memes

Everyone in 2027:

Oh.. a random bookmark folder in my browser..

Pay? Lol.

... you guys are paying?

🏴‍☠️

Never paying for any subscription 🤴

The Pirate Bay's rates haven't changed for twenty years!

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."

Subscriptions?
I only pay for prescriptions.

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.

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

Worse than that, since they killed the sharing off now a Netflix account isn't your account, it's an account you buy for one "household" location using one internet connection.

If you try to sign in to netflix on hotel tvs it won't let you, because that isn't part of your "household." If you have multiple internet connections in your house you can have that same issue inside your own home, because Netflix will decide the internet connection you use most is your "household" connection and the other one doesn't count as being in your "household" even if it's in the next room.

If you travel a lot or have an atypical internet setup in your own house Netflix will deny you access and tell you to buy a subscription for that location.

S T R E A M I O

I cut the cord when netflix was just mail order CDs. The moment they started their bullshit with password sharing, I canceled my sub and never went back. Hulu got the axe too. If you live long enough, you either die a hero, or become the villain. Nextflix decided to become the villain.

That's why you build your own streaming service (with blackjack and hookers) and share that with everyone ...

They planned it this way. Netflix admitted it at the demo to ad sales execs. They deliberately priced streaming low and ran off investor funds because they new they'd get valuable information for ads since streaming is much more monitoring than broadcast.

If you absolutely must pay, pay for 1 per month and just switch between them?

They dont upload new content daily anyway

I'm a Luddite

I'm still absolutely unaware of what the "fediverse" is, or how lemmy works

I took two months to figure out how to Chromecast to a TV when something changed and I couldn't follow basic instructions from Google

And yet, even I am able to easily find sites to watch the shit I want to that requires paying shitty 'Murican companies (mostly I enjoy SBS and ABC stuff, because I live in Australia and they have wonderful offerings for all who live here for free)

Row, row, row your boat...

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.

I mean... it's entertainment. It's not like they are offering some basic utilities. Buy it if you think it's worth it, don't buy it if you don't. Plenty of cheap alternatives on TV or in a library. I really don't remember Netflix of Apple promising to entertain everyone as cheaply as possible. They were always there to make money.