Technology

not if you raise the black flag

Costs of streaming from my Plex server haven't changed.

Still better than dealing with ads. That's my red line.

I absolutely refuse to watch programming with ads, free or paid. I won't do it. My time is limited and I'm not every going to willingly hand over a portion of my life to advertisements.

I'm never going back. If ad-free options go away or become too expensive, I'll simply stop watching shit. There isn't a price at which ad-supported programming becomes attractive.

I'd love to see the Weird Al movie. I won't, however, because Roku won't let me pay to watch it.

yarr harr fiddle-dee-dee

This is a lousy article rehashing an article behind a paywall.

The cost they have is $87 a month. There is so much that's confusing about this. They don't specify how many streaming services they are counting in that, but it's a good guess that is about 5, each at about $17 a month. I feel I have too many streaming services and share accounts with family, and I can stream from about 7, pay for one and watch 1.5. If I couldn't share accounts, I wouldn't have the accounts. I pretty much watch star trek and whatever show someone tells me to watch.

They also don't specify what $87 a month gets you in cable. Around me that's about basic cable prices, which is significantly less content presented in a less convenient format and is almost entirely reruns filled to brim with commercials.

Not only is the article missing key information it also misrepresents the information it has.

Note: I'm sure people will tell me to pirate everything, but there are reasons to not pirate. And it doesn't address that this is a poorly written article giving incomplete and incorrect information.

!selfhosted@lemmy.world

!piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

However, media execs acknowledged that the prices being charged by streaming services were unsustainable, and that a “crash” would follow – where companies would be forced to increase prices or go out of business.

Absolutely nobody believes you.

I pay for Hulu, Max, Disney+, Prime, and get Netflix for free. Half the time, I still can't find the show or movie I want to watch. But 99.99% of the time I can find a torrent for it within 20 seconds of searching. Not only is pirating cheaper, but it's more convenient and more user friendly these days.

If anybody is interested: an old workstation/server costs about 100€, a 2TB external Hdd 50€, that's about all you need to self-host your Netflix.

to proceed flash a Linux distro of your choice (I recommend Debian 12 stable) follow a tutorial on YT on how to install it, it's very simple.

Download and configure jellyfin. Open the 8096/8099 port on your router.

If you live in a country where downloading "Linux ISOs" is frowned upon, be sure to use a VPN while downloading the latest Linux Mint release for your jellyfin server.

Load those fancy new kali Linux live CDs on your jellyfin servers, download clients for all your devices and enjoy!

Guides for everything I said can be found online, expecially on YouTube.

Just to add: jellyfin is free and open source: you know it does not spy on you and it does not build a profile on you to then sell your data to ad companies, a huge plus if you ask me.

the sea is still here my friend.

That article is full of it. I was paying $120-150/month for cable on top of Internet. YoutubeTV is still only $75. I don't even bother with YoutubeTV anymore. That was way too much money per month and despite 100+ channels, there was almost nothing worth while to watch. I'm not paying $75/month for Saturday Night Live a few times per year and MSNBC on in the background while I work.

I have Netflix and Disney+. When the kids are gone I will also get rid of those. Netflix is a joke now. It takes me so much time scrolling to find a show that I even want to watch, that I usually fall asleep before that can happen. Disney+ filled their service with horrid crap from Star Wars, Marvel, and other formerly beloved intellectual property that they have sullied and ruined.

Bottom line. The Streaming services are just as bad or worse than cable was and is. The quality of the shows is mostly so low that there is nothing worth paying $75, $20, $15, or even $5 per month for. I will happily pay zero because that is what streaming and cable shows are worth, for the most part, right now.

If anyone would please just make some quality shows I would happily pay a reasonable price for it. There has been maybe one show this entire year that thought was good and that was Star Trek Strange New Worlds. Guess what? It isn't worth paying Paramount+ for a whole year just for one show. Sorry, but they all need to get their act together. Peak TV is long gone. It is Peak Crap TV now.

I wish there was a way to support the production, actors, writers, vfx artists, animators, etc. of good shows adequately while getting the piracy experience. This system really just fucking sucks. Even if you pay exorbitant amounts to streaming services, the people that made the art get jack shit.

