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The TV streaming apps broke their promises, and now they’re jacking up prices (arstechnica.com)

submitted 10 months ago by owiseedoubleyou@lemmy.ml to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

79 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://yiffit.net/post/1072752

For a moment, it seemed like the streaming apps were the things that could save us from the hegemony of cable TV—a system where you had to pay for a ton of stuff you didn't want to watch so you could see the handful of things you were actually interested in.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/K4EIh

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[-] rich@feddit.uk 71 points 10 months ago

I cancelled all my subscriptions and just pay for a seedbox instead.

Only two subscriptions I have now are Spotify and Game Pass...because they are actually worth it.

[-] anemoia_one@lemmynsfw.com 27 points 10 months ago

Even Spotify though continues to Jack their prices with no extra benefit. I’ve hoped for lossless audio from them for so long, but instead they just charge more for a bad UI driven by engagement instead of user experience

[-] TempleSquare@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago

I don't mind Spotify increasing.

Inflation is real. And nobody wants to see the service turn into a Little Caesars "$5 Hot N Ready" pizza that erodes in quality, rather than gradually price increase with inflation.

The advantage we have with music streamers is that nearly ALL the content is on ALL the services. So, if one service goes bananas with pricing, we can jump ship to a cheaper one.

But TV is siloed into mini monopolies. The only source of capitalism competition they face is use choosing to do without. And frankly, if I'm gonna be forced-fed ads, I choose to do it on YouTube which costs me $0 and not $7.99 a month.

Netflix is gone. And as someone who leaves The Simpsons running 24/7 on Disney+, I'm frankly getting thiiiiiiiiiis close to dumping their asses, too!

[-] christophski@feddit.uk 3 points 10 months ago

Spotify increased the price of everybody's subscription by £1/$1. They have some 200 million subscribers. That's at a minimum an extra $200m a month. Is that really necessary?

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[-] wegettosss@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

Try switching to apple music. It is cheaper and the quality is way better. UI is also waaaaay better than spotify's. Also, I learned that if you dont have any money on your card connected to google play store apple music will be just fine for extra month. So you can use apple music 2 months for price of one month.

[-] anemoia_one@lemmynsfw.com 7 points 10 months ago

Thanks for the recco! Though I’ve actually been using Tidal for the last few months because they’re one of the few lossless audio services, just annoyed because I was a Spotify customer for years waiting for lossless and instead they bumped prices without improving their services

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[-] Grieves@lemmy.ml 14 points 10 months ago

What exactly is a seedbox and how much is it?

[-] rich@feddit.uk 24 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It's, in layman's terms, server space you rent out and can use for your downloads. torrent clients like transmission are usually built in. I pay £5 a month for 2tb space and enough bandwidth to keep a good ratio.

So instead of downloading to my pc, I download torrents to the seedbox (at a blazing fast speed) and then download files from there to my pc whenever I feel like it, again at stupid good speeds.

I have FTP access, so I've just added it as a folder/mounted drive on my windows and Linux mint file explorers. Works great. Also have it on my smart TV as a web address for quick streaming of whatever I downloaded.

Edit: this also eliminates the risk of downloading Torrents locally.

[-] Sleazy_Albanese@hexbear.net 3 points 10 months ago

Is it advisable to have a VPN though to access the seedbox though?

[-] facow@hexbear.net 6 points 10 months ago

Shouldn't need one if you trust your seedbox provider to not log. And even if you don't trust them you'd need to find a VPN to trust more and they're almost all super sketchy.

[-] 00@kbin.social 2 points 10 months ago

That sounds great!
Which Seedbox Service do you recommend?

[-] slaintrax@lemmy.myserv.one 7 points 10 months ago

Look up real-debrid with Stremio if you wanna skip the download part. It's like renting someone elses seedbox.

[-] rich@feddit.uk 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I use seedhost.eu, can't really recommend others as this is my first! But it's been great so far, easy to use and access

I use transdroid on my mobile for torrent management

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[-] pmarcilus@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 10 months ago

Nah, in the case of Spotify, I've ady lost all my faith on the music industry and remain on the sea for a while now. I rather take times to listen to the music instead of giving even a quid to those mf.

