this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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TLDR:

Current ad free plans for Disney+ and Hulu are now raising $3 more on October 12. Both becoming $13.99 and $17.99.

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[–] [email protected] 128 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Yet another example of how the streaming model is a scam. Disney also wants to ban password sharing like Netflix did. The sooner you can get away from services like this the better. Instead of forking over a fortune for all these streaming sites, it makes way more sense to invest in owning the media you consume.

[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 year ago (3 children)

streaming hit the wall the moment every corp wanted to make their own service to cut out netflix. the boom in streaming happend - at least in most parts of europe - because basically everything anyone wanted (even some hbo titles) had been on netflix for 10 eurobucks a month and now you have to sub at least three services for almost thrice the price each. and especially disney+ is complete trash if you're not a marvel/star wars stockholm syndrome victim. now asking for even more in times of inflation and recession is a slap into the face of subscribers.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

now asking for even more in times of inflation and recession is a slap into the face of subscribers.

But not raising prices is a slap in the face for executives and shareholders! How will the ~~rich people's yacht money~~ economy possibly weather that storm?!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Eurobucks? I think you mean eddies.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

People forget families have children who wants cartoons. Which makes it even worse because it's hard to cut off services.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's funny how we managed to survive without streaming services. I distinctly remember teaching my kids how to rewind a vcr tape. They watched the same Barney episode about 400 times per day. Guess kids nowadays can't handle that.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it's funny how the "when we were kids, whe didn't even had a tv at home and we were happy"-routine from our grandparents moved up to "we watched the same episode on vhs on repeat!" now millennials are getting older.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean at least my parents had rabbit ears... kinda cruel to force a kid to rewatch Barney when PBS has been accessible over the air to 95% of people for like the last few decades.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I didn't force them to to anything. Not sure how anyone jumped to that conclusion.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I just don't understand why you would rewatch something 500 times when you get hot barney straight off the press back then... it was even super easy to watch barney later, you just pressed the red button and recorded over the tape.

And if one even bothered to read the manual, you could usually preset recording times on most devices. Although shows also had this weird habit of being offset by ad hoc commercial inserts or unplanned interruptions. So it wasn't super uncommon on most channels (PBS was actually a bit of an exception, due to lack of ads) to be off a few minutes from schedule.

The 90s were neat.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

You know that shows only come on at scheduled times, and having a set of various tapes was the same as having an online subscription that's being discussed in this thread. And yes, we taped shows for the kids to watch and add to their library. There's a million things I can't explain why a couple of kids aged 3 and 6 would do. Watching Barney over and over is just one of them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah lets have our kids watch Barney 400 times.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Even at a young age they have their own freewill. I forced nothing, merely provided them the tools, which was my point. You don't have to have a subscription to a streaming service to keep a child entertained.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think some people have not had much interaction with young kids. Sometimes they only want to watch one. single. thing. over and over and over and over again.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Like baby shark

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Current streaming has messed up the popularity of legal cord cutting. There's no real difference in cable and streaming anymore.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The difference is that you need to subscribe to multiple services now to get everything you want, instead of just one.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

That's essentially the same as the various cable packages. It would take me longer to call and add more cable channels (if I had cable) than it would to sign up for every streaming service available.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

And relogin to whatever annoying login process each one makes you do.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That’s all very well, but in some regions like Australia, Disney has or has announced the end of DVD and Blu-ray sales, which sucks.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I canceled all my services and purchased all my content on iTunes. In the long run it’s cheaper especially if you use something like cheap charts to follow sales, and I get all the benefits of streaming model while still owning my media. I’m happy!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That’s smart! Just realise that you don’t actually own anything though, just license it. Which for the most part is the same. However, sometimes things like background music get changed due to licensing fees. So, for example , Scrubs (tv show) dvd is far superior to what you can purchase for streaming.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Not to mention that their is no guarantee ITunes even will exist forever. It's highly unlikely, but possible that Apple decides in the future to get out of that business entirely...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Last i saw, the physical media version of their recent shows came with a box and a code to get it online, not actual discs, so they're effectively getting out of the business of letting you own your media

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

For real??? That's garbage

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They started doing that with discs back in mid-2010 along with videogames. Not surprised that it's just papers now.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I mean it was awfully silly when you had to insert a disc just to have to download part or all of the game anyway.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It was not a big surprise that Disney will follow Netflix as in prohibiting password sharing. It is better for the corp of each viewer has their own account.

I gave up on streaming services and now using Stremio and justchill.

All in one streaming services in the palm of my hand.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I mean, the Netflix password sharing crackdown was a vote put on the users to decide if it's a good thing to do or not.

And it appears that the results are good, since they are reporting subscriber growth and more revenue. Now every other service will follow because, otherwise, they'd just be wasting untapped profits.

I don't like this profit maximization companies are trying to do, but one thing is clear: people prefer to pay more for the extra convenience than to stand their ground in their principals.

Even if people like us stand our ground, most won't even care (I can see it in my personal relationships as well).

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Priority for corporation will always be profit maximization. Users are secondary.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, and in cases where there is a monopoly or quasi-monopoly of a product it becomes really exploitative.

But in this case in particular, I'm gonna have to say it's the fault of the users.

They chose to pay more for a worst product that had already been declining in quality steadily, when there are tons of other streaming services with good content.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I guess that is the fault of not being aware of alternatives, or brand royalty.

Average Users just want to be comfortable with watch they already have and don't want to hassle to learn new habits.

Disney simply chose to skip the voting and went straight to forbid password sharing. They are hoping for gaining new customers like Netflix .

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And that is why we need a new corporate contract where the betterment of its employees, communities and it's services/products is a corporations goal not endless growth for the sake of profit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unfortunately they are pushed by the investors to focus on generating profit for them.

If I would give money to someone to make more money. I would expect more and more not less or a fix amount.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If the corporate contract changes then the expectation of investors would have to change as well. Changing the corporate contract is fundamental to changing nearly everything. What's even better is that no one can argue it's "evil socialism/communism" because it just isn't but it still affects sweeping positive changes.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Whit this the company might risk the chance to loose some of their biggest investors, who are keeping the company alive.

The implementation of such change would take years to slowly modify and chisel as much money-loosing-holes as possible.

Plus there would be board meetings where the company have to come up with a short term plan to Convince every money oriented board member that the new corporate contract will shovel money to the business. It is not easy, trust me.

They can't afford to loose money first to gain money years later.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's just still relatively cheap. I don't know anyone who has more than 4 streaming services (although I am sure there are some) at once concurrently, that's still cheaper than the average cable bill ($83).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Still, if you were sharing with 3 friends before, it's a 4x price spike for you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

And I’m still paying less (although the margin is smaller now) than when I had to choose a cable tv package. Even with inflation.

A la carte channels are what we wanted for 50 years and this is pretty close. Don’t get me wrong, I pirate everyday because fuck’em, but it’s better than cable.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I’m about to set sail. Streaming is only convenient and cost effective until it isn’t. They are headed for the isn’t pretty rapidly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I mean it is better to have them offline at least nothing gets in your way when watching