You are under no obligation to consume media. Even if you want to the library is free. Vote with your dollar; feel like a service is ripping you off, cancel it.
I don’t think this level of snark is exactly called for in his instance — it’s not some fundamental right to consume Netflix content. If I want to, I pay their price, simple as that.
People often talk about media consumption the way the left (rightfully so!) talk about housing or healthcare — as a fundamental human right.
Honestly its the perfect representation of the apathy that is allowing the greedy to take more and more. No need to get off your ass unless your fighting for free tv.
I don’t know if that’s quite the right way to frame the complaints. I don’t think that having things to entertain you for free is necessarily a human right (even if paywalling all media is a bleak alternative), but I do think people have a right to be charged a reasonable amount for entertainment. There was a long time where you paid 8$ a month and got access to just about every single movie and tv show that had ever been made in the US.
It was wildly profitable for Netflix, who in turn paid licensing fees to all the owners of their content, and customers were happy, it was great. Then all the cable companies started their own streaming services, licensed media was reclaimed as the garden walls went up, and suddenly comprehensive access to media ballooned from 10$ a month to hundreds . The services themselves got worse, ads started getting inserted into paid accounts, and subscription prices steadily rose across the board.
I don’t think people are declaring that media should be free, but after Netflix almost killed piracy because most people are willing to pay a reasonable amount for reasonable access, a lot of people are understandably unhappy with the streaming industry going from an affordable revolution to cable 2.0 in a single decade.
“People shouldn’t consume media” is a hot new take I didn’t expect. A call to return to sitting on the porch and aimlessly staring at the neighborhood for hours while sipping on sweet tea and smoking a pipe.
There is a plethora of activities besides watching TV. Have we been so spoiled by endless entertainment that we forgot that? Our local communities are nonexistent, maybe sitting on your porch you could meet some neighbors, have a real conversation; build back what was lost.
There are, but they’re all entertainment media. Books, television, games, every avenue of entertainment is being steadily hypercapitalized and compartmentalized. Communities aren’t failing because people have entertainment, they’ve fallen apart because the outside world has almost no places left where people can freely gather. You don’t meet your neighbors because there aren’t any sidewalks, because the parks need to be driven to, because downtown has strip malls instead of boardwalks where people can gather.
I grew up hanging out in the Walmart parking lot because that’s the only place we wouldn’t be shooed away. Entertainment is what fills the absence of community, not the cause of it.
…they’ve fallen apart because the outside world has almost no places left where people can freely gather.
I’m sorry that has been your experience; it has not been mine. I can walk to several wonderful parks, I can bike (or take a $3 bus) to the beach, and I have world-class cycling destinations out my door.
Alternately, I have three or four libraries within about a 20m walking distance.
That said, yes, I do live in a high CoL area, so perhaps that was the point you were making.
I mean, that genuinely sounds amazing. Though I’ll note that paying to go places is still an issue for the youth and the poor. When I was in college, and when I lived in California, there was a similar variety of options, though, driving was a necessity in San Diego.
If you’ve ever heard of suburban hell though, that’s pretty much what I was referring to. There’s a small library about a forty minute walk from me, across at least one highway and partially without sidewalks. A ten minute walk to a park that can seat fifteen, there is a scenic bike route, and no buses. And yet it’s a vast improvement over what I saw in Texas.
The loss of unregulated, uncapitalized public spaces is a well recognized phenomenon (also termed ‘third spaces’), one that grew even more pronounced during Covid.
I don’t know where you live, sounds awful. I certainly have sidewalks, walkable trails to public houses and parks. Multiple libraries with groups, activities, classes, community action groups. Two large commercial areas, one a vibrant downtown area, the other admittedly is a dead mall. Natural areas, concert venues, small shops. I could go on. Have you really tried to meet your neighbors? I can’t avoid mine just walking the damn dog. Maybe im privileged, but I would rather stare out my windows than pay for multiple streaming services.
