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Cable TV exists
Customers hate it and people start pirating
Netflix comes around, other streaming services
People happy, piracy goes down
Streaming services go back to the way cable was, increased prices, reduced content, started bundling shit you don't want.
Customers start pirating again
Surprised Pikachu face
Maybe if we put ads in and take away the ability to download content foe offline use?
NO! I've got something better!
We make the ads guilt you into using ad blockers! Then we pepper your active streaming with ADs every 30 seconds! YOU WILL BUY! YOU WILL CONSOOME!
Netflix comes around, other streaming services
The (admittedly inevitable) appearance of other streaming services was shit already since with it came exclusive content.
I despise ads. I can't even bring myself to watch Netflix or Amazon Prime. If there is advertising, it ain't worth it, no matter how cheap.
There's not enough of us, but I still don't care. I refuse to pay to watch ads. Also, I had Prime and they wouldn't let me watch high def with firefox on Linux, so even though I paid for it, I had to hit the high seas to watch content in high def.
There’s not enough of us, but I still don’t care. I refuse to pay to watch ads.
i had this conversation with my dad recently about how shitty everything is now with ads etc, and his response boiled down to "i don't care enough". sucks to see people being complacent in being subject to greedy corporate whims. as much as i want people with that mindset to care, i have no idea how to effectively argue against "i don't care".
Idk what age your dad is, but I'm 53 (gen-x) and my generation are notorious for being difficult to market to. Maybe he just blanks it out, like an automatic mute button. I used to do that but ads are far too mentally disruptive for me these days. I've had enough.
Relate it to something that they do care about and show how it negatively affects that.
Mass market subscription services won't offer ad-free precisely because of the mass market exposure available to advertisers. You need to look to niche services instead, where a critical proportion of subscribers (say 30%) won't tolerate ads as opposed to 1%. Maintaining an ad-free option in such a case is basic business sense. Not only that, you'll find the ads-on tiers are more respectful of people's attention and intellect when it comes to ad content and presentation.
very much a convenience factor – Apple broke the MP3 sharing scene with the simplicity (at the time) of iTunes – video streaming started out simple but now it’s turned into cable TV, trying to find out which service is streaming a particular show, if it’s region-locked, or gated behind a premium upgrade, or just been dropped completely, or two services are still arguing over who gets the rights, or find out all the seasons are on one service except one season is on another service …
Was iTunes popular outside of the US? Everyone I know hated they intrusive software and DRM that prevented you from playing the songs elsewhere. Don't think I know a single person who actually purchased music there.
I did, back in... 2005-6? Somewhere around there. I'm from the US, so the first part of your comment applies to me, but at the time iTunes let you put music from the CDs you owned into your collection, and made it very easy to load music onto an iPod. I was 16, with some of my first disposable income from my first job. Couldn't get music easily from anything but CDs or iTunes (Or Kazaa/Limewire, but that's a different story) at the time so it just made sense. Around the time I realized I was locked into the platform by my purchases I stopped buying there and started streaming or buying CDs again.
(Not US). I was burnt by Sony's Mini disc DRM BS, so when iTunes came along I recognised the slimy DRM and steered well clear so much so I have never owned an apple device much less bought music from them.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Dear Netflix, I've been a loyal customer since 2013. I've been perfectly happy with our arrangement. YOU are the one terminating our contract, not me. It seems you'd prefer to get rid of a happy, paying customer in the hopes you can somehow persuade them to embrace a higher cost or shittier experience (ads). That's a bold move Cotton. Buh-bye dons pirate hat
YARR MATEYS
AOL still has 1.5 million active monthly subscribers. People forget to cancel subscriptions all the time.
Subscriptions are a great way to sell a service to someone who isn't using it, and when they want to cancel it getting the spent money on something never used is generally impossible.
IMO for something like a streaming service... if you don't stream a minute of video in a month you shouldn't have to pay anything.
thing is, most of us should of known, they pulled this same crap back when they tried forcing everyone to drop the physical discs and switch to streaming only …
Infamous implies somebody is famous in a negative way. If anything, Gabe is a shining example that should be upheld.
"Infamous" - that means more than famous!
Found the El Guapo fan.
I think in this example it could go either way, depending on who is viewing it.
