play whenever, which avoids wearing out the tapes. Unfortunately when I tried the same thing with our purchased Disney VHS tapes, they all are copy protected. Hm... maybe if I use a video-out from the TV, the additional signal may be ignored...
/rambling

US$80 for 2 cellphones with unlimited minutes between the two still seems high to me, but it would also depend on packet usage, right?

Golly, that US$125 for cable/internet/landline/digital-radio seems high. I wonder if the monopoly that cable companies have will ever be disrupted, and if so what effect it will have on pricing.

[weezie13.livejournal.com]

- Cable (just basic, no HoBO or anything) / Broadband = $100/mo.
- Cellphone (don't use it too much) = $65/mo.
- Netflix = $19.99/mo.
- Media budget (covers all DVD/book/game/music purchases) = $200/mo.

My ISP just started offering phone service for free for the first 3 months and then an additional $49 (I believe unlimited long distance) a month.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

No landline? Do you miss it?
Why is your cell bill so high if you're not using it?

Media budget: Far be it from me to complain, since I get so many of your hand-me-downs (Thanks, as always!) - though is this the trimmed down version of you budget, or are you in relapse? How much of it is music?

[epiphaniesrus.livejournal.com]

The cell bill is always high because like every other data util, most cell phone companies make you pre-purchase your usage estimate and fail to credit you if you're under, but ream you with full-on cackling if you go over. super_nyanko and I had several months where some personal event happened that caused us to be on the cell phone more than we considered "normal," and she went over the number of plan minutes by 100-200. It cost us at an extra $150-200 each time.

So very similarly to a protection racket, you pay for more minutes than you think you'll ever use... just in case something unfortunate were to occur. An accident of some kind that, while tragic, could be prevented with a donation to the Verizonelli's.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Holy crap. I can't think of a single expense that would be acceptable to have go over by that much, especially for something trivial like speaking for an extra 200 minutes some month. It /does/ sound crooked.

However, I /do/ recall how long distance calling used to be billed in Japan; I once paid nearly a hundred bucks to have a fight with my ex-girlfriend.

[epiphaniesrus.livejournal.com]

Directv + Tivo = $50
Cable Modem = ~$55 (6Mb down / something tiny up)
Cell phones = $110
Land line = $60 - we don't use it except that Tivo requires one

I let my XBL account revert to Silver. I'll up it again when someone asks me to play something. Didn't join Netflix or Gamefly, although we may someday.

Depending on what happens with HD services in the next year I may find myself going with a cable DVR and ditching Directv. Which would hopefully lead to getting rid of the land lines. However, some financial and home-purchasing institutions seem to associate giving them cell phone numbers with shady dealings, and won't accept it if you ask "is it ok if I give you my cell phone number?"

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

However, some financial and home-purchasing institutions seem to associate giving them cell phone numbers with shady dealings, and won't accept it if you ask "is it ok if I give you my cell phone number?"

I was wondering if a cellphone-only person might run into legacy mentality surrounding landlines. As was mentioned earlier in this thread, the lack of a landline can boggle some people, as though the cellphone is some sort of toy despite costing significantly more to operate than a landline...