I think it’s pretty apparent you don’t live in the suburbs or outside of a large city lol. Even then, when I lived in Texas the urban sprawl meant walking anywhere was completely off the table, and biking meant sharing 55 MPH roads. Other states have been better, but the issue of vanishing public spaces has been an issue raised since the 80’s (third spaces, if you’re interested).
All that said, even being active in community and spending time with friends, should people not be allowed to watch tv in their downtime? Should we ban the mindless internet browsing, Lemmy?
If I buy 10k seats of Netflix then I should be able to sell them individually for less than the person buying 1 seat directly for instance and still turn a profit
If I funnel that content through my own app then that should be allowed
There are anti-competitive practices in place where you have to sign onto a platform in order to access their content
And the amount on content which a given company holds is too high
You get this in every industry; if you go a state over and the companies all look the same then it means they have gotten too big to compete with and need to be broken up
I think the bigger gripe is less that there are subscriptions and more that they have gotten out of hand. In general the fragmentation of services as businesses try to get a piece of the pie. Monopolies aren’t great, but regulated monopolies have some benefits.
Some examples: Netflix used to have a wide variety of backlog material, they had a cheap subscription and replaced the video rental stores. As streaming and subscriptions became more of a thing businesses stopped allowing that content on Netflix because they wanted to do it themselves. Now you need 2-3 subscriptions for the same benefit that old Netflix had. I dropped all mine except for Amazon, I don’t want 3 streaming subscriptions.
Ubisoft and many other game companies decided to take their content off of Steam because they felt they weren’t getting enough from Valve. They split off and made their own equivalents, but the benefit of Steam is not having multiple launchers. I’d rather not play a game than have to have their brand specific launcher & account.
I don’t have a “right” to free content, but i still feel that the direction of the market has made the content and consumption of said content worse.
Well yes… that’s what I have done, the problem is the other 99% of the customer base who continues to be stupid. It’s like when people say “stop preordering games” before the release of the next AAA game, but then it has record preorder sales and hundreds of complaints about it being an unfinished piece of crap. The customer base at large is too stupid to stop feeding the problem.
I will tell you a trick now that may blow your mind. Xbox live gold, upgrades at a 1:1 ratio to xbox game pass ultimate. If you stack 3 years (thats the max) of xbox live gold for maybe $50 a year. And then buy 1 single month of xbox game pass ultimate once you have loaded up all your live gold. It will automatically convert all of that gold into gp ultimate. So you end up paying like $165 for 37 months of game pass ultimate.
There was a prophetic podcast episode from the series Plain English a while back that I constantly think about.
In that episode the author describes how the internet is going through a revolution.
Basically 20 years ago, the internet was all about gaining numbers. Companies could operate at a loss if they got people signed up. Facebook, Google, YouTube, Uber, Deliveroo, etc. they were all about getting you in their mailing list or consumer list and who cares what happens then.
Now there’s an issue because that model is not profitable. In order to continue, all the internet is moving towards subscription.
In a sense, I don’t think of that as intrinsically bad. Patreon is a good example. The internet is now filled up with so much shit that people are willing to pay to filter it. So with Patreon, you pay a fee to support an artist to produce the content you want. That itself isn’t a bad idea.
Now that being said, a lot of “bad things” do emerge. The fact that you can no longer buy software like Adobe and it’s all subscription based. That’s shit. But that also inspired software alternatives like Affinity Designer.
The fact that you can no longer buy software like Adobe and it’s all subscription based
100% the biggest factor in me deciding to buy Magix Vegas (formerly Sony Vegas) video editing software was because they still sold lifetime codes. Have I gotten $400 worth of value out of it? Fuck no. But I can use it whenever I want for as long as I want without worrying about whether or not I can afford it for the month.
The only subscription service that I pay for is tidal for music (pays artists more than Spotify, same cost) and that’s only because maintaining a local library of music is too much of a pain for me right now. I may slowly build a local music library of only music I like, but I love listening to new artists so the $10 per month is worth the convenience.
