Technology @lemmy.ml

1y ago

The era of cheap streaming is officially over

www.cnn.com The era of cheap streaming is officially over | CNN Business

It’s the end of an era.

Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ @lemmy.dbzer0.com

kworpy @lemm.ee

1y ago

The era of cheap streaming is officially over

www.cnn.com /2023/08/10/media/disney-plus-streaming-prices-reliable-sources/index.html

233 39

383 comments

Pirating went down when paying for streaming was more convenient. Well, you are making it far less convenient.
- Streaming has become cable 2.0.
  It was wonderful when everything was on one, maybe two providers. Could watch everything in a very easy, very affordable way.
  But everyone saw that, went "I know, I want that money!" and spent billions building their own individual infrastructures so make their own streaming services, and right around we go right back to the absolute worst days of cable and bullshit.
  Only thing stopping me from saying fuck it and downloading shit I want to watch, is the fact that I no longer know what the good sites are.. since I havent pirated since the heyday of the bay.
  
  Streaming has become cable with micro transactions.
  
  Join lemmy.dbzer0.com the piracy instance and ask around about private trackers and if there are any open signups
  
  And the irony is that people switched to cable for the exact same reason. They got tired of the nonsense that broadcast TV pulled with subscriptions for different channels and all the ads and everything, and went to cable because you paid one bill for every channel. Then, everyone moved to streaming because you had to buy 50 different cable packages for the one channel on each you actually cared about, and there were just too many ads to deal with, etc.
  Something something, those who don't listen to history are doomed to lose profit margins or whatever.
  
  TorrentFreak occassionally posts a list of sites, just use a good no logging VPN.
  
  That and movies just suck nowadays. This is partially old man yelling at cloud stuff but also true since the death of DVD's means studios won't take risks anymore since they can't recoup funds after a poor box office.
  
  On the usenet side of the house, I think the only big change was NZB Matrix going away.
  
  Galaxy torrents is a newer, solid option friend
  
  !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
  
  Oh, so they defederated and y'all complaining about that now. I see how it is 😋
- Arr
- As lord Gaben has said, "piracy is a service issue"
- Well, this time they have Google and Microsoft on big brother duty to make sure you don't get crazy ideas. And I'm not seeing enough people jumping away from Chrome and Windows to stop it.
  
  I'm on Windows and it's never hindered me when I needed to go download something that would make a studio exec cry. Granted, I use Firefox, but I'm not sure what Chrome would do differently - it's just a matter of clicking links that get sent off to qBittorrent to handle. What "big brothering" do they do?
  
  But so far google and microsoft are incompetent big brothers, to the point that most people will find free streaming sites just by searching "free streaming epx of show". Now we are not talking good streaming, or even safe but if you want an example just look at any place with poor users (like a school or library).
  
  What exactly are you talking about? Google and Microsoft have literally nothing to do with any of this.
  
  Time will tell...
- It’s not really any less convenient, just more expensive
  
  True as long as they keep an ad-free tier.

To be completely fair, it's been over for a while. Even if you completely forget about infrastructure, between the endless wars for licenses, endless removals of content from platforms, shitty inconvenient apps, and regional locks, it's already a dying market.
On top of all of that, they're implementing the "don't you have 5 extra dollars" strategy, with skyrocketing monthly prices for each of these. If it was 15$ a month to watch anything, i would still pay. but it's 15$ for each of them, and they still serve you ads, and sell your data
- The funny thing is we're rapidly approaching the point where there's more digital content than any single human could consume in a lifetime. Including content from before copyright. So the main thing streaming services offer you is convenience and up-to-date media. But if you're just trying to entertain yourself 30-year-old 40-year-old 50-year-old 60-year-old 70-year-old content can be just as engrossing. You just get emotionally invested in it.
  
  I've found a DVD rental place close to me with quite a collection. Honestly thinking about just unsubscribing from all streaming and going all in on DVD rental. I watched one recently for the first time ... you forget how consistently good the qualilty is compared to streaming (YMMV). But, in true hipster fashion, being more deliberate about what I watch, more openly exploratory, making more of an event of it, all seems attractive. If streaming were actually convenient, fine, but with the way things are now ... they can go to hell.
  
