this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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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?

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

i never had them, i just pirate everything. frankly it's less hassle most of the time, i just download what i wanna watch to my laptop and plug it into the tv, saves me the headache of using their apps too. Also found out recently that there's a modded version of spotify for android that gives the premium features without a subscription and have been really enjoying that.

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

I'm keeping Spotify because I already split a family account (Β£18.99 per month I think) between 6 people. I pay for a few other subscription services like something for D&D and my phone bill but they are things that I feel I require.

I haven't paid for any streaming, gaming or other services for at least a year or two. As soon as I started sailing the high seas for specific content not on the big services, I realised that it's so little extra work for infinite free content.

Funnily enough, my partner and I have been considering picking up a Β£10 Photoshop subscription that's currently about, just because she uses an up to date Photoshop at work and swapping between the 2023 and 2020 versions is a small pain.

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

When the sharing crackdown on Netflix was announced I decided to cancel it and set up a recurring donation in the same amount to a charity I believe in. It felt pretty great. I'm about to cancel Prime, but I need to switch credit cards, which is kind of a pain. Prime isn't really worth it to me anymore. Otherwise I only pay for the ones that have active shows I'm watching. Haven't sailed the high seas in decades, and probably won't start. Missing TV has been great for my hobby productivity πŸ˜†

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

πŸ΄β€β˜ οΈπŸ«‘

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I canceled Netflix for what they did to the witcher and I'm canceling HBO max now because I don't want to watch anything on it.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I cancelled Netflix a few months ago, I still pay for Disney+ and my bro pays for Paramount+, and we share those with each other

I ended up also installing Plex on my rapsberry pi and going back to pirating.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Bro wtf... How do you get to 200$ a month without seriously considering cancelling some? Like don't you have to work for your money?

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

I'm cancelling mine because my job lied and never gave me a raise and my other debts are also piling up. Pirating and eating rice for the next few months maybe longer.

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

I really want to cancel Youtube, and I watch a LOT of it. But Lemmy users have got me on that NewPipe / Piped / Invidious train. So... Maybe soon I will be able to watch youtube for free and without ads on all of my devices.

I also have local TV for the Sunday news, and Netflix for like one show a month. So much for a la carte, the value for my money has gone down the drain compared to live TV and those early cord cutting years.

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

I’m a pirate, always will be.

Real debrid. Kodi. Fen add on. Nvidia shield. Done.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Put.io + Plex $120/year, zero isp warnings

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

I almost never watch stuff outside of YouTube and the like. If I really did wanted to watch something, its likely an older show that I can just torrent.

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

Not only have I cancelled them almost a decade ago - I don't even watch series or movies anymore, and barely listen to music outside of the radio. I'm disgusted with the many crimes committed by Big Media and want to have as little as possible to do with it.

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

Hoist the black flag!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I got tired of all this B's long time ago and just resorted to torrenting. I missed the series management and resume feature so I coded a app to do it.

PS: in case anybody wants to use it... It's open source. https://github.com/Dr-42/offflix

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Haven't had any for like 6 years, and back then it was just Netflix and Crunchyroll.

Embrace the pirate lifestyle out on the seven seas

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

When I start a free trial I immediately set a reminder in Google calendar. And when I am looking for a specific movie I buy it used online. That way I have all my favorite movies on my NAS and can cancel my subscriptions when there is nothing especially interesting.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

If the ads come to Prime, then I might cancel that. It’s already our least watched service and it’s been getting a free pass because of the next day delivery.

I don’t want to watch ads, I don’t want to pay an extra Β£30 per year to not see ads and I don’t need next day delivery often enough to keep it for that.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

The only streaming service I use is my own homeserver running plex, so no.

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

Already did earlier this month, specifically because of password issues. Canceled everything except our family music plan. Stremio with debrid works just fine for us

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

no because the last time I used netflix was five years ago. I never even thought to pay for any of the other ones

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

I'm down to:

  • Prime, because next day delivery
  • Disney, because the pricing here in Australia, for the sheer volume and originality of content, is still worth it

All others hammered the last nails in their coffins through a combination of greed and apathy.

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

My husband and I canceled them all 3 days ago. We had Netflix, Prime, AppleTV+, Max, Paramount+, Hulu, Peacock, and Disney+. We're moving back to Europe in November, so they all had to go. But even if we were to stay in the US, I'd probably just keep Prime, so I could just rent what I wanted to see and nothing else. Instead, I've stocked up with a few classic sci-fi Blu-rays to take with us in Europe, and we will have 2 US-coded BD players to keep us playing them until old age.

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

Just use fmovies.to and up your antivirus. Much cheaper

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

I've reduced as much as I can. I really just keep Spotify for entertainment. I watch YouTube with my AdBlock most of the time. Haven't been kicked off of my parent's Netflix yet but I barely use it in the first place unless a popular show drops. The rest I just pirate.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Old Tom here has a Plex server connected to sonarr, radarr, my torrent client, etc. This allows me to more or less search for something I want to watch and with a button click have it downloaded anywhere from a few minutes and up depending on the title's popularity. Ultimately it's actually a better experience than any streaming service.

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