Well, the true economics of the subject considering the entire market are than a 1 month VPN subscription is cheaper than the cheapest subscription of a single one of these services.

It would be interesting to see the graph of VPN # of active subscriptions next to streaming service # of active subscriptions for the last 2 years.

During the writer's strike, I watched an interview with an industry insider and member of the WGA. He mentioned that it's been well known to the industry that people are subscribing for one month to binge watch and then unsubscribe. I was a little surprised to hear this was already such a common practice and the industry was, in part, renegotiating contracts with this in mind. Personally, I've been doing a version of this since Netflix first started online streaming.

I don't currently have any streaming service plans in large part because they keep increasing the prices. These services are fine for the prices they used to be but they keep raising prices. Perhaps the content is better but it's not like my life is impacted by a slightly better tv show or movie - an hour of content is an hour of content. If you want to make better stuff, create another service or offer a higher subscription tier. I'm voting with my wallet and I'm not allowing social pressures to dictate where I get my entertainment. Let's not lose sight that this is entertainment we're talking about.

The other issues I have with them, incidentally, are poor content and poor user experiences. I cancelled my Netflix subscription because they implemented auto-playing trailers. I've stopped using Apple TV entirely because they too have implemented auto-playing trailers.

At this point, getting up to change the channel with a rotary knob might be a better experience than most of these streaming platforms. In fact, I've been watching a lot of Pluto and Tubi lately. They have ads but they're relatively minimal and they're placed in appropriate places in the program.

🏴‍☠️

Price gouging plus adding ads to paid services. Time to yarr

ahoy matey

… ⛵️

Stremio + Torrentio + Real Debrid is my favourite streaming service.

I skip the subscribe part. Just watch and repeat.

I’m going back to buying DVDs.

My issue is that none of these streaming services have a backlog of content large enough to be worth it, and they only add one good show every few years. I can just pirate the one good thing they put out, and then I don't have to pay for the heaps of trash they've shatted onto their streaming service.

There are months, I don’t even watch anything. I’ll subscribe when the need arises. When the need subsides because I’m busy. I’ll cancel. The idea that I’ll just pay on autopilot went away when they raised prices and made it impossible for me to share the subscription.