Regular people would say he's famous.
People running streaming platforms and other big corpos (especially Tim Sweeny) might say he's infamous.
It's infamous among big business execs. It's famous for everyone else.
They have billions of dollars i have hundreds. I'm sure they'll survive me not giving them any of my hard earned money
Reed Hastings: "But our stock price shows customers love enshittification?"
Gee, we've tried taking content away, raising prices, injecting adverts and forcing them to use our crappy clients.
Why are people turning to piracy?
Advertising and lobbying are the only thing these people know how to do.
Not to mention removing features, like Netflix removing the ability to download media.
If only there was a way for media to exist as a file.
Alas, it's just not possible.
The funny bit to me is how obvious they are about restructuring their business model. Netflix clearly wants a greater proportion of their revenue to come from advertisers, so they're charging exorbitant prices for the 4K and, in particular, standard plan while keeping the "ad-supported" plan fairly low. They were probably seeing waves of short-term subscribers in response to big releases and are trying to bait those people into staying subscribed permanently while also milking then through advertisements. I wouldn't be surprised if the standard plan is removed at some point because it's such bad value now.
Edit: I see now the article is about Australia. And the price is higher, but converting to USD the new price is still less than US $15.49 which I feel is fair. It costs me about $13.50/month in electricity for plex.
How is the standard plan a bad value? It's $15.49 for 1080p no ads. I dropped 4k a while ago because they went stupid on the price, and I will never use ad supported. If they made the ad tier free, I'd still pay the $15.49/month. Standard plan hasn't been hit with the last several price increases, which is why I still think it's a good value, and why I'm still subscribed.
I'm sure with the way things are going Netflix will end up pushing me away eventually, but they haven't yet. Dropping standard would cause me to cancel. I also have the Disney/Hulu bundle for $20 and plex for anything else. I could easily get anything on Netflix on plex.
How is the standard plan a bad value?
Because of how it is priced relative to the other tiers. It is significantly closer in price to the highest tier ($7 gap) despite being almost identical to the lowest tier in terms of features ($11 gap). The only meaningful difference is ads. It's very clear that Netflix is trying to price out customers who are unwilling or uninterested in paying for all the features limited to the highest tier (4K, double the simultaneous streams, better audio, etc) and force them on to the cheaper, ad-supported plan instead because they believe they can make more money this way.
Additionally, the middle tier is priced closer to the highest tier to imply that the highest tier is great value (because it has so many extra features for a smaller price increase than between the lowest tier and the middle tier). This is a classic retail strategy designed to trick consumers into spending more money than they originally needed or wanted to because "it's better value". Consumers often conflate "better value" with "saving money", even though they are doing the complete opposite when they pay $7 more for features they didn't initially care about at all.
There is a pretty big gap between ad supported and standard. Wonder if ads actually makes up for the difference or if it's just under priced to push people towards it. But seeing as ads are like cancer to me I don't even consider that tier as existing. So 15.49 1080p 2 screen, or 22.49 I think for 4k 4 screens. I sit far enough away that I don't notice the benefits of 4k and don't need the extra screens so I just judge the value from the content and price. Honestly I'd rather just have everything on plex instead of jumping between services, but some stuff that family watches is hard to find. Sonarr has probably 100+ episodes of reality TV crap that won't download as no seeders.
Wonder if ads actually makes up for the difference or if it’s just under priced to push people towards it.
The ads are almost certainly making up the difference and then some, otherwise I don't see why Netflix would pursue that strategy at all. The only other theory I can think of is that people are less likely to initially cancel an $8 monthly subscription than a $19 subscription, and are therefore more likely to forget to cancel it in the future.
Like the rest of the tech industry, Netflix is way past the point of making a loss just to drive growth and is now obsessed with driving maximum profits because their shareholders are demanding (or are owed) returns on the big investments they made in a different financial climate years ago. That's why Netflix is introducing ads, pushing up prices and cracking down on shared subscriptions (and now even a one-off payment to "add" an account member from outside of your household) and cancelling projects with real artistic merit at short notice when they don't show immediate signs of becoming the next massive hit. It's all about making as much money as possible now. We are no longer in the age of focusing on providing a reasonably priced and objectively good service and that will drive people back to piracy, just as it has done previously.