  If you can go to a source of older content it often comes pre-filtered for the better stuff too, so you don't have to wade through a ton of rubbish to find the occasional gem like you do with the new stuff.
- And the writer's strike shows that the artists don't get paid anyway if you pay for content, so they can't even play that card either.
  
  We all knew that even before the strike too. Musicians get paid pennies on a dollar, and it's the same with writers. Actors are probably treated the same way, if you're not one of the hall of fame elites who get insane cash for garbage roles, after they've been in a Marvel movie once
  
  They get paid, they just don’t get residuals for life from every job they were paid to do.
- Peacock HBO Max Showtime Disney. Fucking DC Universe was trying to be a thing.
  Every media company wanted a streaming service but failed to deliver because of their hubris.
  Hulu and Netflix have been my constant subscription services.
  
  Disney is an absolute must if you have a kid, and a great value besides.
  Otherwise it makes 0 sense except for maybe star wars sometimes.

The era of cheap streaming is over, now begins the era of free streaming
- 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️
  
  Bettle Juicing at its finest
- Long live 1337x and Stremio.
  
  Didn’t 1337x just get caught injecting bit coin mining software into their stuff?
- All you need is some popcorn and some time

No worries, I wasn't paying anyway!
🏴‍☠️ 🏴‍☠️ 🏴‍☠️
- I jumped ship at price hikes and no account sharing.
  
  Same, the only streaming services I have now are paid for by my phone provider for free. Besides that, I sail the high seas proudly

🪢 Heave-ho! Thieves and beggars!
\ Never shall we die! 🏴‍☠️

Well, hell. I guess I'll go back to watching less and buying DVDs. I'm not watching commercials on a service I pay for. That's a non starter.
Worst comes to worse, I can dust off my eye patch, grab my parrot, and take to the high seas. I don't wanna, I prefer to pay for stuff, but ffs, if they can't be reasonable, I guess it's back to arrr me hearties.
- who the fuck pays to watch ads. what a ludicrous proposition. that's the part that makes no sense to me.
  
  People used to do it with cable TV. It cost a fortune and was full of ads.
  
  No one pays to watch ads. They pay to watch movies and shows, which are (optionally) supplemented in cost by ads.

and thus began the second golden age of piracy
- The great thing is it's so much easier now. About 2 months ago I cancelled all my streaming subscriptions.
- “I left everything I own in one torrent…”

Oh well, there's plenty of space for all of ya here on the high seas, welcome aboard, mateys!
- Seed your torrents folks

Jellyfin / Plex downloads 📈📈📈

But Wednesday’s move to significantly bump prices, marked an acknowledgment by Iger of the media giant’s intent to squeeze more revenue out of streaming by pushing consumers to the advertising-supported plans, which have proven to be more profitable.
“The advertising marketplace for streaming is picking up,” Iger told investors on the quarterly earnings call. “It’s more healthy than the advertising marketplace for linear television. We believe in the future of advertising on our streaming platforms, both Disney+ and Hulu.”
This is extremely important for them. Netflix's excellent deal for most of its streaming existence was obviously a thorn in the side of many other businesses. Even if streaming services can get you to pay an exorbitant amount of money on an ad-free tier, advertisers are frothing for the chance to advertise to you regardless. They want you to see their ads so badly. And let's not forget all the big tech companies, Netflix included, were riding high during the free money days of 0% interest loans. Those days are over, and the bill is due. Wall Street wants its money. And we are all the ones who have to pay up. Cheap streaming is officially over.
This is why these companies, including Netflix, have all introduced ad tiers. Not only is it a great way for them to juice their revenue streams, but also every other company wants a permanent residence in your brain, and then some. Given the way things have been going since duo-eras of the COVID pandemic and corporate profit-based inflation, they don't even need to collude on prices. All the execs need to do is look at the business press and say, "Hey, they're getting away with increased prices and password sharing crackdowns. We can do the same thing. The pay pigs keep paying!"
- I really cannot understand why advertising is such a huge business. Where does all the money spent on advertising really come from?
  
