It’s just cable tv all over again. Pay for 8 services to get a handful of shows you want to watch with the other 90% not being touched , now with ads creeping back in too .
And yet, people will fall for it again and again
People that don’t pirate won’t have a choice.
While I’m all for piracy (obviously), there’s always a choice. Decades ago when cable was going through this, TV was at the center of culture and absolutely everyone watched it.
That’s just not true anymore. Even aside from piracy, they have to compete for people’s time and attention with videogames, social media, and all sorts of other internet-based entertainment. I suspect a lot of the executives making these decisions don’t realize this - they think it’s still 20 years ago when having some of your biggest shows on your channel guaranteed a big audience. If they squeeze too hard people will just spend their time with other sorts of entertainment.
I think that the publishing industry is a good comparison - look at where it is now. It still produces stuff but its cultural relevance is a pale shadow of what it once was and its margins are razor-thin because few people are going to pay a premium even for a bestseller. I think that that’s the long-term fate of TV and movies, especially as the generation that was weened on them dies off and a new generation that watched much less growing up comes of age.
publishing industry
As in book publishing?
Not me ! But not everyone has a PC that can store tons of movies and shows so they don’t have much other choice . There’s one streaming service that I think is only in Canada called crave that charges an extra $10 to watch on anything other than your phone it’s just the worst .
get a debrid service
But not everyone has a PC
That’s a decision they’ve made for themselves. No sympathy. Computers are cheap, storage even cheaper.
Personal responsiblity
at least you can choose to pay for one streamer at a time, binge, switch, repeat.
(for now, anyway… until they all quit the full season drops and/or start putting their catalog on a rotation like the ‘disney vault’ was to home video).
Or only offer annual contracts with early cancellation fees.
they’d go a ‘no refunds’ policy first, which they’d totally get away with in the u.s.
Yeah, this is what is next. Another thing might be to split up one service into subcategories, like family, sci-fi, cinema or whatever and then charging for each individually. Obviously ending up more expensive if you get them all than what it is now.
yarrr
They already fucking do.
They just pretend pre-roll trailers aren’t ads.
(Not trying to defend/excuse fking Amazon lol) They’re easy to skip, though. I imagine these will not be skippable.
Also, people have paid to have Plex play them trailers for years, as it gives a cinematic experience.
It’s not for me, an ad’s an ad.
As far as I’m concerned skippable ads are the same thing as any other ad. I use auto play for a reason and it’s because I don’t want to fuck with the remote every episode.
If anything they are worse because they make you become aware enough of the ad to make the connection to physically push a button skip it. When HBO Minimum Quality added them I dropped it. When Paramount (We can’t build a functional app) + and Disney Pus (Not a typo) added them I finally built a media server and rejoined the high seas after 20 years. I’ll never go back.
When I had Plex play trailers, it was only ever before movies, with trailers for movies. Seeing it every time you watch an episode of a show is too much.
Wish the overly aggressive product placement were skippable, e.g. in Reacher:
I am down for hyper on-brand, clearly denoted, clever/humorous sponsored segments. StyroPyro was able to advertise a desk this way. So well integrated, honest, and relevant, I didn’t skip even though I don’t need a chemical-resistant adjustable standing desk.
If I remember right styropyro was just doing product placement with flexi-spot. After Herman Miller bought Fully and tripled their prices, I had to switch desk vendors at work and I had already started using these guys. They’re good cheap AF, Chinese standing desks. LTT was shilling for them about 6 months ago. I honestly don’t care who makes the desk I’m just sick and effing tired of having to spend $800-$1200 a desk for generic Alibaba parts.
I don’t understand why would I watch a trailer of the movie I’m about to watch. It doesn’t make any sense to me
The Plex feature is trailers for other movies, like when you go to the cinema.
Goddddddddd this and HBO. I’m already on your fuckin platform, show me the show. If you REALLY need to push whatever new BS cash grab you’ve got, put it in a new releases section.
Those can be skipped. New ones will probably be similar but not skippable.
if I have to hear about American football against my will, it’s a fucking ad
Gotta love corporate greed.
If you are displaying ads to the user, the ads should pay for their access. If a user is paying for access to a service, they shouldn’t see ads.
Time to get a library card and read some books
My library even has audiobooks, fuck you audible!
I’ll up the ante and say fuck you amazon you baldy piss jug lex luthor motherfucker
Damn man, go off!
You can stream pretty much anything for free here: https://fmoviesz.to/
Make sure you have Adnauseam or uBlock Origin installed.
Incredibly lucky that our library system has started investing in blu-rays and has purchased many of the Criterion Collection. They have also heavily invested in Shout Factory’s offerings too. Now I need to see what they can do to start getting some Arrow, Vinegar Syndrome, and Severin releases!
I have no idea why, but your comment just randomly reminded me of this song from my childhood.
This might be the last straw for me to cancel prime.
Their timing is incredibly stupid. If they had rolled this out in like October, people would’ve stuck it out for prime shipping on Christmas purchases, and then most people would’ve forgotten about it because nobody launches prime video because it’s fucking garbage. This timing is probably gonna push the most people possible to cancel because we already bought shit, we’re looking to cut costs, and people will have a “new year new me” attitude to change habits. The next dumbass move will be to split prime video off to be a separate subscription from prime shipping, and then they’ll raise prices on both until shutting down video when nobody wants it, and then they’ll introduce a cheaper prime shipping tier (current prime price) that is a required subscription to order anything from amazon. They will make the product shittier and shittier until the entire brand collapses like the hollow shell of its former self that it is.