Wonder if ads actually makes up for the difference or if it’s just under priced to push people towards it.
I reckon you guys are on the right track with your comments. Something to add in relation to why streaming services are introducing an ad tier. Introducing adverts introduces variable pricing for the streaming services. Meaning they can earn the same base rate, but for say the next season of Bridgerton, or one of their other really popular shows they can make a kind of 'super profit' by selling the ad space on top of their base rate per subscriber account.
Happens here in Germany too. We were not informed via mail but via a message when we started the app on the TV (not even on a phone). Since there are two other people on that account I decided to not just cancel but talk with both of them. We moved one tier down.. Yet.
The only thing that keeps me with subscriptions is the cartoons my daughter watches, because they are hard to find dubbed in my language (Portuguese). It's still more convenient to subscribe than try to find the dubbed cartoons online. For everything I watch I use my arr stack.
There are still plenty of good deals in streaming if you have shifted to on-demand. If you want live TV or sports, they're out to gouge the fuck out of you. Luckily my Wife came around to on-demand only and an antenna. Of course, they're trying hard to take away the antenna option from everyone with ATSC 3.0.
The studio cash grab explosion of streaming services is simply too inconvenient.
Subbing to everything you want to watch would still be cheaper than renting it all before streaming.
But Netflix has changed the value proposition and the stuidios are slitting their own throats trying to catch up.
Customers will notice the change on their next bill. Netflix has quietly put up its prices across each subscription tier in Australia.
~~Why is this even legal, oh who am I kidding lobbying most likely.~~ They began notifying people on May 13. Thanks for the correction @blindsight@beehaw.org.
They get 30 days notice of the price increase. That's pretty reasonable and in compliance with the law, I would assume.
Now I remember why I don't pay attention to 7 news. This article is an ad in itself.
I get Netflix for free from tmobile. But I use real-debrid and streamio to watch Netflix shows because the UI is better.
Can you give me a tldr or a source for a tldr of setting up real-debrid with stremio?
I highly recommend doing to on a PC or Mac. Doing this initially on a phone is buggy. Essentially Streamio is just a player like VLC, but has the ability to have add-ons. These add-on doesn't need to be resetup on each device you install it on. Just sign in and it's working.
As for real debrid, I would pay the 180 days one because they give you points that you can redeem for another month or so of days.
Good luck.
Stremio Setup Guide Part 1: Stremio
For Windows/Mac users - Go to https://www.stremio.com/ and download the relevant client for your platform
For Android users - Install Stremio through the Google Play Store: Stremio - Apps on Google Play
Open Stremio and sign up with email or Facebook
Part 2: Real Debrid
Go to https://real-debrid.com/
Sign up
Go to Premium Offers
Choose a package and subscribe. I found that using Amazon Pay as the payment method is the most convenient (if you have an Amazon account)
Part 3: Torrentio
Go to Torrentio Lite - Stremio Addon
Towards the bottom of the page, select the "Debrid Provider" option and select "Real Debrid" from the drop-down menu. This will cause a new text box to appear underneath.
Copy the API key from this link https://real-debrid.com/apitoken and paste it into the "RealDebrid API Key**"** box
In the Debrid Options menu: Check the box "Don't show download to debrid links" and leave the other boxes unchecked.
Click "Install" at the bottom. It should open the Stremio app and prompt you with an "Install Addon" window. Click the green install button at the bottom.
Optional but highly Recommended - In Stremio, click the puzzle piece in the top right to view your addons. Click "My Addons" and uninstall the "WatchHub" addon. It's an eyesore and it clutters your streams list.
Now that you have completed the setup, you may install Stremio on any device of your choice (excluding IOS) and log in to your account to start streaming Movies/TV. Refer to the section below for Stremio installation on FireOS devices (Fire Stick, FireTV).
Case in point
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Not available in Australia
yea that's the majority reason why people do it /s
I feel like what I used to be back in 2006-2010, mr. family pirate, although most of my family is glad to pay for one or two services, mostly Amazon prime, which is one of the cheapest. I let my Netflix account cancel from lack of pay some 6 months ago, nobody called me yet.
Earning money in BRL and lots of stuff having a base price in dollars doesn't help us much either.
invest in a nas instead of subscriptions.