YouTube? Ublock origin
Movie/tv streaming? Self hosted media library, plus some random services that are provided through my phone bill at no cost
File storage? Stored with my movies and TV on some hdds in raid
Amazon? Its not hard to find other retailers (or direct providers) with better prices and no subscription needed. Sometimes have to pay for shipping and it’s slower, but worth it
Yeah had the same feeling about tidal as well. Settled for Apple Music since they offer hifi and a nice interface. Spotify still has the best playlists but it’s getting feature bloat and the quality isn’t up to par
The best deal you will get is Apple Music. Especially if you are a classical music fan it is unbeatable. But another HiFi one that isn’t apple, is qobuz, although the song selection isn’t as wide as spotify or tidal or apple music. But they do pay artists a lot more and they have a webstore for purchasing FLAC and MP3s if that’s what you like.
I haven’t had any issues with it, the quality isn’t as good as self hosted flac files (unless you want to pay for the highest tier, I assume) but it’s at least as good as Spotify imo. Big selling point initially was Plex integration though
If you have at least 6tb of storage space and good internet, the RedTopia torrent is more than enough to fill out a personal music library. That + SoulSeek for whatever new stuff shows up in my feed is everything I could ever need. Streamed anywhere onto my phone through Plex or PlexAmp
I do go for YouTube premium but that’s my primary source of entertainment nowadays and it does result in more money in my favorite content creators’ pockets (apparently more than ad-based revenue according to some sources at least). Plus YouTube music is included in that and is actually quite good.
Tbh, the worst part is when you pay for it and still get ads anyway. Feels like double dipping, but it’s obviously going to happen because wall street doesn’t like when line only goes up a little.
the problem is that making the line go up even a little gets exponentially harder with time. because the graph not going up at any given point in time is so unimaginably horrible to them, they keep having to think of new insidious ways of satisfying it
I actually find myself wondering lately “what’s so bad about stable (+/- 5%/annum) profits for some stretches of time.” Sure you’re not eating up market share, but a couple million in the pocket every year really isn’t that bad…
Companies who stay private can do this. It’s when you have investors that you’re fucked and the ponzi scheme starts.
The idea, in its purest form, is that companies will innovate to keep investors happy. They will keep expanding and making wonderful new products. As an example, a printer company will start making phones, then laptops, then maybe expand into chemicals or farm equipment, making bold innovations at every step.
Companies who can’t innovate do this shit (inflate prices until they suck) and then they die because they’re no longer competitive.
Yeah it’s crazy. We have TV plan with some 100 channels bundled up with internet, and sometimes rarely when I watch TV I’m just baffled by the fact a paid service still is full of ads
We let it happen. You either put your foot down at the first instance of this thing or you lose any ability to do it because it eventually gets so big you can’t stop it without some whole new technology. But there’s always going to be people who say “how else are people going to pay for websites if not advertising” I say not my fucking problem. Just like robbing my free time with bullshit ads wasn’t their problem.
Given my entertainment options, I found a small developer that sells an app for a couple bucks that allows me to pull streams through my phone and transcode it and chromecast it to my projector. Juijitsu Kaisen never looked so good.
I guess I should mention they also defang, adblock, and can fake useragents if they attempt to block based on usermask/profiling. See why I wanted to pay this cat?
Eh Spotify gets a whole family unlimited for 17 euro, it’s pretty convenient compared to going finding and uploading to my device or purchasing individually.
Concur. I pay for the following subscription services:
My internet connection.
My cell phone plan.
That’s all. Everyone else can go fuck themselves. If I can’t buy it outright, I don’t need it. If it’s digital, it’s on the Pirate Bay. Prime is bullshit anyway. I don’t need a predatory gym membership; Putting an elliptical machine in my own house cost me all of $200 and it’s mine forever. I don’t pay for Dropbox or OneDrive or whatever; I have a massive hard drive in my PC and I can access remotely it via my VPN. Etc.
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