[-] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Same for me. Had Netflix and Prime.
Cancelled Prime. Student plan ran out and wanted to spend less (on Amazon and buying random stuff.
Cancelled Netflix. Didn't use it, convinced my mother to let it go (only after saying how much it costs).

Renting a seedbox for 15€ per month, Spotify for music and since this month I burried my life long hate for YT premium and now also have that (and wish for a plan without yt music for 3-4€ less).
Reason why I did YT premium was, because I already watched more YT than Netflix anyway. And it's near daily for about 2-3h. Well worth it (for way too much money).

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[-] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

I absolutely loved the idea of Game Pass. I had it for two years. I actually stopped buying Steam games.

I was annoyed of their whole file structure (like it's extremely difficult to move saves from a PC Game Pass game to a Steam/Epic Game). It's using some weird Windows DRM and has constant connection issues with the Microsoft server. But the value was good and I accepted that hiccup.

After the Steam Deck dropped, I quit PC Game Pass.

As a busy parent, Steam Deck is way too convenient and the future of PC gaming is portability. And once the Steam Deck reaches critical mass, if PC Game Pass isn't on there, it'll be the Bing of gaming and play second fiddle.

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[-] pankuleczkapl@lemmy.world 40 points 10 months ago

Piracy has steadily been getting more accessible and easy to use (see: Jellyfin, Plex, Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr etc.). There is basically no reason anymore to pay for any digital context, especially considering the streaming services are screwing over both the users and the creators. I like to support game developers that make really enjoyable games, but I can't and won't tolerate any shitty subscriptions that offer increasingly less content for increasingly exorbitant prices

[-] jaykay@lemmy.zip 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Streaming services are dead to me rn. I’m paying £10/month to watch what I want when I want by using usenet (including electricity). Instead of paying for Netflix prime hbo Apple TV etc etc for over £10/month EACH.

Nice to see polish people on lemmy :)

[-] Acid@startrek.website 6 points 10 months ago

Piracy and software was already really easy to use a decade ago ( sick beard / couch potato ) it’s just that the services at the time were good enough that you could watch practically everything on Netflix +1 so it wasn’t really a problem to stomach the cost. now I need 7 different subscriptions to watch shows I’m interested in which is a ball ache

[-] deleted@lemmy.world 39 points 10 months ago

I’ve already made the decision to sail the high seas in 2017 and selfhost my media.

Best decision I’ve ever made.

Sonarr + radarr + jellyfin

[-] GeekFTW@kbin.social 25 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I never stopped, but I doubled down a good 10 years ago when Netflix first announced they were gonna put an end to people getting around geolocking. I'm Canadian. I'd pay (at the time) for US Netflix 100%. Canadian Netflix wasn't worth the cost of the pot to piss in.

Spun up a Plex server, set up Sonarr, Jackett/Prowlarr, Radarr, Tautulli, and now I am Netflix for 20 people lmao.

Edit: And I'd have it no other way.

[-] deleted@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

That’s the way!

I feel your pain as I had Canadian Netflix around 2015. I was bummed when I knew that the new seasons of Suits (iirc) wouldn’t be available in Canadian Netflix for a couple of months.

I had to watch it in putlockers while I was paying for a freaking streaming service.

[-] GeekFTW@kbin.social 5 points 10 months ago

Such a mess lol. I take pride in knowing that every movie, tv show, comedy special, album, game (up until the ps era cause i'm not made of hard drive money), comic book, novel, piece of software, basically anything I ever enjoyed over the course of my life (as well as a couple terabytes of random data hoarder shit) are sitting 2 feet away from my fingers at all times.

[-] somas@kbin.social 2 points 10 months ago

@deleted

Does your ISP still provide Usenet access or do you subscribe to a Usenet provider?

Paying $9 a month for Usenet makes me wonder if I shouldn’t just keep paying for Hulu

[-] deleted@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

I don’t think my ISP provides it.

