Don't forget the 5 BILLION dollars they just gave to WWE, a company that regularly goes to Saudi Arabia. A country so backwards in human rights that they don't allow women to work. So WWE's answer to this was to create a tornament just for the women. Called "The Great Moolah Classic". Only problem with that is, it happened just as the MeToo movement was happening. Now in case you're unaware, womens pro wrestling from the 1950s through the 1980s was dominated by "The Great Moolah".

Btw, I'M not saying she was great. Far from it. Thats just her stage name.

But if you were a woman, and you wanted to get into womens wrestling between 1950-1985 you NEEDED to go through The Great Moolah. Here's the problem though.

You had to live in a camp, where she controlled every aspect of your life from training through retirement. What she did with this control was appalling. She forced them to prostitute themselfs out to not only the male wrestlers, but also the rest of the general public in the area.

These women then had to give 100% of the money to Moolah, or else they'd be beaten.

And that's the tornament they tried to give as the consolation prize for women not being allowed to wrestle in Saudi Arabia. Oh, and when they were forced to change the name, almost IMMEDIATELY, they changed it to The Mae Young Classic. Mae Young was Moolah's best friend, and one of the people who would help beat the other women. That's still what it's called today. When they first introduced the trophy for it, the trophy was intentionally made to look like a vagina. "Here's your make believe trophy for winning a make believe tornament, as a consolation prize for very real restrictions on making very real money, and we shaped it like your genitals. Snickers, who sponsered the tornament balked when they saw their logo would be on that trophy, and they were forced to redesign it to something more generic. The tornament continues to this day.

And that's what Netflix just paid 5 BILLION dollars for. Either 3 or 5 years. I forget which.

Care to share what site you use to pirate? I haven't been in that loop for a while, but all these pricing increases for all these streaming services is driving me back.

Damn near every tech company and major utility provider has no way of growing aside from squeezing.

No matter where you turn you will be getting squeezed, and it'll just get worse every year that regulations don't catch up.

And if the U.S. has it's way, institutional regulation will be a thing of the past as a new wave of unchecked corporate oligarchy begins. And since the U.S's biggest export is crazy, it'll just spread....

Making the future more grim.

The shareholders are seeking to juice the company and throw it away as usual. Users need to see the writing on the wall and move on.

Genius MBA thinking of our time

Yea tbh it's business model is gonna be obsolete.

The bottom line is especially in a trash economy where the rich are bleeding everyone, no one is gonna wanna pay for digital luxuries.

I only shell out for hardware and food.

They've tested the waters, and people will most probably wind up staying, as their password crackdown demonstrated.

Yup, and that's when I stopped buying DVDs and pirating. But with standard without ads being ~$15 with less selection, guess what I've gone back to doing?

All the shows that I like I've been buying DVD or Blu-rays for, and then I rip them and put them on my Plex server. Just so I can watch some anytime, and not potentially damage the discs.

I don't have to worry about geofencing, Don't have to worry about a price change ever, Don't have to deal with commercials, Don't have to think if the shows that I like are going to disappear and maybe show up on a different provider, and generally higher quality audio and video.

Jellyfin + Wireguard VPN server says hello

Netflix has been profitable since 2003. This is greed.

It's probably the latter.

"Delivering shareholder value" has destroyed numerous companies, and I doubt it'll stop soon.

It's simple really

Is the boss a multimillionaire?

No: No problem

Yes: They're charging more than they need to

As with many things, it really is likely a mixture of both. Very possible that 9.99 was unrealistically low, but the current streaming market and "inflation" smoke screening is also enabling some real squeezing of consumers.

Wow what a dumb way to basically gatekeep me from even moving to the ad tier.

Yeah I regrettably* bought a year's subscription to Peacock and was also pleasantly surprised that my PiHole just blocked all the ads.

*This was when they were offering a year for 20 USD. They had advertised world cup streaming but neglected to mention that all the commentary was in Spanish with no English option. I ended up just streaming a Swiss TV channel because it was at least in a language I can understand.

You could just ditch all those apps and get Stremio with a Real-Debrid subscription. You can stream any content from any provider for ~$3/mo (including Netflix, A&E, History, Disney+, HBO Max, Prime Video, etc.) Ad*-free, of course.

Basically R-D works by downloading torrents to a dedicated server, so you can stream them instantly using a Netflix-like interface on your TV/tablet/PC/phone (via Stremio). And since they're direct downloads, you don't have to wait for seeds, nor do you need a VPN. It's like having a seedbox except anyone can add any torrent to it (and not just videos, but literally any torrent can be downloaded instantly).

Sorry if this reads like an ad, but I really want more people to know about this. There's a better way than paying for a bunch of streaming services, or waiting hours for people to seed. Or signing up for a private tracker and having to constantly worry about keeping your seeding ratio up.

99% of the shit Netflix has is reruns anyways