(I never dare voice this opinion, but this is Beehaw so I’ll take a chance. Please be nice!) I understand piracy as a reaction against unfair corporate practice, but in the long run, with enough traction, this kills not only the distributor but the content creators as well.
I worry for the artists and the craft. I don’t want free lunch. Whenever I get free lunch either my attention span is being sold as a product or someone can’t live from their work.
I wish there would be some kind of Bandcamp for series/movies.
Bandcamp for TV series sounds like a good shout.
AVClub or something that isn’t already taken.
I’m about to the point where I’m just going to go back to pirating. The value of streaming services was in their convenience. I was willing to pay money for that, but the more fragmented and complicated all of it gets, when I can just pay for 1 VPN and go to a site and click a few links…
The recent loss of Rarbg has been pretty bad for Piracy community. Big shuffles on the internet lately.
Piracy can be pretty convenient too. There are some services that are a kind of a hassle to set up, but work really well once everything is configured. You can have one docker container running qbittorrent and set up so it’s only able to access the Internet through VPN, other containers running sonarr/radarr etc to automate the downloading, and one runing plex to organize and stream all the content.
I subscribe to several streaming services because the people who work on and create this content deserve to be paid, but often will watch something on my plex server rather than through the streaming site because it’s just more convenient. Also it’s nice to have local copies of that media in case it ever gets removed from the streamer in the future.
That’s what I’ve got too. Family and friends are slowly catching on the more I talk about it haha. Got a few friends and my whole family on my Plex server now. It’s a fun side project/hobby too imo
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It’s a little buried in the account settings, but Netflix does allow account sharing for an additional fee (~$7?). I know families that went with this option so they could continue sharing their account with elderly parents, and college aged children.
I imagine that if a group of friends agreed to split the cost of an account + fees, they would end up paying less than having individual accounts.
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Wasn’t it more like $3?
Depends on where you live!
Ahh ok. I still get mine through T-mobile so I have no idea how much I pay they just roll it into my bill.
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It is frankly insane how much attention those three paragraphs from a random outlet have garnered. The data they release is sparse, with little context, and largely obscure. It reads like the abstract of a term paper that used questionable statistics to validate a preconceived point. I would not be surprised to find out that they had incentive to publish something that makes Netflix’s decision look successful to investors. But even if you trust their numbers, all they are saying is that Netflix had more signups than usual on two days. It doesn’t mean anything.
Sad. I will probably make a Plex server or something for people I share a password with when it comes to the EU.
It already did come to a lot of EU countries.
This increase will be more interesting as we see the trend over time. My thought is that while sub numbers will go up, renewal rates, generally, but certainly post-trial will drop precipitously due to casual/temporary interest for the hit show or movie of the week/month/year - using someone else’s login to watch a singular “must watch” of the moment will not directly translate to ongoing subscriptions.
Netflix has shifted to quantity over quality (not saying some of their content is not still quite high quality) and with that, viewership and subscription trends will shift as well.
Canceled the service myself when they annouced this. Whats the point of a 4 screen subscription in a 2 person household. Would downgrade but video quality and screens are linked. Either way the content on Netflix has been going downhill IMO so it was just another nail in the coffin for me
4k being tied to ONLY the highest sub level is what killed it for me. Canceled long ago. I literally don’t care about anything else on that highest tier. OH I CAN DOWNLOAD 6 THINGS AT THE SAME TIME. Who gives a shit about that? All I wanted was 4k content, but I refuse to pay $240 a year for the service when just as you said: the content has taken a sharp nosedive.
Yeah, not surprising tbh. They tested the change in smaller countries like NZ first, which allowed them to determine if it was worth doing the same elsewhere.
Password sharing is really common, but I don’t think enough people realise - if they give a shit about what they use and where it comes from, they’re the minority. That goes for almost any service, not just streaming. The people willing to change their habits to protest are always going to be less than the entrenched people who can be pushed, inch by inch.