  Big advertising budgets that are funded from the value alienated from exploited workers and consumers. Information asymmetry in the marketplace means that even if you make a superior product at a lower price, you could still be outcompeted by an expensive inferior product if more people know about that worse product and don't know about your product.
  That's for most basic products anyway. Luxury products like bags and clothes are almost all marketing since the cost to create them is so low compared to their sales price. People buy them because of perceptions created by marketing and not any inherent value in the product itself.
  
  As far as I know internet advertising is an economy destroying sunk cost fallacy. No one makes money off of it, but if they stop basically everything collapses catastrophically, so they just keep pouring more money in to it in hopes that someone will find a way to make it profitable before the bill comes due.
  
  Is it really unclear? If you had never heard of a product, you would much less likely purchase it. If Coke stopped advertising today, they'd start a very slow but real loss of market to it's competiton, be it Pepsi or whatever. Note that a LOT of advertising is not for you. It's for the corporate buyer at name your favorite restaurant so that they think that they'll get more consumers in the door because they have Coke products, as opposed to some other brand.
- I'll be completely unsurprised when streaming companies start enticing or forcing us into term agreements.
  
  You know it's coming. Why would a streaming company want a consumer buying one month, binging a single show they're interested in, then immediately cancelling the subscription after, when you could guarantee a 6- or 12-month revenue stream for them?
- Might fuck around and start invoicing companies for attention time, comprehension time, storage capacity, and of course the 500$ per instance recall fee.

era of torrenting unaffected
- Honestly people should probably be thinking about future-proofing things and putting as much media as physically possible on to drives in anticipation of whatever the next wave of bullshit. At some point Samizdat2.0 will probably be the only way to preserve and share media under the capitalist censorship regime. They're just going to keep cracking down and cracking down and cracking down until no one can move without bleeding for the privilege.
  As they said in the bad old days: Keep circulating the tapes.
  Until we can pull this whole bullshit edifice down, kick it in the kidneys a few times, and set it on fire the only way to protect media from the companies that "own" it is going to be little people with really big RAID arrays.
  
  It certainly feels like we're on the precipice of something breaking what with computers rapidly getting more locked down, these secure enclaves and/or TPM chips verifying that you're watching on an approved OS and web browser before allowing you to stream, and then the video is encrypted until it gets to your actual TV. Crazy what they're getting away with.
  In the near future I foresee pirates pointing cameras at TV screens then using AI to clean up the video, then media companies responding by creating randomized slightly different versions of videos so they can trace them back to the account holder who shared it (move some tree branches around, slightly different colored hat on background actors, etc) and perhaps getting legislation passed to stop cameras from being allowed to record IP protected material, and so on.
- Is that true? Most of the best public trackers got shut down. Anything left has bots recording your IP and you're getting a letter from your ISP.
  If you're not on a private ratio tracker or paid tracker it's basically a non starter. So I'm not sure about unaffected era the last 10 years have been brutal for pirates via torrent.
  
  VPN has been necessary for pirating for a long time. And fortunately a VPN is cheaper then any streaming service, and has other benefits besides.
  
  If you’re torrenting without a VPN you’re doing it wrong. Also you should look at Usenet instead.
  
  You just need a VPN. Public trackers are generally fine.

Am I the only one that remembers the "cut the cord" and "stop feeding the cable pig" nonsense? What happened to all that? Thankfully, none of this has affected me, then or now. I don't usually bother with "programming" of any kind but, when I do, "arr mateys."
- The cable pigs moved into the streaming game, and used licensing to enshitify streaming
- I mean it was nonsense to think it would solve your costs, but streaming is superior to cable TV from a tech standpoint for sure.
  People should expect that yeah, new software is cheap when it's rolled out, but it's gonna get more expensive as time goes on, but I can understand why that wasn't quite as apparent to people 10 years ago as it will be 10 years from now
  
  That's literally the opposite of how it's supposed to be, new tech is expensive and only early adopters can buy in, then when the EA's money comes in, it is spent to improve and make the tech cheaper, which allows it to be adopted by the masses. With streaming, all of the fat cats decided to start it cheap to get everyone hooked and moved over, then jacked up the prices because the shareholders aren't satisfied with their draconic gold hoards.

