Used to have 1 service with damn near everything.
Now there are 30 and none of them have much worth watching.
Right back to “500 channels, and nothing’s on.”
The Pirate Bay’s rates haven’t changed for twenty years!
who tf uses the pirate bay in 2026
discs for the win
Hey now, back when they cancelled sharing I cancelled my Netflix, and eeeeeveryone else said they were going to as well. Mines still cancelled, apparently others buckled? That’s on them.
No, that’s the evolution of venture capitalism.
Step 1: groundbreaking service comes in that fills a market hole
Step 2: people flock to service
Step 3: service gets VC funding to continue operations, subsidising the users
Step 4: service gets “copied”, competitors crop up, use VC funding to eke out their own marketshare while making things worse for everyone but themselves
Step 5: expansion plateaus as interest in service generalises (basically, everyone who could be interested, is already using it)
Step 6: VC funding depletes, company has to start making a profit - leading to price hikes, which is followed by other players in the market as that’s how capitalism works
Step 7: price hikes not being enough, service tries to capitalise on their userbase (think restricting features to a higher paid tier, introducing new tiers that strip away features, introducing ads, etc.)
Step 8: market is saturated with plateaud services, user movement is minimal, and everybody hates it because it’s expensive, and reintroduced the same problem the initial innovative service meant to fix.
Which is why i call it vulture capitalism: born to feed the vultures.
Sure, but Netflix was not venture capital as far as I know. It started with mailing subscriptions then grew into greatness and now, it’s shittier than ever.
It replaced linear tv with video on demand
VOD was a thing before streaming tho
And it was terrible, expensive, and did t work half the time.
Nah, it worked pretty well. Streaming was just more convenient, and came too soon after VOD became widely available.
If you absolutely must pay, pay for 1 per month and just switch between them?
They dont upload new content daily anyway
There are pirate streaming services that are just as good as the paid ones, get everything the same day, and are completely free.
I have no problem giving my money to an honest streaming service. There are none left. It’s all greed.
I know
But i did start with “if you absolutely must pay”
Let’s be honest though. Nobody “absolute must pay”.
I’m on rural Internet. I pay for 50mb down. That’s all I get on satellite.
I’m watching the Jays game right now. It buffered once in the 2nd inning for 2 seconds and has been flawless since. Why would I pay $25-40 a month for the same quality?
… you guys are paying?
🏴☠️
Jellyfin gang 🏴☠️
Normies dont like my answer of “Just steal” when they complain about stuff like this.
- hear about show
- wait 2 days
- download show for free via torrent
- watch show uninterrupted at 1080p and high bitrate
- gg
Why would you wait 2 days?
Probably saying that that’s how long it takes to propagate to their trackers
Sonarr usually picks it up on the same day for me
I was for a while. Cut the “cable” in 2003 and was happy to pay a few bucks for a streaming service here or there, more convenient than pirating. But now… well I cancelled them all and am right back to where I was years ago. They are so happy to kill the golden goose.
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i used to sign netflix about eight years ago, before they start getting to greedy it worth it, it use to have everything i want to watch in a single place and with support in everything i got (TV, smartphone, computer, casting devices)
There are a few, still decent streaming services, the small time ones, like curiosity stream, but yeah by and large yo ho ho.
That reminds me … I have curiosity stream.
edit: lol, they almost tripled their price, too!
…
Holy shit… I told myself I’d go to Curiosity Stream once they accepted different payment methods than credit cards but DAMN SON! That price…
Edit: Oh wait… that’s annually… okay, I’m still with it.
Edit2: And I got them mixed up with Nebula, that’s where I really wanted to go… damn.
I’ve got Nebula. Took 'em up on a deal on an annual sub when Tom Scott started his new series on there.
It’s…fine.
It’s nice to watch channels like Mr Mobile without adverts, but channels like Not Just Bikes and Mustard already run on YT without ads. Sure, there’s an ad for Nebula at the end their episodes, but it’s right at the end, so is easily skipped.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s loads of stuff on there, but discovery isn’t particularly easy, and most of it is USA-centric, which doesn’t really interest me.
I finally got around to remembering to try out Nebula, and I get disappointed because most of the time I forget I have it. Like you, a lot of what I watch is already on YT, and my wife has a grandfathered (for now) premium account which we can share, so I already have ad free YT.
I agree on the discovery too. It feels like I have to work to find something that strikes my fancy if it’s not from someone I’m already familiar with.
Not sure if creators having easier access would make it better, and I like seeing what channels are real creators and not AI, but I find once I find someone I like on Nebula, I just watch them on YT instead. I’d really like to support them, but I’m struggling to feel the added value a bit.
Edit2: And I got them mixed up with Nebula, that’s where I really wanted to go… damn.
I have the lifetime sub for that one … so at least no price increases :D
Oh that’s per year! Not quite as bad as I thought
Dropout is one I have no issues paying for too
Valid. I love paying for dropout knowing its cheap, ill like what they put out, and Game Changer exists
If you have a VPN then change to a cheap country and get cheaper services.
That’s why you build your own streaming service (with blackjack and hookers) and share that with everyone …
Refuse to pay. If we all just refused to pay, they would have to change.
But too many people don’t care, so I guess we’ll all just suffer.
Everyone will not just
I know. People are an endless source of disappointment.
Cool, organize the movement man, and I’ll sign up. Cause that shit doesn’t just magically happen, no matter how hard you angrily wish it to be.
This is as much a movement as it’s going to get. Peer to peer.
Fmhy
I might be a unique form of grump: I recognize we get gypped by modern streaming services, but I still appreciate that the internet gave us greater breadth of choice than old cable options.
There’s indie and foreign streaming services that cost a lot less than the Netflix oligopoly, yet people never even seem to look for those, and just turn to piracy as their form of protest. “I can’t live without this show, and so I’ll give these services my vote of confidence, as well as political ammunition to enact higher levels of internet traffic spying!” What a genius self-serving plan.
Jailbroken firestick. Its a bit of a cat and mouse game with which app will work, but its pretty great.
I also use a jailbroken firestick with lineage installed so most apps work. In the end I only use jellyfin and vlc
The difference between owning the means of production and being gifted a bribe to establishing a new customer base.
…how is sharing my login to a monthly streaming subscription owning the means of production, exactly?
It is not, that’s why it could be taken away. The wealth was only an illusion.
I only pay for Netflix and it has more than enough to keep me busy. No gripes here.
