604
Americans quit streaming services as cost of living continues to climb, report finds
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2026
604 points (99.7% liked)
News
37060 readers
2703 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
7. No duplicate posts.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Prices will increase so shareholders don't lose any money, and morons who go, "Durr... what do I care? They provide a service I like and I have so much money I can afford to be an idiot feeding an unsustainable economic distortion in perpetuity!" will just keep right on paying the increases, and the division of the K-shaped economy will continue to grow.
There's no way way to boycott or frugal your way out of price increases while enough bougie yuppie shitheads are willing to eat any shit a company is willing to shovel them at any cost as long as they can use it as a status symbol.
well if you have money issues, streaming services should be the last thing you buy anyways. just pirate it or watch on a streaming site that does it for you, or watch clips on Yt, they pratically give out the whole story on YT anyways.
Whoever thought streaming is a sustainable long term platform got it wrong but made a lot of money convincing everyone otherwise.
I thought it would've been because they keep getting less value for money, since the services keep raising prices and fisting more ads into people.
I'm not American, but I'm doing my part!
That plus they’re full of trash.
Shoutout Dropout tho.
THIS JUST IN: PEOPLE WITHOUT MONEY SPEND LESS
More at 11
One of my manager at work asked me why I quit streaming. Like legit what the fuck do people think is going on rn?
Has Netflix tried not going to Starbucks as often, or not eating Avocado Toast?
They just upped the price again and added more commercials, instead.
Yep, and we’re about to dump them.
Yarrrrrrrr me maties
maybe just give the kid one doll for Christmas?
Have you seen their job ads? My job which is in business operations is paying $480k. In the real world it pays about $80-100k.
Wasn't their big deal for years "we pay you well but fire your if we think you're not worth it any more" which might just be saying the quiet part out loud.
That or maybe enough got cut and were all shocked Pikachu that they backed away from it.
Either way I don't really understand why they continue to have tech company status. They were definitely pioneering streaming but you can build a streaming service in a couple months using AWS to solve the harder problems.
I don't know man, after using Netflix, Disney, and Paramount (and jellyfin) apps on my TV, it's wild how much more responsive the UI is on Netflix compared to everything else.
On your first paragraph, every place will drop you in a heartbeat these days.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Next report: "Netflix gains 10 million new subs, price increases, Netflix buys Iran"
No more bread, no more circuses. What comes next?
The threat of someone in a weird dress will tell your kid "it's okay to be gay", which is "literally pedophilia", and if you push back against it, they'll say "um, ackchually, I meant «political pedophilia», which is still very bad because these children are being stripped of their right to make up their mind whether it's okay to be gay". (This actually happened in Hungary.)
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
Guillotines
load more comments
(1 replies)
A VPN is way cheaper and a bittorrent client is free.
My Jellyfin server is doing great. My only constraint is my free disk space
Jellyfin is the way. Streaming only made sense when prices were low and all the content was basically in one place.
I'll just keep growing my personal library.
Disk space (cost) is a genuine problem nowadays
Yea, fucking AI making it too expensive to be a data hoarder. I have to keep making hard decisions on which media to delete.
load more comments
(26 replies)
load more comments
(12 replies)
Don't worry. I've never had any and life is fine. 👍
I'm sure Netflix, Hulu, and similar services will compensate for subscriber losses in the usual manner: by continuing to increase their prices and further screwing over their remaining subscribers. You know, the time-honored cable/satellite TV strategy.
In fact, that's already been happening for several years. Which is why (along with them offering mostly shit content that I never watched) I cancelled almost all my streaming services a couple of years ago.
I just got a notice from them saying they’re increasing prices and “are here for me if I have questions “.
Uh huh.
I have a question:
WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU RAISING PRICES EXPECTING PEOPLE TO STAY SUBSCRIBED IN THIS ECONOMY, NETFLIX?!
load more comments
(7 replies)
I think the next big thing is affordable local entertainment. What's old is new again. I could be wrong.
load more comments
(4 replies)
because of financial concerns
Yeah, I am calling bullshit on that explanation. The services that were enjoyable just a few years ago are now absolutely dog shit. Low quality shows, unexplained cancellations, increased number and length of ads, release schedules meant to keep you on forever, password and location crackdowns, VPN rejections...
It's become a garbage product, even if people had tons of disposable income they'd think three times before subscribing again.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Doritos lost marketshare because they cost $7. Consumers are acting on economic realities.
load more comments
(4 replies)
It's not even an economic issue for me. It's an issue of "why the fuck would I pay for a service and still receive ads?". These companies just keep getting greedier and offering less. Why should I pay for a worse experience than a pirate streaming site?
load more comments
(1 replies)
I know several people, mostly older people, who have gone back to old-timey, off-the-antenna TV. I suspect this will become a trend.
why? the ads are 40% of the airtime.
even with ad service streaming, you are only seeing like 10-20% ads.
Because over-the-air is free?
Like free-free.
view more: next ›