We can go start pirating again

It is inevitable, every industry grows to destroy itself through contradictions. It is just annoying how fast this business model took to do it.
- Have to keep the profits increasing every quarter, otherwise shareholders will sell and buy your competitors and line go down. The article talks a little about how a lot of the streaming platforms have raised prices this year since right now shareholders want to see more profit instead of growth with interest rates up.
- We have the best system, folks. Truly the greatest.

The era of piracy has returned. 🏴‍☠️
- It never really left.. arrrrr.

It’s an ironic end to the streaming wars. After pouring billions and billions of dollars into constructing supposedly revolutionary streaming platforms, and decimating the business models that had offered the industry stability for decades, the ultimate product looks awfully similar to what companies and consumers were trying to break free from in the first place.
I'll still take streaming any day over cable.
No contract and you can put everything in rotation. Sign up for a month, binge, cancel, next.
- Sign up for a month, binge, cancel, next.
  That's not going to last. As soon as they run the numbers and decide it's worth it, they'll create ways to lock you in.
- The streaming companies are starting to get wise to that. They've started splitting seasons and releasing them separately so that you have to be subbed for 2 months.
  
  I'd just wait until the second part is out, sub one month.
  
  Well I'll subscribe for the second month.
  
  Or they could release one per week, two batches isn't really "starting to get wise to that" imho. Either way, being patient is the best and only paying for one month
- The difference between watching something programmers and on demand is big. I still detest the newer prices though coupled with the decline in interesting content.

I'm paying for Spotify and Netflix because they are very convenient. I'm not paying for another 5 subscriptions because they maybe have this one show I would like to watch. They worked hard on fragmenting the marked and now they will complain people don't want to pay for 10 different subscriptions
- Music services are almost a necessity to me because of the amount of music I listen to, but it's also a different animal. They all have mostly the same library, so you won't typically be subscribing to more than one.
  The problem with streaming video services is that most people watch a couple genres, and there's content in every genre on every streaming platform. I watch a lot of scifi, for example. So I would need to subscribe to Apple TV for Silo and Foundation, Paramount+ for Star Trek, etc...
- I just jump from service to service to watch the shows I'm interested in. No way in hell I'm paying for them all at once.

I realized a year or so ago (after a letter from my isp) that I didn’t actually need to torrent anymore. There are websites like bflix.io (and I’m sure many others) that have basically everything streaming for free. Fuck subscriptions. Would maybe go back to torrenting if I got a vpn sorted out, but you’re not gonna get in trouble for streaming shit on a pirate website, so for now it’s the best solution I’ve found. Certainly not paying any of these assholes. Lol. Fuck outta here with that.
- Proton mail has a free VPN that works really well. Switzerland is part of world coverage tier, but Netherlands is just as good at hiding torrenting from ISP's. And it can even use a 'stealth mode' that works fairly well to get around VPN blockers by using unusual protocols for the traffic.
  
  Does proton's VPN free tier not block p2p file sharing usage?
- Is there something like that that works on an nVidia Shield (Android TV)?
  Rather not have the Uberspreadsheetboxen running just to watch Village of the Damned again...
  
  Hell, I dunno. I just plug my laptop into a regular old tv via hdmi.
- Is there a good way to watch on a proper TV? I find that all such sites are browser based, and I'm not keen on typing in urls with the remote control.

We came back to another cycle of big corporations forgetting they have to be more convenient than pirating.
Can't speak for anyone else, but just having an actual no logs VPN for less than the cost of one streaming service while also using qbittorrent with the torrent site search function is so much more convenient than spending probably hundreds at this point for streaming services I might only watch anything on once a blue moon.
- Money issues aside, it is absolutely maddening to have to navigate through six or eight different streaming services to find the show you want to watch
  I pay for spotify. If I want to listen to a song, it's on spotify. I don't need a different music streaming service for every single record company. As a result, I don't pirate music anymore.
  
  To be fair this is also not good though. It's convenient, sure, but it creates a monopoly that can dictate what they pay to the artists - which is often close to nothing.
- Or even more convenient, the arr suite + Plex/jellyfish + Overseer. A docker compose is easy enough to write and get running in minutes
  
  I would definitely love to set up a server for something like Plex if I had enough content to justify it. To me it seems excessive to have a server for just a very small handful of shows, in my case.

I think I'm gonna go sailing the seven seas again.