Id suggest you to setup sonarr and radarr behind a vpn as it’s a set and forget setup.

Fully automated.

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[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 32 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Good news for Lemmy. Pirate the fuck out of everything and never ever feel any guilt about it comrades.

🏴‍☠️ ☠️ 🏴‍☠️ ☠️ 🏴‍☠️ ☠️ 🏴‍☠️

[-] fckreddit@lemmy.ml 32 points 10 months ago

Trusting promises of corporations is like believing that a wild cobra won't bite you. It's definitely possible, highly unlikely they will keep the promise.

[-] Custoslibera@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

Of course Netflix was going to increase prices and reduce their offering. What did anyone think would happen? They’d just decide that a stable profit was good enough?

[-] emizeko@hexbear.net 31 points 10 months ago

chomsky-yes-honey remembering when cable television didn't have advertisements

[-] Parent@hexbear.net 17 points 10 months ago

I thought this was a facetious comment, but you're right https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-invaded-by-commercials.html

[-] CrowAirbrush@lemm.ee 8 points 10 months ago

My memories go as far back to when a full commercial block was 60 seconds and only happened once in the middle of a movie and usually around once per hour on regular tv.

[-] Reocken@kbin.social 23 points 10 months ago

24 years of continuous piracy. All I pay for is a seedbox. Paying these scummy corporations nothing each month feels great!

[-] orca@links.hackliberty.org 8 points 10 months ago

May I ask what are the benefits of a seedbox?

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[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 22 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Discovery's David Zaslav have also indicated that their services were initially priced "too low" in an effort to draw a huge and unendingly expanding subscriber base.

In the early-to-mid 2010s, a subscription to Netflix and Hulu and your friend’s borrowed HBO password could get you access to the vast majority of all the TV that was worth watching.

Netflix had a huge archive of older shows plus a slowly growing library of its buzzy releases like Orange Is the New Black, Jessica Jones, and Stranger Things.

Not content to let Netflix have what looked like a lucrative new market all to itself the companies that made and distributed TV decided one by one as the decade wore on that it was time to create their own apps and generate their own subscription revenue.

Tech companies also decided to jump in, with Amazon Prime Video pushing into expensive scripted dramas and Apple TV+ becoming relevant by dint of throwing untold gobs of money at all kinds of projects.

Netflix announced its first subscriber loss in a decade in early 2022, cratering its stock; despite some recovery, it's still only worth about two-thirds what it was at its peak in late 2021.

I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[-] barrbaric@hexbear.net 20 points 10 months ago

Corporations gradually making something worse so they can sustain profits?

surprised-pika

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

[-] Rom@hexbear.net 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Also love how they're all going to make a cheaper plan with ads so they can either double dip or push you towards the more expensive plan. Nothing but making things shittier for the end user, love that innovation.

[-] JelloBrains@kbin.social 7 points 10 months ago

Disney's Bob Iger openly said that he would prefer more people use the ad tier because it was more profitable.

[-] matey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 10 months ago

Netflix's ad tier is also more profitable.

[-] aaaaaaadjsf@hexbear.net 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Stremio is pretty cool. Allows for streaming torrents with a lot of seeders. Watch most TV series and movies on there nowdays

[-] Melonius@hexbear.net 3 points 10 months ago

Any good guides on setting it up?

[-] YoungBelden@hexbear.net 5 points 10 months ago

idk if it has other capabilities, but to use on android basically just install it from the play store then install a bunch of community plugins for various sites. torrient io scrapes most public trackers

can cast to TVs too if your phone/tv has the capability

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[-] Grownbravy@hexbear.net 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

::: spoiler Cant have mid-stream ads on a torrent

Yet yes-honey-left

[-] Civility@hexbear.net 3 points 10 months ago

😔

[-] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 3 points 10 months ago

stonks-up must always go up, at increasingly faster rates. According to liberal bootlickers, that's not just working as intended but a sort of ethical wash that justifies anything as long as