I did the math and if I subscribed to all the major streaming services, games, plus YouTube, plus news sites, other subscription/paywalled sites I’ve wanted to check out, I’ve be paying around $700/month on subscription services
Yeah, like I said earlier on a YouTube adblock post, they are the same problem as piracy.
It’s a service problem, not an adblock/piracy problem. Gabe Newell hit that nail on the head so perfectly.
I used to watch and listen everything pirated, because:
- Most content I wanted to consume took years if not decades to be shown on TV or be available on VHS or DVD in my country.
- Most music I wanted to consume was on CDs that had 1 or 2 good songs with the rest being filler.
- When video media was broadcast, it was at times I wouldn’t be able to watch.
- When music was broadcast, it was all radio edits and constantly interrupted by annoying radio hosts.
- All this cost 100+ a month for TV, 25-30€ for every movie I wanted to watch, 20-30€ for every CD I wanted to buy totaling several hundred Euro a month.
Then Netflix and Spotify came along and changed all that. All of a sudden, 99% of what I wanted to watch and listen to was available for 25-30€ a month combined.
Now, if I want to watch everything I want to watch, I’d have to pay multiples of what it cost before streaming services came along.
So, yeah, I’m almost completely back to sailing the high seas and while I have no affinity for collecting anything, supplemented my viewing and listening habits buying Merch where I know the merch is handled by the artists and go to conventions where shows I like are represented and buying merch and signatures directly from actors and crew of those shows.
The thing with even legitimately subscribing to all this is that there are some old shows and movies that aren’t even on any of these platforms.
But I’ll be nice and say I want to watch something that’s on one of these platforms, which one is it on? Say I want to watch Curb Your Enthusiasm, Seinfeld, Rick and Morty, etc. Am I gonna look it up to a site that shows which service it’s on? Then I gotta log into the website, but wait, the ip address needs a verification. I could already be watching the movie or show through a grey streaming site or if it’s on my Jellyfin server in the fraction of the time.
Lately it seems every movie or show that pops into my head and I feel like watching, is on yet another streaming channel or service I don’t have. The content is spread so thin that we barely get any content on any one platform. Netflix out here saying they have new content, as if I give a damn about random Korean soap operas they added.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Australian households are cutting back on subscription services and turning to free or cheaper ad-based content for entertainment, a new report has revealed.
The Deloitte Media and Entertainment Consumer Insights annual report, released on Monday, shows how Australians are spending less across all generations as they feel the cost-of-living crunch.
Major drivers leading to cutting back include the rising cost of living, growing popularity of ad-supported subscriptions, and increase in free content, according to the report.
Deloitte lead partner for the telecommunications, media and entertainment sector, Peter Corbett, said while this reflects the impact of the rising cost of living, it also shows that in 2023, time is the new currency.
“With a formidable influx of media options, we’re not just untangling the web of competing subscription video-on-demand services,” he said.
“Our choices are also oscillating between social platforms, music, gaming, reading, and even in-person interactions.”
The original article contains 382 words, the summary contains 137 words. Saved 64%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
You mean constantly bumping the prices for lower quality content is causing subscription numbers to go down? No way… Who could have thought that? /s
Considering there was another article saying that streaming services have no reason to not continuing increasing prices, I’m very fucking confused
This article is based on an Australian consumer study. So it might be just us that’s saying yeah nah fuck this while the rest of the world is still willing to pay.
I’ve never subscribed to any streaming services but don’t we usually have a shitty selection of the content available in other places?
We have a history of being very adept sailors, the early days of Netflix where a huge library of content was available on demand for a reasonable price meant it didn’t make sense to go to the trouble of taking to the seas because the legal alternative was a better experience. Now that the market is fragmented and you have to pay through the nose to have the same level of variety, it’s not surprising Australians are some of the first to jack up.
I would be interested to see if there had been a commensurate increase of ships on the high seas from Australia.
Well, the number of subscribers might shrink, but if the fee is a lot higher, overall revenue might be up
I find the age data really interesting here. Millenials went in hard and then bailed hard.
Probably because they grew up on the high seas, then found a more legal and convenient alternative, only to see it turn to shit. Old habits die hard.
The moment we learnt how to wear the skull n bones hat, it was tattooed into our brain.
We grew up from Napster, Limewire, edonkey, mIRC bots, mega upload, torrents… The list goes on. It was intoxicating the feeling of finding the newest, more reliable, faster, better way of pirating. We never forgot. But we started living on land because it was easier.
So once the land living came with advertising, and 15 different taxes wanting a cut…
The hesitation to set sail once again never existed.