Around 2010 there was this "pledge" where a website people basically collected a list of things they'd require in order to stop pirating tv shows and movies and I think it came down to:
Provide easy access to large library Provide multi language support, must offer original language Allow downloads/offline viewing Be reasonably priced
Plus some additional stuff I can't remember.
When Netflix got big, they basically covered it all. Then everyone wanted a piece of the pie.
Back to piracy then. 15$ for put.io ✨🙏
- I may have lowered the skull and crossbones, and folded it up, and stored it away, but I never got rid of it. I'm building my Plex server, and sailing the seas again
- What’s put.io do exactly?
  
  I did not do a deep dive but it looks like it might be a way to access usenet.
  
  It's basically a Torrent tracker as a service with a web interface to directly stream your torrents in your browser or to a Chromecast, Apple TV and whatever.

🏴‍☠️
- Yarr Harr Harr, fiddly dee doo!
- Avast ye

Looks around. You guys are still streaming?
- finishes downloading latest movie. Naw, what about you?

I don't know, my stremio app and torrent client is still working. The era of cheap streaming may be over, but the era of free streaming never ended!

I mean people spent $100/mo. on cable for decades with no option to opt out of ads. And they had to just like jump into the middle of whatever happened to be on at the time.
- US prices are/were crazy. In my EU country we payed like 20-30 for hundreds of channels
- Plug for OTA TV and HDHomeRun or Tablo. $3/mo for TV guide data, and a surprising amount of decent content and sports if you’re in a good area.
  
  OTA TV is shit quality and chock full of ads. No thank you. You enjoy, though.

Lol wut. My streaming torrents have never been better!
- Yeah. Back in the day you used to wait for your movies to download before you watch them. Now I have Stremio or at least sequential downloads.
  
  Even then, you can just wait around 10-40 minutes in most cases for a 3-5 GB movie to download.
  I usually just start a download and search for a torrent on my phone that's connected to Radarr/Sonarr on my PC.

It's incredible to watch them kill their own golden goose
- Apparently it wasn't so much a "golden" goose.
  They were all happy to let them run at below cost just gathering up market share.
  Now they're trying to re-position to be profitable. Their subscriber numbers will definitely take a hit but they will have done the math.
  
  Do you have any stats/resources that show that these streaming services are inherently unprofitable?

The era of free streaming is still going strong.

sings Farewell and adieu to you greedy streamers.
\ Farewell and adieu, to you subscription pains
\ For we're now returning to the torrents of the pirates
\ and we may ner see you curs'd streamers again
We'll post and we'll flame like true software pirates
\ we'll post and we'll flame, all over the net
\ Until we can find us an FTP server
\ And get all the slop that we're ach'n to get
- We really have a moral duty to make piracy as easy, one button, even grandpa can do it as possible.
  Not for any, like, good of humanity reason.
  But as part of my revenge against The Mouse.

But hey, at least we also get connection issues when compared to cable.
- Yeah, you used to have to get satellite for that to be an issue.

And that's me done with Disney+ - big price hikes and the removal of password sharing have killed the value in it.
Plus, I have such a massive backlog of things to watch, I wouldn't even notice.

And that's why I use the questionably legal streaming sites... at this point I have been radicalized enough to find copyright an offensive premise
- I got there about 10 years ago, a little after I graduated High School. I realized copyright was stupid before I ever really learned what capitalism is.

Haven't sailed in a while, DM me tips on how to get my vessel sea-worthy again! 🏴‍☠️🦜
- stremio + real-debrid + orion
  Basically, orion finds the torrents, a debrid service cache's torrents and streams them to you, stremio renders the stream.
  No need for a VPN, no need to seed, no need for the *arr family, nice UI with high wife-approval-factor to browse content.
  
  What benefits does Orion have over torrentio for Real Debrid?
- I've not done this, and I prefer anyone see as opposed to DMs, but there's a suite of open source apps https://medium.com/linux-shots/self-host-media-stack-jellyfin-radarr-sonarr-jackett-transmission-3e6a0adf716e
- Get Kodi, and look up instructions to get 'the crew' Plug in added to it, and then grab a month subscription to real-debrid and check it out. Bit of an effort to get set up, but once it is, it works arguably better than streaming. 4k, better bit rate, sports and all the TV shows and Movies, language and sub options, the lot.
  I have it all set up on my TV box, and while browsing can be a bit wonkier, my watching experience is unmatched.
  