Canceled Prime and Kindle Unlimited, I’m off the Amazon pill
It was for me.
I am just going to pirate their content from now on.
Honestly, everyone subscribing to streaming services gets exactly what they deserve.
You can stream anything for free here: https://fmoviesz.to/
Yet you still choose to waste your money so people richer than you can be even richer.
They already fucked up music earlier in the year, so I’m now fully out.
Ya know, I barely shop on Amazon anymore, I should go ahead and cancel that…
(or unless you stop paying at all)
Yarrrrrrrrr I do like this option, lad, lass, or other.
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Prime is pretty shit but Disney is a steaming pile of shit too. I honestly don’t know which is worse.
I only use them both on PS5 though for the most part.
They need to pay programmers to fix these bugs, so ads.
No, they need to maximize profit.
🤡
The only Prime show I can even think of is The Boys, which is worth a month subscription once a year or so whenever a new season drops. With so much competition and so little content, you’d think these streaming services would start offering better incentives for long-term subscriptions. Instead, they keep raising rates. Baffling.
Agreed. The concession for prime video being so shitty was that it was thrown in with prime shipping. People wanted fast, free delivery and what got them to pull the trigger on paying for that was a streaming service as a bonus. Now the shitty streaming service getting even shittier is making people wonder how much they really care about prime shipping. That’s an uno reverse card if ever I’ve seen one.
There’s the next one on the chopping block. It’s kind of great and freeing cancelling all these subscriptions. Just one $5 payment per month to newsgroup ninja and i got everything. I’ve been holding on to prime and Netflix for convenience but honestly fuck them.
Yeah I went through subs and cancelled all of them like six months ago, feels fantastic and very freeing.
Is there even anything worth watching on Prime? I haven’t even looked at it in years.
The Expanse is one of the best sci-fi shows of all time. I highly recommend it.
Tastes aside…
Reacher.
Bosch.
Invincible.
Legend of Vox Machina.
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Upload.
The Expanse.
Vikings.
The Man in the High Castle.
Good Omens.
The Rings of Power.
Wheel of Time.
Hanna.
Outer Range.
The Outlaws.
Jack Ryan.
The Consultant.
The Kids in the Hall.There’s a lot there I don’t watch. I know there’s Fleabag but haven’t watched it.
Currently I’m mostly watching Korean stuff on Netflix as most English releases are pretty meh compared to Invincible and Reacher on Prime.
Fleabag is worth a watch. Not many episodes for both seasons so you can binge it quick before the ads start taking over. Great writing and acting. If you love watching people get in awkward, cringe situations, I highly recommend it.
The bois
Check out Undone. It’s by the same guy who made Bojack Horseman.
Not with ads there isn’t.
I quite like Reacher, most people like The Boys, I’ve heard good things about Good Omens.
Undone is probably the only show worth watching on prime, and you can stream it for free here: https://fmoviesz.to/
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Unless you pay extra… or unsubscribe.
Things to do today:
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Pay mortgage - done
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Pay electric bill - done
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Cancel Amazon - and done
Get a VPN after canceling Amazon and download whatever you want. Mullvad is much cheaper than prime video.
Sonarr + Radarr + Transmission-OpenVPN + Ombi + Plex.
For the past ~5 years or so, I’ve had the choice of a polished web UI to pirate any movie or TV show on demand. Up until the past few months, I have still paid for:
- Netflix
- Amazon Prime
- Apple TV+ (as part of Apple One)
- Disney+
- YouTube Premium
… because their products and recommendation engines were more user-friendly for my family and I. Since the pattern of price gouging in the last 6-12 months, I now subscribe to:
- Netflix (cancelling this imminently)
- Apple Music (Apple One cancelled)
I hope the shameless cash grabs result in a mass exodus of users and really hurt these platforms.
I’ve recently reached the point where I could barely afford some of them… if they were as good as they were a year ago. Seems I’m sticking to the Seven Seas and my downloaded music library.
You don’t even need a VPN if you live in a country that doesn’t care
How do I do that on my TV? Is that a thing? I’ve got whatever the cheapest “smart” TV was in Walmart maybe three or four years ago with a Roku attached.
Not terribly savvy in these matters.
Thanks
Edit: Looks like I can do it via my router. I’m away for the weekend, so I’ll look into this next week. Thanks again for the idea
Yes Mullvad does have router configuration files. It’s only like $5.33/mo. Also your streaming catalog changes based on locations. Like for Netflix, Hulu and etc.
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It already does this. I frequently get ads for other shows when starting a show on Prime video. I can barely accept the existing ads.
Welp… this isn’t very strategically sound. Within the same service, they want to motivate me to consolidate shipping to Amazon delivery day or no rush. Guess who’s not using those methods anymore? Fuck you amazon, gonna cost you multiples of that $3 in shipping you greedy fucks.
I do exactly the same. I always opt for the earliest free prime delivery available, even for just one item in my order.
Fuck their Amazon delivery day and No rush shipping. “Delivery in fewer trips to your home” ? I have exactly zero fucks to give - I need my stuff as early as possible as my prime membership will let me, even if at 4 AM in the morning, because I am freaking paying for it.
And “green for the environment” my ass - I know they don’t care about environment, and I don’t care about the gas tank of their delivery vans.
