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200,000 users abandon Netflix after crackdown backfires
(www.forbes.com.au)
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this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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I mean sure, turn to streaming competitors, but they are not going to be any better in the long term.
The entire subscription model sucks. It's really bad value for the consumer and makes us pay huge amount of money every month for nothing once we have watched what we want to watch.
My new streaming service is powered by open source software and has a black flag on the rear end of the ship. I'll be fine.
In the end I'm one of those pirates with an enormous inventory of movies purchased on YouTube and other services, I just don't want to support services that pride themselves with cancelling after season one.
Best suggestion I've heard is rotating subscriptions. Netflix for 3-4 months and watch everything you're interested in then cancel, Apple TV next for 3-4 months then cancel, next maybe Hulu or Max, finally loop back around to Netflix.
Or maybe some might find it works better to rotate 2 services, or keep one like Disney always for the kids but rotate another. Regardless it's not too much of a hassle and avoids paying for 4, 5 or 6 services at a time.
One of my kids asks maybe once in six months to watch something on Disney+ so I subscribe and instantly cancel (don't get me started about auto renew). I swear in that six months there are maybe a handful of new shows and movies that are worth watching and the rest is the same old junk as before. It probably doesn't help that Disney is making some really terrible content lately.
Netflix isn't quite so bad but I can see why people would want to take a break from it. While I think they have a slightly better hit ratio than Disney they've also put out some expensive stinkers too.
I think people like you and me who don't like the most stupid shit on the streaming services are not getting value for money. Maybe it's great for people who love whatever comes up there, but Im having a hard time finding something I actually want to watch too.
This hits home. 10 years ago, Netflix was great! It had this huge catalog, so you could easily find something to watch.
Then, bit by bit, they started losing shows. I'd start hearing from friends "Hey, you should check xyz out" -- not available for streaming.
By time I dropped my subscription in 2019, there wasn't much I was still interested in. I think the last show I had watched was The Crown, and there was a long delay between seasons on that one, IIRC.
You know you can cancel the service when you've watched all you want to watch, right?
Yeah I don't think I want to juggle subscriptions between 5 different streaming providers. Not my idea of fun.
Yeah that's waaaay more work than im willing to do. MY streaming service has all the shows for a great price.
Yarr baby, after a few years going straight, im back sailing the red line
Subscription models are so monumentally better than cable that it's unreal. It is absolutely not a "huge" amount of money compared to the alternative of cable+"premium channels" which was the only way to even begin to approach the level of content currently available via streaming.
Maybe it's better than cable but it's still not worth the money in my opinion. All my subs are just idling (the two I have left). There is nothing good on there and it sucks paying for something I don't use just in case there will be a show worth watching in the future.
I'm not in the habit of dictating financial choices for others. If it's not worth it you, I totally respect that. 10 years ago I would not have subscribed to more than one service, which I would probably have rotated (if they existed), because I wouldn't be able to afford it.
It is not, however, a worse deal than cable/dish networks, just as a matter of comparison. You'd face the same content problems but pay the same or more for even more content you are not interested in.
I went without any sort of cable/dish for a long time, until my wife got a sweet deal through her work, because it didn't make financial sense to us. It was still a bit of a rip-off even at the discounted rate because there was little content we actually wanted.