  Watching content without paying is one thing. Actually paying the wrong person is actually quite malicious. You deserve to have all your favourite shows cancelled.

I don't think the era of cheap streaming is over, on the contrary, it's greater than it's ever been.
My selfhosted Plex and Jellyfin are booming, and services like Netflix and Disney+ just made my family and friends to adopt the streaming services faster.
I stop paying two years ago and I've noticed no difference in quality or content.
Thanks Netflix for rekindling my love for the seven seas.
- How do you like Jellyfin? I picked up the Plex lifetime membership waaay back in the day and have been using it consistently for the past 5-ish years, but audio (at least in the web player) is so hit and miss - 5.1 down mixing to stereo is always way too quiet no matter what settings I mess with.
  
  it's got some weird bugs but I generally haven't noticed audio issues. casting doesn't work perfectly, though.

A little off topic, but I'd like to nominate the Paramount+ marketing team for some sort of award.
Their adverts are everywhere, I don't have Paramount+, yet every ad I see somehow makes me want it less.
- every ad I see somehow makes me want it less.
  That is called reactance bias. Being advertised or pressured to do something leads to want said thing less.
  
  I mean, there is that. But it's also their choice of things they advertise. Like, there'll be a billboard with five or six diverse shows, and they're all the sort of absolute drek I'd scroll past in the subscriptions I already pay for.
  I see them and just think "I'm glad I don't subscribe to Paramount+"
- Strange New Worlds is pretty good. I'll probably cancel when I'm done watching it though.
  
  It's on Apple TV+, no need for PM+
- It's definitely a terrible streaming service all around. If I want a trekkie they be dropped.
- I subscribed during a promotion for $2 and the only thing on the entire service I watched was Yellowjackets (and that's a Showtime series, so don't know why it was on there).
  I don't understand why so many companies want their own streaming service when they don't have the content to carry one.

There's no way the model is sustainable once everyone starts their streaming platform.

arrr, matey
- Arr, Sonarr, Radarr, Readarr,....
- Is it just me, or have tpb & mirrors gotten EXTRA cancer-y lately

Music is next.
The shitshow will continue. I think it has just begun.
- It’s a little different as Spotify/apple/etc don’t produce music and are not trying to out license each other. Really good thing you don’t have to sub to half a dozen music services.
  
  Grateful that they don’t. But they have tried to do it with podcasts.
  Spotify “pulled an Apple”, bought Gimlet and moved all their podcasts onto Spotify exclusively. I don’t use Spotify and chose to find alternatives. I’m happy I did.
  
  Spotify/apple/etc don’t produce music and are not trying to out license each other.
  Tidal seemed to try going down this road with exclusives but thankfully none of the others followed.
  
  Same shit definitley happens with record labels on streaming, thank goodnes for indie, kinda killed that a bit
  
  Isn’t that interesting? Maybe if the studios weren’t allowed to own the TV channels, we’d have more competition and the prices would go down.
- Thank God I listen to DIY punk subgenres
  
  DIY? That must not mean what I think it does.
  ETA: It does mean do it yourself. Interesting.

After seeing this many "arr"s here, I just letting y'all in the comments know that 1) you're my peeps 2) you're feckin beautiful 3) I stay seeding for you <3

Cool, looks like it's time to revisit my streaming services again. We're on Disney+ legacy, which is great because we get like $8/month off with my credit card (Amex Everyday), but if they end that deal, I'll probably leave too.
Netflix is getting to be not worth it, so I'll probably go order some DVDs of TV shows my kids like, then cancel and see how that goes. We really don't watch all that much.
- Just recently bought a stack of used DVDs. This is the way.

Popcorn time :D

I’m back on the high seas, but I’m worried about my ability to discover new shit or when stuff comes back. I’ve relied on my Apple TV to let me know when new seasons start for so long that I no longer have tools to keep track of shit. I literally forget the things I watch between seasons.
- I use a notion database to track all the shows I'm watching. Mainly because I have ADHD but it might be useful
  
  Also ADHD, but in the way that systems like that don’t work for me. I’m wholly incapable of keeping up with them and they sap me of all my energy.
- This site used to be pretty good for tracking shows. No idea if it still is any good tho. https://www.pogdesign.co.uk/cat/
- Look up guides for radarr and sonarr and associated rr's. They can do the heavy lifting for you.
  
