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?
Thought about the car music problem today as well. I’ve tried a lot of the streaming services for music but they all suck and tie you into their shitty playlist/UI system. I imagined a better world where the cd’s-mp3 compatibility continued to the point where you just have a thumb drive you can install new music with on your car stereo with it’s dedicated storage built in. Now it’s all about just slapping your phone cord in but even the phone seems to be less favorable as a media storage & player in favor of the cloud method.
I just want to have the songs and playlists from the past. If I still had all of my data and could still currently use old playlists I would be thrilled, just think of having decades worth of custom built musical experiences you could relive and expand on.
Yeah, I wanted to go the usb route but I only have one usb port which is often used to display Waze on the screen. I thought of using Spotify with an Adblock but that’s not ideal as it could stop working anytime and basically revert to being a radio. Can’t wait to find a way to ditch tidal.
If you set up Jellyfin plus Tailscale VPN, you can access your media server on your phone while you’re on the go. It’s a little confusing to set up, but once you figure it out, it’s amazing. Happy to offer some guidance if you get stuck