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?

  • eee@lemm.ee
    24·
    vor 8 Monaten

    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.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
      2·
      vor 8 Monaten

      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.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
      31·
      vor 8 Monaten

      🙏 PRAISE GABE LORD OF CONSUMERIST WISDOM 🙏

      I’d definitely be interested in a Valve streaming service, not to muddy the waters even further.