  Yep. They just pull things you monitor as they show up in your feeds (in my case Usenet newsgroup indexes)
  For example. My wife like Billions, new episode/season came out and it jus popped up in my plex server the other day
- Just use seriesguide, simple solution.

My use of Kodi and debrid says otherwise.

I never left the 7 seas matey
- Indeed. The era of cheap pirated content... continues much as it always had.

Time to get the old torrent box going agaian

This is the best summary I could come up with:
The disruptive streaming model birthed by Netflix that dangled all-you-can-eat menus of films, shows, and endless entertainment without pesky advertisements for extraordinarily low prices came to an official close on Wednesday.
Disney boss Bob Iger announced during the company’s quarterly earnings report that the Magic Kingdom will once again hike Disney+ prices for the second time in less than a year, increasing the monthly cost of its ad-free plan $3 to $13.99 in October.
But Wednesday’s move to significantly bump prices, marked an acknowledgment by Iger of the media giant’s intent to squeeze more revenue out of streaming by pushing consumers to the advertising-supported plans, which have proven to be more profitable.
When Netflix first offered its pioneering service for only $8 a month, millions of people signed up, eager to have access to the company’s expansive catalog for just a fraction of the cost of the traditional cable bundle.
That served as the genesis of the streaming era, with legacy entertainment companies such as Disney racing to launch their own direct-to-consumer products at unsustainably low costs.
Couple that reality with the introduction of ads into streaming and the end product eerily resembles on-demand cable.
I'm a bot and I'm open source!
- Good bot

This makes me wonder what else I can do with my free time. Besides saving money, if I stopped paying for all of these services, I would probably be more active and healthier. A part of me hopes that they increase prices again, and motivate people to be more active.
- Yup, you probably will be.
  When I dropped Amazon Prime, I found myself ordering less crap, reusing more, and buying higher quality from different vendors. I also watched Twitch less because I no longer had a free sub (though I still use an ad blocker, it just feels more wrong so I just watch less).
  Sometimes we just need to give ourselves a little push.
- Write your own stories. I have an entire canon that I can draw from and more ideas for novels than I can publish in a lifetime. It's one of the few practices I've ever engaged in that I'm proud of.

I just use stremio and I can stream while I torrent, for free.

No, thanks.. As long as I can download whatever I want whenever I want (add it to nas and watch through Kodi having like Netflix experience), there is no way that those people will get my money. Most of it is just bullshit anyway. And if I like or want to support some quality release I'll go to cinema.

Rising prices is just the first stage of enshittification

Everyone is willing to stop paying for the content, but very few are willing to boycott it instead.
- And actually talk to my family? What are you insane?
  /s

The era of Free Streaming has just begun
- The renaissance of free streaming.

It was over the day the studios wanted to have their own services instead of licensing content to Netflix and competitors.
- Here in Australia I remember when we were told that every free to air station was working together to make a single streaming app, was very excited and it would have made me actually watch more free to air stuff.
  Then those talks broke down and Insta we got 6 different streaming apps all requiring their own accounts and with differing levels of quality in their apps.
  I did not end up watching more free to air tv.

Cancelled Netflix last month. Still have Amazon Prime, but mostly for the delivery. The only video streaming subscription worth keeping is MUBI for now (and Nebula, but that hardly counts).
- I'm the opposite. I ditched Amazon Prime because I realized I don't really need the faster shipping and I wasn't using their video platform much anyway.
  I still have Netflix and Disney+, mostly because my kids watch them, but I might get away with dropping one off them if I buy a few series on DVD or whatever.
  
  I've been thinking of dropping Amazon Prime as well. I don't really use it that much. Disney+ looks like a good deal rn, but I don't wanna give any money to those evil fucks.

these numbers are nearly reaching the point where buying seasons of shows on iTunes, which always seemed insanely expensive, becomes the better option for people who watch specific stuff. never thought I’d see the day

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