With the simultaneous rollout of restrictions on account sharing and price increases/addition of advertising, I’m cutting back severely on streaming services.
I allowed my streaming subscriptions to grow without thinking about it. Without trying to remember the constant merging and bundling, I was subscribed to probably a dozen services at one point. They ranged from Netflix and HBO and Hulu to Shudder and Showtime. I had Paramount, Criterion, Disney, Peacock, and others. I’d do the typical thing where I’d search for a movie, find it is exclusive to a platform, and grab the free trial and forget to cancel. I excused it if I found a movie even every couple of months on it. There were still nights where it’d take an hour to find something I wanted to watch. I was probably closing in on $200/month all told, and I don’t have sports subscriptions.
I’m interested in learning what other people are doing regarding the price hikes and service compromises. Are you cancelling? Are you taking advantage of bundles with your internet services? Are you rotating on some interval? Or are you not changing at all?
I cancelled Netflix the day they blocked my elderly parents from accessing my account.
I was paying for 4 streams, it shouldn’t matter 1 stream was at my parents house, they were still getting their money.
Don’t worry Netflix, we still get to enjoy your content via torrents and my parents still get a convenient streaming app full media via Plex, so you can eat shit Netflix!
I canceled Netflix, but I stayed on their mailing list so I know about new shows I might like to watch. My frigate is now a submarine that goes beep, beep. (it has sonarr, I guess would be the main point I’m trying to make here)
Check out Overseerr if you use Plex, or Jellyseerr if you use Jellyfin.
It will show you popular and upcoming movies/tv shows, and you can integrate with with the arr suite to have users able to request and download the shows.
It’s fantastic, especially if you’re sharing your media server with others
Thank you so much, I was looking for something like this!
Before ditching Netflix I added all my current shows to a calendar/tracking website, which I check every few days and grab anything new, new new shows, in just rely on word of mouth and/or social media.
Don’t use Plex, use Jellyfin. Plex tracks everything you watch and do. Jellyfin is free, open-source and self-hosted.
Are you going come here and setup my system, then install apps on mine and my kids devices and show them how to use it AND then travel to my parents house, install it on their devices and explain to them how to use it?
No? Guess I’ll stick with the free self-hosted Plex.
Jellyfin lacks a lot of features that Plex has. It also is prone to a lot more problems. Once it matures some more it’ll be a fine replacement.
Tried Jellyfin and it was a pain to get running on my NAS (the only add on in the Synology store is a random community port that doesn’t work well and the apps for the TV are all janky). Will stay with Plex until they sort it all out.
Yes, I believe they have pretty bad documentation, but I after a lot of pain I was able to get it working too.
There was a point in time where I paid for Netflix because it was simply easier than downloading everything.
That point has long passed, and I no longer pay for streaming.
200$ / month is insane, wow. From what I can tell, lots of people seem to start pirating way more. It looks like it’s common to be subbed to your favorite streaming service and put the rest on Plex.
Remember we’re a very small circle here, and the groups we run with are also pretty close knit, lots more in our groups may mean something but compared to everyone else it’s probably less than a blip.
I pirate everything like a chad. Fuck paying for shit like Spotify, Hulu etc
When Netflix was the only service that mattered, i paid for the convenience. As soon as i had to check 3 places for something I wanted, i cancelled and started pirating again
I used to pay for Netflix because it was easier to have one service to watch everything, than it was to pirate.
I’ve obviously stopped.
Piracy really is a service problem for me.
I have exactly the same story.
🙏 PRAISE GABE LORD OF CONSUMERIST WISDOM 🙏
I’d definitely be interested in a Valve streaming service, not to muddy the waters even further.
Yeah it used to be it just wasn’t worth the effort to pirate stuff. There was always plenty to watch on Netflix and all of the movies got there eventually. Now you’d have to subscribe to 5 different streaming services, then search around for which one has the thing you want to watch on it. It’s more effort to get stuff on streaming (which you have to pay for) than to simply pirate it.
At this point its easier to find new movies through pirating platforms. So many different streaming services and they only allow searching through their own platform, and obviously push all their newest and shittiest shows. I just go to a neutral platform that has everything and no agenda and find great movies in a matter of minutes.
Select your region in the footer.
Already did ages ago, no value to me. I farm and do many other things, mostly outdoors. I watch TV and movies during snowstorms or heat waves. Often I’ll be gaming, programming, designing systems, soldering etc. instead when stuck inside.
As such I don’t need a steady stream of entertainment and I can wait for everyone else to point out the exceptional content. And once I know what I’m looking for it’s ⛵☠️ time
I never had subscriptions. Arr!
qBittorrent
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Nothing left. It’s not even out of protest or anything, I’m just greedy. Netflix was ok when it was 7$ and had a lot of stuff but not anymore. I just pirate everything, it’s centralised, I can watch it how I want. And when my Internet went down a few weeks ago I could still watch shit since it’s self hosted.
Edit: Forgot I still have Amazon prime for delivery but I don’t really use prime video. Oh and Spotify for discovering new music and creating “together” playlists with friends. This one I would only replace with another platform.
Cancelled Prime after about a month because fuck ads in a paid service. Other than that I still have all of them*, though considering cancelling Netflix and Disney+.
* I’m in Europe, so “all of them” means like 5 services, not the 50,000 US folks seem to have.
What ads? Is that something recent?
Amazon announced a couple days ago they’re adding ads to all current plans and creating a new, more expensive, plan that will be ad-free.
It’s not really any different from other services simply increasing the price and/or adding a cheaper plan with ads.
Ive said it before
You dont need all streaming services running all the time
You dont need to pay for netflix 12 times per year
Here, we pay 1 or 2 months in a row, cancel. Then a few months later we get another streaming service for a month or two.
I think we may have a streaming service for about 2 months per year on avg. MOSTLY during the winter months
Netflix’s crackdown affected me (I was the moocher) and I canned Hulu before some price hikes (I was the provider) and put the money towards a VPN.
I spend the computing power converting some media to play on my PS4 (plus finagling with subtitles) but once it’s done it’s done.
