Personal Finance

I've given up on most subscriptions and replaced them with torrenting + Jellyfin.

I'm keeping to my policy of only subscribing to two things at one time, and rotating so that I get to see the seasons of the things that I really want to see.

I've never been much of a pirate, mainly because I do believe in supporting those that produce the art that I love. That said, I am a big user of the library. And when there's some FOSS product that I like, I support it. And while I could and can buy commercially now, I remember the days when I couldn't and I survived on FOSS and the library.

With that said, let me say that I think that the content industry shoots itself in the foot when it creates these higher prices, obscene length of copyright terms, polluting their own products with commercial ads ,and fake scarcity. They deserve all the piracy that their own behavior generates!

I think Mike Masnick has it right. The best defense against piracy is to compete against it with superior offerings.

I barely watch movies and TV shows nowadays. Summaries from YouTube and wiki are good enough for me to stay in the loop.

In a way, I'm not just saving costs, but I'm also saving time too.

Subscriptions are generally a bad idea if themake you dependent. I'd say these ones aren't too bad since you can cancel any time and just lose access.

If something you depend on starts to get shitty, jump ship as soon as you can. I'm considering writing a spotify ripper because the app keeps getting worse and worse to a point where it's almost unusable.

My one video subscription is to a VPN, Mullvad. I can find most anything in qbittorrent's built-in file search, and the really weird stuff on rutracker. Jellyfin is like a self-hosted Netflix, it's way easier to use than Kodi. I splurged on a Synology NAS so I've got 800 movies and 50,000 songs. I rip FLAC music from deezer and qobuz trials using deemix and qobuzdl. I import playlists to rip into Qobuz and Deezer using soundiiz, the one audio subscription I paid for. This way I can get flacs for radio playlists, any text playlist, although XSPF format works best.

Aside from the ongoing Crunchyroll subscription that my whole family uses, I only ever subscribe to one streaming service at a time. Been that way just based on general principle ever since streaming became a thing. I wait till one or more must-watch shows have finished airing a full season, subscribe for a month, binge watch everything, and unsubscribe.

As soon as the latest season of Bleach is done, I'll drop them like a hot potato and possibly never return.

Pirate the hell out of it. You most likely already have all you need, so no costs. If you want you can start putting the sub money to buy a RPi and a usb drive, you will not regret it.

I bought a year of Disney+ before the price went up last increase. Once it's up in December I'm going to cancel.

Well I have the Netflix $10 basic plan, and I think that is a reasonable price for the content. If they rip that plan away from me and force me to jump to a $16 plan, I'm out. Disney doesn't interest me so I can't comment on that one.

I currently get Hulu+ and Disney+ free through my Verizon plan. Paying for Max, AppleTv, and Netflix, but cutting Netfix once I get done finishing up a few more shows. I think 3 tv subscriptions is my max limit. If one starts sucking for content then I'll swap out. I think $25/month is super reasonable for tv entertainment.

Part of me quietly hopes the current strikes in Hollywood really starts to affect quality and quantity across the board and there'll be some kind of price reset as a result. I'd also like more of a reason to stop watching tv as much and start going out to parks and stuff.

I've kicked both to the curb end of July, back to piracy. Fuck 'em with a cactus.

I'm curious how Disney calculates since they keep claiming they're losing a lot of money on Disney+ even though they barely make any exclusive content for it. The bulk of the content was made for theaters and tv anyway and was simply put in a library to be streamed. That's like printing money.

I’m saving up for a NAS so I can switch back to Plex after a decade away from the high seas.

Cord cutting 2.0 is upon us.

I subscribe to Netflix, HBO Max, and Youtube premium. I might be cutting Netflix by the end of the year. There are still some things I want to finish watching.

I also have access to my brother's Hulu and Disney, and my mom's Prime video. When those three start cracking down on sharing, I definitely would not subscribe to them.

I've recently started sailing the seas again. I refuse to even sign up for even a free trial for Peacock or anything else.

No because I never had them in the first place. But they make me less willing to subscribe.

I re-upped my NZB membership for the first time in 15 years a couple of nights ago.

I cancelled all of mine and put that money towards the SAG-AFTRA strike by setting up a monthly donation. I've honestly haven't watched the 4 streaming services I've been paying for in many months. And when I do, I marathon a show for like 2 days and then forget they exist. Seems like I'm not going to miss out on much.

I won't get a new subscription to a streaming site except through the Play Store, since I can cancel any time.

Then again, I also have YouTube Premium because I watch that amount of YouTube and don't want to see the ads.

I haven't had them in the first place, but were considering a Netflix subscription years ago. Had I purchased a sub, I'd probably kept it until now. On other streaming services... I'd probably have pirated the shows outside Netflix, if I had an urge to watch them.

I'm wary of paying for more than two companies for one single service I seldom use.

I might pick up Hulu + Disney after the next Star Wars show is half-done. Gonna wait for the reviews. The combined deal makes it not as expensive, and waiting means I can get through the shows in a month.

If Disney had been cheaper, I might have picked it up when the show started.

And if the reviews suck, then I’ll just wait until Andor is back on.

In general I will be waiting longer and switching services more often, keeping each service for shorter periods of time.

Well I just discovered how much I enjoy The Diplomat so I think Netflix is safe for now. I have kids so Disney+ is staying. Paramount+ has me locked in for Star Trek (per their evil plan). I got a Hulu trial to watch Futurama - but that feels like at least one subscription too many so Hulu is likely to get the axe.

I had found a Verizon deal for $75 to get a year of STARZ and it gets you a free year of Netflix. So now I have another year of Netflix without much hassle. We were in our way to cancelling as soon as we finished a few shows but no point now.

We're keeping Disney+ at the moment since it has a pretty nice selection for kids