• partial_accumen
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    1504 months ago

    I think its more reflective that the price of streaming services continues to rise, while the value proposition does not. So why subscribe to all services at one time? You can only watch one at a time.

      • sunzu2
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        264 months ago

        normies are not redicalized enough but these media parasites working OT on pushing them to sail.

      • Masterbaexunn
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        64 months ago

        Stremio & torrentio are free. Not sure if it works on googleTV. It doesn’t on roku

        • TheTechnician27
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          224 months ago

          Referring to a VPN with my price, not private trackers. Sorry for the confusion.

        • @[email protected]
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          24 months ago

          I recently discovered I can just have Kodi on my Fire TV use SFTP to login to my seedbox and download my shows from there.

        • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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          4 months ago

          It works on Chromecast, Fire stick, Nvidia Shield, and anything else using Android. It also works on Windows and Linux.

      • @[email protected]
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        64 months ago

        Setup a Digital Ocean droplet in Amsterdam, years ago. LOL, not even sure how to login to it, because I don’t have to touch it.

        OpenVPN -> connect -> thepiratebay.org -> Tixati -> done

        Yeah, I could be more secure, do it better, good enough for me to steal movies and books.

    • ThePowerOfGeek
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      204 months ago

      Exactly. I finally cancelled Netflix a few weeks ago. It’s too expensive and there’s very little I want to watch on there any more. The shitty way they were trying to push you into more expensive plans was just the shit icing on the turd pie.

      I’m now looking at Disney+ and Prime Video because there’s hardly anything on those too that I like.

      • @[email protected]
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        104 months ago

        I hate the UI of prime video with a passion. From time to time I look for something to watch on it but I have the impression they try to keep me from causing traffic. After some minutes I give up and wonder why I didn’t cancel yet.

        • ThePowerOfGeek
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          174 months ago

          Yeah, they really broke it a video of years ago. It used to just show videos covered by the prime subscription. Then they started showing additional sub-services you could sign up. That was annoying but not too bad. But now they show you all sorts of stuff that doesn’t come with prime. That really pisses me off - not least because my kids still have a hard time differentiating the ‘free’ stuff from the ‘requires extra money’ stuff.

          • @[email protected]
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            24 months ago

            There’s a prime only browsing section but but you don’t seem to be able to limit the search to only return prime included stuff.

            • ThePowerOfGeek
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              24 months ago

              Yeah, and in my experience they buried that pretty fast down so it required don’t scrolling to get there each time.

              • @[email protected]
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                14 months ago

                It’s right on the top bar in the latest UI. At the same level as choosing movies or tv shows. It’s very easy to get to in fairness.

                • ThePowerOfGeek
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                  24 months ago

                  That’s good. They must have changed it then. Because when I was looking for it a few months ago it was buried under several rows of paid content.

      • @[email protected]
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        4 months ago

        I ditched Disney+ when they added 50% onto the price. The exit questionnaire was annoying as it had one answer that lumped in “can’t afford it” with “too expensive” which implies it’s a “me” problem when it was definitely a “them” problem.

        I would have ditched Amazon Prime when they added adverts with an optional 50% price hike to remove them but my wife didn’t want to lose the prime delivery.

        The intention is that we subscribe to Disney+ for a few months a year and catch up on what we missed.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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        34 months ago

        My wife has put on a few different Netflix original shows over the holidays, and they’re all sooo stupid. Their supposed best shows are complete garbage.

      • @[email protected]
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        14 months ago

        Kids make it complicated for sure, but we managed to drop Disney. Honestly I’d prefer they were on screens less anyway.

    • @[email protected]
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      154 months ago

      and on top of that inflation everywhere else is causing people to have less discretionary funds.

      • partial_accumen
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        44 months ago

        Next step is only annual contracts.

        This would destroy their subscriber bases. Not even cable required an annual subscription and there were many more hoops to jump through to subscribe and cancel.

    • modifier
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      34 months ago

      This will only increase until there is sufficient backlash or, god forbid, Government oversight. These CEOs are getting hooked on the concept of being paid continuously for the same widget. Not only will these services get more predatory, but subscription models will continue to proliferate even into unlikely and surprising places.

      That’s my official end of year, forward looking, very lukewarm take for 2024.

      • @[email protected]
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        4 months ago

        Was it BMW that was trying to charge a subscription for seat warmers and automatic car starters that were built into the car already? They got serious push back and rolled back fast. Haven’t followed in a while wouldn’t be surprised if they were back to that model already.

  • Lovable Sidekick
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    814 months ago
    1. Streaming time grows steadily for years.
    2. Streaming services insert ads in paid accounts.
    3. Streaming time decreases.
    4. “Streaming Fatigue” - yeah, that’s it! Obviously!
    • @[email protected]
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      334 months ago

      Don’t forget the steady fracturing of media licenses across dozens of services, coupled with enhanced enshittification.

      Everyone’s focusing so much on exclusivity to draw people in while their service quality quickly jumps straight down the nearest manhole.

  • @[email protected]
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    754 months ago

    It’s just cable with extra steps at this point. More effort, more costly. Not worth it.

    • @[email protected]
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      64 months ago

      I think it’s cable with fewer steps, but of course not as convenient as it used to be.

  • @[email protected]
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    624 months ago

    things we tried:

    • jacking up prices
    • adding ads to paid services
    • canceling the better shows
    • not adding anything meaningful
    • making specifically terrible shows that are obviously terrible from the get go
    • making the algorithm noticeably worse to cover up for the worse output
    • platforming has-been comedians so they can cry about how they aren’t platformed anymore on our platform in a distinctly unfunny and joke-free manner

    We’re out of ideas… maybe we should utilize AI?

