So it was great while it lasted. But it’s 2019 and Warner Media, Apple, and Disney are going to branch off with their own services. 2020 looks like NBC-Universal and probably others. So many service providers, there are even local or regional streaming services like CraveTV in Canada. Plus there’s Youtube premium, syfy, and individual sports subscriptions. ESPN and Disney will be separate, and many services will have more than one tier.
Lets discuss our shifting loyalties here, and how we’re managing to keep a lid on out-of-pocket costs. Also the rise and fall of these services as some won’t be around in a few years. Plus the potential turn to piracy by frustrated customers.
How many for you, and which ones - two, three, more?
Ironically, in the UK, which has never had a real unified service (more so on the movie side than TV, but still not really), we may now be getting one.
Personally, I subscribe to three TV/movie services (Amazon, Netflix, NowTV) on top of the free ones, and a DVD rental service. Also MLB.tv. Comes out to about £45 a month in total and gets me 90% of what I want to watch — most of the missing stuff isn’t available legally at all in the UK.
I’m currently with Netflix, Hulu (thanks to their $1/mo promo), WWE Network, and Amazon - which is more a benefit of having Prime; I rarely watch anything there. Usually pick up MLB with their first half-off sale for the year, but with their crackdown on VPNs that’s been less of a priority. Last year I bought a subscription to keep my conscious clear and then turned to… alternative viewing sources.
Over the holidays I took advantage of a few sales to keep the recurring costs down - an HDHomeRun tuner, Plex lifetime pass, and Winegard FreeVision antenna. After a bit of fiddling with antenna placement I’m able to pull in a couple dozen channels and watch them live wherever I want, or record for later viewing (with the added benefit of commercials being cut out).
With Netflix announcing another price increase today while also getting ready to lose a ton of content to these new services, I might end up cancelling that and picking it up a month at a time.
This is absolutely going to happen, and then down the road someone will come out with the great idea of combining all these provider-specific services into a single, low cost service that will cut down on the number of subscriptions required, and magically piracy numbers will go back down.
Yeah, I have Netflix currently for a bunch of backlogged stuff (which I need to work on faster since they’re hemorrhaging content faster than I can watch it) and Hulu for the handful of currently airing shows I watch, and happen to have Amazon cuz I pay for Prime. I hate watching anything on it; their sorting/organization/search is hot ass. Doctor Who moving to Amazon suuuuuuuuuuuuuucked.
I don’t really plan on subscribing to more than 2 services at $12/13/mo. If the stuff I wanna watch is on more than that. . . oh well. TV isn’t worth more than $25/mo for me, and frankly, even that’s pushing it.
I am with 'mando on this. Two services, maybe $15/mo each tops. Anything else, guess you didn’t want my money.
Right now that’s Netflix, because even with external content leaving they are the big dogs and have a huge slate of original content that IMO has a higher hit rate than old-school TV, and VRV, because they aggregate multiple smaller services and have a bunch of geek oriented content.
I also have access to multiple premium cable channels for some reason but I can’t imagine that will last.
We’re right now on three services, Netflix, Hulu and Prime, all of which we use fairly regularly (mostly Netflix though). Once the DC and Star Wars streaming services make PS3 apps, I’ll likely sign up for those too (love me some Young Justice and Clone Wars, and they know it).
I’ve been tempted to sign up for Britbox/Acorn via prime for more British stuff too, but that’s likely my limit.
Oh, if we’re talking music services too, than I also subscribe to Spotify and Pandora (as a backup to Spotify).
Netlfix- must have online streaming service the last to go for me if it should come to that
Amazon Prime - free shipping, some good original series
DC Universe- DC movies, TV series and a respectable number of complete run comics AND Titans series, and Young Justice season 3 and about 3 more DC series coming that look good to great. Is moving fast up on the list and may surpass Amazon Prime for its must have content if it keeps this up.
Hulu- great full series coverage and full hidden gems, and respectable
CBS streaming- cause I love the new Star trek series, period. I cancel the moment the series goes on break or ends the season.
I love having the flexibility to subscribe to as many or as few services as I want - and especially the fact that they’re all so easy to cancel without needing to talk to anyone.
I don’t currently subscribe to Hulu but I definitely will soon - Atlanta S2, Killing Eve, and so many more are on my watch list. I’ve subscribed to Netflix for years consecutively but I may put that on hold for a couple months as I watch other stuff in the meantime.
I also just subscribed to a month of HBO and watched a ton of great movies and TV (shape of water, game night, Barry, Sharp Objects, paddington 2). I’ll put that on hold until Game if Thrones comes back though.
Prime is just ongoing since I subscribe for shipping and other benefits primarily. But I just watched The Imposter on there and it was fantastic, and Mrs. Maisel will be next from that service.
Netflix and Crunchyroll (which I’ll probably bump up to VRV). The loss of Disney from Netflix means I’ll probably build up my physical disc collection a bit. I have Amazon as a side-effect of Prime, so I do get to watch Doctor Who but I wouldn’t miss the service if it went away.
The more fragmented the ecosystem gets, the less I’ll watch. Like several folks above, streaming probably worth $25/mo to me as well. So whatever services I can fit into that. I mean, I have a huge Steam backlog to get through.
I don’t have Prime streaming because I mainly care about the shipping and i ride on my mom’s Prime for that (grandfathered from how it used to work) but don’t get the streaming, Kindle library, etc and it’s not worth ending the grandfathered deal and dropping $120 a year for IMO.
$49/yr - Amazon prime student (from an EDU email, I’m not a student)
YouTubeTV is actually rather good these days, except for CBS and CW shows where you still can’t skip commercials. I would never pay for it due to that, but for free, what the hell.
You mean on the VOD content? Yes, uBlock Origin blocks the ads no problem, but that only works if you watch via a desktop browser. There’s no way to block the ads in the iOS, Android, or Roku apps. Host-based DNS blocking does not work.
Just to be clear, we are not really allowed to openly discuss piracy on this site, correct? I mean in a direct way, not just a discussion of the impacts etc.
I pay for Spotify and Netflix. I’m not willing to pay for more. If the media companies get greedy and fragment the content, piracy will skyrocket again.
It’s easier for me to open Netflix and stream a movie or series than it is to track down a torrent. It’s really, really easy to track down a torrent. The effort is in playing video from my pc on my tv. I gotta like, get up. Also waiting for the download, that can be inconvenient.
Currently subscribed to Netflix, Prime & Spotify and not intending to really invest any more into services. Daredevil & co were the main reason I subbed to Netflix and with those gone, I’m going to seriously reevaluate if I’m going to stick with them.
Thing is for now, I don’t know how the proliferation of providers in the states will translate to the viewing experience in Germany. But I’m also convinced piracy will explode once again.
I’ve got Amazon Prime video, but honestly that’s largely because I have Prime for the shipping and occasional “free” book. If I had to pay extra for video, probably wouldn’t have it long.
I have Hulu, because it costs me something like $4 a month (limited commercials version, via Spotify add-on). I’m keeping Spotify for sure, so why not get the cheap Hulu too? Limited commercials don’t bug me nearly as much as I thought they would.
I rotate through other services every few months. Right now it’s Britbox because I watched a bunch of old Doctor Who. That’s expiring after January, and then I’ll probably pick up Netflix to see a whole list of stuff that’s come out since I last subscribed.
