This week on TechHive: Our first mailbag
Last week, I asked you for all the cord-cutting questions you might’ve been too embarrassed to ask. After nearly a decade writing about technology, it’s easy for me to make faulty assumptions about what’s common knowledge, and I figured some judgment-free Q&A might be helpful for everyone.

The response was greater than I expected, with about two dozen thoughtful questions about antennas, streaming bundles, internet setups, and devices. I had fun answering some of them for this week’s TechHive column, and hope we can turn this into a regular thing. I still have all the unanswered ones on file, and if you have more, send them my way by replying to this email. In the meantime, read the full column on TechHive.

Weekly rewind

Sling TV drops misleading “a la carte” marketing: About 10 months ago, Sling TV started advertising itself as an “a la carte” TV service. That didn’t sit right with me. Although Sling is more flexible than most streaming bundles, its structure of cheap base packages plus $5-and-up add-ons isn’t really a la carte. You can’t pick individual channels, and sometimes you have to pay for a lot of channels you don’t want just to access the ones you do.

This week, Sling rolled out a new “We Are Slingers” marketing campaign along with an update to its website, and I was happy to see all mentions of a la carte TV expunged. While Sling still advertises its flexibility–as it should–it’s no longer claiming to offer something that for the most part doesn’t yet exist.

More Catch-Up

Save more money
Amazon has some deep discounts on the Fire TV Stick and third-generation Fire TV for Prime subscribers. The former is on sale for $25 (a $15 discount), while the latter is selling for $45 (a $25 discount).

While the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick aren’t my favorite streamers, they play nicely with Alexa devices like the Echo, letting you control playback and launch videos from supported streaming services hands-free. The FIre TV Stick is a particularly great deal, undercutting the Roku Express while offering more features like voice control and a point-anywhere remote.

Thanks for reading!

This was a somewhat slow week on the cord-cutting front, so please keep the feedback coming and help me figure out what to write about next. And as always, you can contribute to this newsletter through Patreon (for recurring donations), and through Ko-Fi (for one-time donations).

Until next week,
Jared