    • Queen HawlSera
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      74 months ago

      platforming has-been comedians so they can cry about how they aren’t platformed anymore on our platform in a distinctly unfunny and joke-free manner

      No no, I’m sure if they get Dave Chapelle to talk about how much he hates transpeople and sees no parallels between the on-going struggles of the African American and literally ANY other Rights Movement, then I’ll magically start giving a shit about what’s on Netflix!

      Tough break big N, maybe I’ll check you out when Steel Ball Run finally gets animated… Or not because I could probably get an uncensored version on a pirate streaming site as long as I use my VPN

  • @[email protected]
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    4 months ago

    Hmm… Yeah this is why they’re going after pirate sites because people pushing back.

    If green line for streaming does not continue to go up, I expect the propaganda with VPNs will be targeted as “used by criminals” Or “exclusive to CSAM” with talks of senate or house about “banning” or “restricting” them “for the children” in 2025

    • socsa
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      154 months ago

      This is more or less implied in project 2025 with all the age verification shit they want to implement at a national level to keep kids from learning that gay people are humans.

  • Teknikal
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    294 months ago

    I’m done with streaming it only really worked when there was one, now they’ve saturated it to the degree it’s pointless. Not only that but they keep raising prices for a worse service and now they have all went ad crazy on top of it.

    I see no benifit to subscribing to any of them I’d rather watch free to air stuff if I have to see ads, and for anything else I’ll hoist the black flag since I’d likely need about 10 subscriptions otherwise.

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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      84 months ago

      What killed it for me was Paramount moving all of Star Trek off Netflix when I was in the middle of a show. So, I moved to Paramount begrudgingly, and then they moved it to HBO. That’s when I was done. That and the Netflix password sharing changes made up my mind, and I cancelled everything.

    • BombOmOm
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      4 months ago

      It probably would have worked with more than one service if they did what music did: almost everything is everywhere. If you pay for a music service, you almost certainly can find what you are looking for. (Hell, one doesn’t even need to pay for Youtube and the vast majority is there too). Contrast with streaming services where each piece of content is likely only on one service.

      No, I will not be paying for more than one streaming service, if your content isn’t on the service I pay for, that is your problem, not mine.

    • thermal_shock
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      24 months ago

      Plex has a surprisingly decent selection on the live tv/movies tab.

  • Quazatron
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    254 months ago

    I want to watch Stargate SG1. I hear people say it’s on Prime Video, so I subscribe. It’s not there. I guess being a filthy European makes me unworthy. So I bite the bullet and get a VPN. Now I’m paying what amounts to twice the price of the usual subscription. I start watching the series and guess what? It’s leaving Prime in a few days. Motherf…

    • @[email protected]
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      24 months ago

      Check out your local library. Mine has physical disks of a lot of shows. With MakeMKV and Handbrake, and about an hour per disc (computer time- my time is maybe 5 minutes per), I can return the discs and watch the show at my leisure. If you have a ton of disk space, you can skip Handbrake and just keep the .mkv files…

  • @[email protected]
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    244 months ago

    I think what would save the streaming industry would be anti-exclusionary legislation. Prevent contracts where shows are exclusively produced for one streaming company. Then streaming platforms compete on cost, curation, and interface, not on exclusive content.

    • @[email protected]
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      94 months ago

      What would be smart is for them to develop a unified platform where they get a percentage of your subscription fee based on the media you watch.

      • @[email protected]
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        84 months ago

        I mean, shit on the music industry for all of their crappy practices, but 100% this. I pay for one music streaming service and have access to any music I want without having to think about which record label released which album. Why is it still illegal for studios to own movie theaters, but not streaming platforms?

        Decouple the content creators from the content distributors.

        • @[email protected]
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          4 months ago

          Bit that would only benefit consumers and we all live in plutocracies masquerading as “democracy”?

  • @[email protected]
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    234 months ago

    I have none of them left. Same reasons as everyone else, the value is not there and it’s a subscription that ticks money even when I don’t use it.

  • @[email protected]
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    214 months ago

    Too many services with too low quality content.

    Once Upon a Time Netflix premiered a handful of huge shows and movies a season. Then they got addicted to watch metrics and decided everything should be “second screen content” from a firehose.

    Now I don’t watch any Netflix original until it’s concluded or has rave reviews, because it’s likely to get canceled in season 1 or just not be worth watching at all. And in the rare case it is great, gets picked up, and have rave reviews, they can still fuck it up like The Witcher.

    Every other network is pretty much guilty of this too. I’m so, so over it. They have made me actually long for the option of a singular cable-like license I could get, because they are so shitty at maintaining their services and their catalogs are so poor now.

    I just roll my own now and host a Plex server, because fuck em.

    • @[email protected]
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      34 months ago

      I don’t even pirate Netflix shows because there’s a good chance it will get canceled after one season. Why bother, knawmean

  • @[email protected]
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    4 months ago

    no they started pirating because of the ridiculous number of screaming streaming services

  • @[email protected]
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    194 months ago

    I hadn’t noticed, but the consolidation has happened. The cycle completes as the phone and cable companies all have streaming bundles now. It’s cable TV again in another form. Still horseshit, but that’s going to be their collective play I guess

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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      34 months ago

      It always was. They tried sueing their way out of the loss of control, that didn’t work, so they moved to backroom deals, until their power was once again consolidated.