Oh, you mean to tell me that paying for a gazillion streaming services individually is somehow more expensive than bundling them all together with cable? Who could have seen that coming?

Disney+ have increased the price cause theyre losing customers. That seems like it will work.

Shocking no one the unlimited growth mindset fucks something up.

Steaming is still more cost effective than cable. And most importantly, I don’t suffer through ads. I don’t pay equipment leases and fees. I watch everything on my own schedule. Cable cost me anywhere from $150 to $200 a month for my household for basic. With streaming I am paying about $45-55 a month. I only watch a limited amount of any TV anyway. I pay for YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, and 1 random. That’s it. Sometimes, that random is Peacock or Paramount or HBO Max, or Apple or whatever.

Remember when all those articles about 'cord cutting' was a thing. How streaming ushered in a new age.

So what's this going to be called? Are people going to switch back to the cable? Are TiVo stocks about to go skyrocket? Or is pirating about to see an all time surge? Since storage has never been cheaper, VPNs are mainstream (you can't watch YouTube without hearing about it), the number of applications to help facilitate it has never been more user friendly and plentiful, and internet speeds have only increased...

I mean, I know what a bunch of people here will do, but I mean the general public at large. Because it's hard not to notice those price increases, especially if you have more than one service. Because their price increases (based on percent) is far out pacing the pay increase people are getting. I already cancelled my Netflix (due to policy changes even though they didn't affect me, price increases, and their response to the writers strike).

The trouble is, cable has very little to offer in terms of interesting shows.

I think this article wreaks of corporate backsludge. The entire premise operates under the notion that these services are expensive to sustain and expensive to furnish.

But let’s not forget that they took the lions share of their content from pre existing IPs that were already paid for (millions times over from grossing numbers alone). They are taking the Lion King you grew up, and reselling it back to you. They’ve done this after every technological generational shift. VHS to CD to BR to Digital. Same Lion King.

Just because they want to boost profits 10,000% every quarter does not mean it’s anything more than an entirely artificial metric.

To me I read this as we need to make people more docile and accepting of the penetration. “Oh right, I guess it was always coming” is a much more flaccid mind set than being pissed over the arrogant corporate greed.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

But the sea is rising forcing people to become pirates.

Sorry I am not rooting for streaming increases but this is a bunch of baloney. One, few people have all the services listed in the article concurrently. And secondly, they are comparing to the average cable bill which wouldn't include content like HBO and would likely be well over $100 probably much more for an equivalent amount of content. Hulu alone covers like three quarters of cable content in most markets.

Seems to me like they could still raise another 20% before they are truly on an equitable par.

If anyone is old enough to remember when cable first showed up, it followed a similar path. They had to complete against "free" over the air TV, so cable had to be a good deal at first to get subscribers.

Once they got the frog in the pot, they slowly turned up the heat.

The next stop for streaming will be the prominent platforms jockeying to be the next "cable" monopolies.

The sales pitch will be "buy a package of channels at a discount" over individual.

It has already begun. Amazon, Apple, Hulu all resell other channels. HBO re-branded their entire channel just to start carrying non-HBO content.

Bigger platforms will leverage subscriber base to lock in content deals so the smaller ones won't be able to compete.

Consumers will get some deals until smaller players are choked out, but as soon as they can companies will start the dry anal rape that only a near monopoly can deliver.

I think at least for me it would be cheaper to rent or "buy" movies à la carte on YouTube and similar platforms than subscribing to that amount of services.

Ahoy there, high seas mateys!

Finally? It's cost more than cable in my area for some time now. I gave up on pirating almost completely when it was just Netflix and Hulu. Now every single network has their own streaming service and they all charge a premium.... sorry guys, back to flying the Jolly Roger for me.

In Canada, cable packages are still pretty freaking expensive.

But as streaming prices increase, we're closing our accounts on an the platforms. I just shut down my Netflix account due to their new policy and pricing. Next is probably going to be Disney who's going to add commercials soon.

If there are going to be ads, it better be free. I'm not paying to see commercials. I'll use Tubi and Pluto instead and I'll use torrents and set up my own shared media server at home.

It's not like Disney and Netflix and Amazon aren't making any money. They're making record profits while the actors and writers are on strike. Fuck em and their greed.