I’ve been putting off having a local copy of the series and movies I watch because I still can access them quickly and cheaply enough in some streaming service, I think it’s time to plan ramping up my selfhosted setup.
An alternative to self-hosting and piracy, if there’s something you really want to watch, just buy a month, then immediately cancel the subscription to whatever service has that show, after all the episodes has aired. I usually spend between $30-$50 in total on streaming services in a year this way, and as a principle, I call it “buying a month” as opposed to “subscribing.” Right now I’m waiting for Secret Wars to finish on Disney+. Will probably watch the last few MCU movies and some other stuff during the same month so that’s probably up to 10 shows/movies for $whatever-a-month-goes-for these days. Might do a month of Netflix later in the autumn, as I have a few things I want to watch there now that didn’t quite justify buying on their own. And no, I very rarely rewatch anything, so I don’t really worry about loosing access to them in the future.
A lot of other services usually offer a yearly discount, and I can see Netflix offering that. However, I don’t see Netflix choosing to get rid of the monthly market entirely.
They could just make the monthly price so high that people will always get the yearly plan. For example, make the yearly plan cost the same amount as three months on the monthly plan.
Then I would definitely dig out my old eye-patch and captains hat again 🏴☠️
