this post was submitted on 02 May 2024

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466

All the ways streaming services are aggravating their subscribers this week (arstechnica.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

106 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Below is a look at the most exasperating news from streaming services from this week. The scale of this article demonstrates how fast and frequently disappointing streaming news arises. Coincidentally, as we wrote this article, another price hike was announced.

We'll also examine each streaming platform's financial status to get an idea of what these companies are thinking (spoiler: They're thinking about money).

Netflix starts killing its cheapest ad-free plan in June

Sony bumps Crunchyroll prices weeks after shuttering Funimation

Peacock is raising prices

Fubo cuts 19 channels

In a seemingly desperate push, many streaming services prioritize revenue and profits ahead of building the best streaming service for customers.

We could go on about how this might force people to reconsider their subscriptions, but we should publish before another service makes yet another policy change.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So, who wants to help a landlubber learn to sail the high seas?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Best place to start if you're serious. https://trash-guides.info/

Frugal Usenet is a good cheap and reliable option for Usenet downloading or search out some torrent trackers of your preference. If you go the Usenet route, let me know, I can send you some indexer invites.

I've run most of the arr apps on windows but Linux with docker is less upkeep and easier to perform updates.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I wish I hadn't quit on acid lounge for so long... my account was closed due to inactivity (Netflix was a nice option way back then)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I keep seeing Usenet mentioned for downloading media, but I've never tried it; I've stuck with torrents because they're free and what I'm familiar with. Is paying for Usenet access worth it, is it more straightforward to use with the *arr stack, is there more content available?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

The nice part about Usenet is it's basically full saturation of your internet line, so if you have a gigabit line, it will come as close as possible to running downloads at that speed. Frugal Usenet is $60 for their annual account, in my opinion it's worth it just for speed alone. I pay for Usenet ninja as well as a secondary account for failed downloads.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

IMO Usenet is worth the cost. It's a different process than torrenting, with some extra steps, but once you wrap your head around it it's fairly simple. Depending on the indexer you use, Usenet can be much better organized and easier to find what you're looking for.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I am serious because fuck this streaming shit.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The setup can be a bit overwhelming but please message me if you get stuck on anything!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

You're sweet,thank you!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That's the spirit! If you know your way around Linux admin, docker and such, don't hesitate to dive into jellyseerr + *arr + Jellyfin, it was much simpler to set up than I expected. Once everything's up and running, the experience is far superior to any commercial streaming service.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You're speaking Greek but I'll figure it out. I always do.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The trash-guides they posted are for a majority of the "arr" stack (Sonarr, Radarr, etc) that monitor stuff you ask for and automate a lot of the download handling.

Jellyfin is a FOSS media server alternative to Plex. They each have their minor pluses and minuses. Personally plex has been easier to get non-techie friends/family to use.

Docker is a containerization system. Basically instead of setting up a physical computer, or one or more virtual machines, you have a self contained bundle of everything a program needs to run that is linked to storage/network stuff on your actual system. Then they talk to each other.

One thing to keep in mind is that this is all immensely scalable. Especially if you don't care about long term storage of a bunch of shows/movies. You can set it up on your personal PC and it'll work fine. Set it up on a dedicated machineand it'll be a bit more reliable. Moving stuff around is generally pretty painless. ( as long as the trash-guides or some similar standardization is followed )

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago

[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 42 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I honestly think they offered good deals for a couple of years to lure the new generations into a false sense of security and make them forget how to pirate :D

[–] [email protected] 43 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

They absolutely did. I used to pirate all my media 20 years ago, but then streaming became so convenient and relatively cheap that I just didn't bother with it anymore.

Now, they've pretty much pushed me back out to sea with their ever increasing prices and decreasing content that's worth watching. I'm not paying $15-20 per service, when they insist on fragmenting it to hell so I'd need 3-4 subscriptions to watch the things I want.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The joke is on them, piracy was motivated by the extreme convenience of streaming to make it as convenient as ever.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 4 months ago

One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue. The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.

Gabe Newell

https://www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-piracy-issue-service-not-price/

Still as relevant today as it was 13 years (dear god) ago. Sure, not every pirate would pay for media, just like not every pirate pays for games, but charging increasingly more money for a worse product is going to push people towards a solution that basically allows you to search for and watch anything you want, ad-free.

There's people practically begging to spend money for certain shows and movies to be available, but they're just not available on any streaming service. What else are they going to do?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Seven seas Renaissance

[+] [email protected] -16 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (5 children)

They let people believe that streaming is cheap, but it is not. A server can send streams to many people at the same time, but not so many as it seems and sever up time is a cost, in terms of energy and in terms of sysadmin time. Maintenance of the network is also expensive, especially in the US where most of the people live in low density neighbourhoods.

To that you have to add the cost of the big data servers that check everything people look at and profile their customers.

The dirty cheap subscriptions were meant to attract new customers, the service was heavily subsidized. The companies looked profitable just because other companies bought more ad space than necessary. Overadvertising is the preferred method to give stealth subsidies, but it is a cost for the other businesses of the network. After a while they have to shift those costs to the customers.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

Netflix is a public company, you can just go look at how wrong you are about this.

They took in $9.3 billion in Q1 2024, and spent $702 million on "technology" and $3.7 billion on adding "content assets"

Their net profit was $2.3 billion, for one quarter. They could afford to just charge less money, but the line must go up.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

Those poor multi-billion dollar...

Nope, I cannot even finish typing that sentence.

Fuck 'em.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago

Netflix have been making a profit since 2003 and only recently introduced ads. They are just trying to squeeze more profit.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

When I worked at an internet provider, Netflix sent us a cache (I'm sure they have several at that ISP now). I can't imagine it cost them more than a few thousand dollars, as it was just a bare bones box full of hard drives. We gave them free power, internet, and rack space in our data center. Every night during the slow period it would fill up with whatever they thought would stream the next day.

There was nothing to do with neighborhoods, the cache served customers all over Maine and they didn't pay us anything. Netflix's costs are more likely content and licensing.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, that could be true. But seeing as how 99% of companies are following the same business model of squeezing more and more profit out of people, I'm gonna go with Occam's razor on this one and say they're most likely just trying to make more money because they can. As long as it keeps working, they'll keep doing it.

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