Most Netflix users just want something to watch with minimal effort and without having to try or think about it. So if the password doesn’t work, they shrug, they accept it, they make their own account, and their routines stay the same. In fact I’m willing to be that of the new Netflix users, a majority of them are probably also subscribed to at least one other streaming service, too.
Convenience is a commodity, and users have different price points.
Hot take but I think ultimately this will work out for them. Nobody is going to cancel their sub over this, because whoever is paying isn’t losing anything.
The people who lose access to the account might not sign up, but it doesn’t exactly hurt Netflix if they don’t, they weren’t paying anyway.
Well, these events made me reconsider subscribing in the first place, as the people benefiting from my subscription used it more than myself, so that was a good opportunity to cancel my subscription.
I canceled mine at the beginning of the year. For me it represented a 5x increase in the cost of the platform. But I agree overall, it’s probably a slight positive for them in the short term (I’m skeptical its worth losing mindshare in the long run).
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I think there will be an initial spike of signups, but over the long term the cancellations may outweigh the signups and subscriptions could decrease. Especially if they don’t have another hit show like Stranger Things or Squid Game etc.
Good luck getting one soon as long as they refuse to fairly negotiate with the WGA. SAG-AFTRA already has a strike authorisation so we may be seeing that soon too, depending on how their closed-door negotiations go this week.
I only use Netflix currently, as it comes with my phone plan. The convenience factor is nice, but I find the content library a bit lacking. I must explore Plex at some point.
Plex live tv is free and has a few good channels too. I watch that 24/7 Modern Marvels channel all the time while I work from home.
Oh shit I didn’t know they had modern marvels on there 👀
Check out Jellyfin when you’re looking at your options for something like Plex. I love it.
How would you say Jellyfin compares to Plex? Just today installed Plex server so definitely early enough in the process to hop to a difference media server 😁
Plex is like, slightly more complete and robust and simpler but Jellyfin is so so so close to a complete replacement of Plex. Jellyfin also has some nice features that Plex doesn’t.
Having given it a try I’ve also found Jellyfin more responsive, and has all the features I’m needing… seems like a fit for me :)
I have not used Plex in years, however, just the fact that Jellyfin is FOSS is enough for me to want to use it more. I am not sure what features Plex has that Jellyfin doesn’t, but, it does everything it can do really well. Honestly, just throw it up next to Plex and see how you like it. Installation is a breeze, at least with Docker.
Jellyfin does most everything Plex does but without a pay wall.
Last I checked (which admittedly was a few years ago), Plex was the only thing that could add subtitles to something being Chromecast’ed. That’s the primary way I watch things on my actual TV, and since apparently I’m deaf AF and need subtitles for everything, Plex was the best choice. The others would’ve required processing stuff with handbrake ahead of time.
Bought a lifetime subscription though and it’s been well worth it.
There’s apparently a plug-in for Jellyfin to do the subtitles download thing… haven’t tried it though
Not even just the downloading–Chromecast needs some weird encoding or something, apparently?
They’re both very similar, but they do have important differences.
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Plex has a sleeker UI that is better for our less tech-savvy friends and family. I don’t mind JF’'s UI, but Plex definitely wins in this department.
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Plex is easier to access from outside your home network, especially for those of us who do not have full control of our own internet. With Plex, you just open a port, specify it for Plex, and it takes care of the rest. JF on the other hand requires the user to specify the IP (or domain if you have one).
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The first two points both result in a better experience for the end user as well. I don’t need to hold anyone’s hand when I invite them to the server, they can do it on their own. JF may not be as simple for some users.
These are the reasons why I personally use Plex over JF. However, JF is still worth considering. You don’t need to pay to unlock any features, it’s all FOSS, and imo it’s more stable than Plex. It all comes down to personal preference and your situation. Hope that helps a bit!
I can’t seem to get the remote connections working for my plex at all, I’ve gone through various tutorials but it always seems to timeout(?). Ive kind of given up since I’m mostly using it locally
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This is strange. It’s a very small data sample for now. I think it won’t persist over the long run.
Sad. This just rewards the behavior
