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Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

joe-steel.com

71–80 of 289 posts

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#71
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We bought a DVD player and a couple high quality DVDs. Seemed rather silly to pay for a year of nothing just to watch reruns. Kids are happy, and now we get to show them higher quality shows.

My kids like repeats, but not THAT many repeats… and they mostly like tv shows. A full run of a TV show on DVD is around $50. So less than 3 tv shows would pay for a full year of Disney+ with all the shows. Also, my kids go through phases… watching the same shows on repeat, then switching. It would cost way more to buy the shows than stream them.

We hit up the local library and Goodwill. Streaming dollars get a lot of movies that way, and reduced ads.

But having kids can totally justify a Disney+ subscription.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#72
post #41
post #15

Basically there was a finite amount of content and a lot of it appeared on Netflix. Then 4+ services launched and a near fixed amount of content was divided by 4. Then they doubled the price. So now for a worse discovery experience you are effectively paying 8x the price.

Why do you say it's a fixed amount of content? Finite, sure, but it's not fixed.

Well, Netflix was licensing a lot of the content that HBO and Disney were making. Of course more content is now being made but between covid and the writers strike as indicated in the article, there certainly isn't 4X as much content being made. Apple is making content that definitely wouldnt have existed but again, as budgets get constrained as these services seek profitability there really isn't an explosion of new content. I am only a casual consumer of media, so not an expert.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

kids love repeat content This is very true, to a certain age. My kids would watch some things over and over again, until they reached a certain age when there was an abrupt change. Once that change happens it's polar opposite, they could not fathom watching something a second time.

My roommate in college watched Gladiator every single night for like a full year.

[deleted]

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#74
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why Max bought exclusive rights to Sesame Street. This is why Amazon has Nickelodeon. The services know it's harder to do the streaming juggle when you have kids.

There's something a bit twisted about using my kids for their own financial gain. Hence my pirating of said shows - no issue getting those repeat views in via Plex/NAS.

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Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#75
post #41
post #15

Basically there was a finite amount of content and a lot of it appeared on Netflix. Then 4+ services launched and a near fixed amount of content was divided by 4. Then they doubled the price. So now for a worse discovery experience you are effectively paying 8x the price.

Why do you say it's a fixed amount of content? Finite, sure, but it's not fixed.

However, I doubt just because there are 4x streaming platforms there are suddenly 4x studios capable of producing even a low budget show. Knowing nothing of media production, but I assume there are a large number of technical roles which are advisable if trying to produce mainstream content.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#77
post #37

One counter point to why I personally pay for Disney+ is that I have kids, and kids love repeat content. I don't think new content particularly matters to them, at least not at their age. I wonder how much Disney+'s numbers will be helped by that tranche of subscribers.

We bought a DVD player and a couple high quality DVDs. Seemed rather silly to pay for a year of nothing just to watch reruns. Kids are happy, and now we get to show them higher quality shows.

Libraries are also excellent resources for this kind of thing. Also, they have great audio book players for kids. My son is currently listening to the Hobbit, and my daughter to Charlotte’s Web.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#78
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something a bit twisted about using my kids for their own financial gain. Hence my pirating of said shows - no issue getting those repeat views in via Plex/NAS.

I keep thinking about Plex but I struggle with the idea of teaching my kids that stealing is okay. Like, for a little kid: "This kind of theft is okay, this kind of theft isn't." seems nuanced for a little kid.

I have a bigger struggle with trying to tell them "Someone in a special building far away can make up a rule that says I'm not allowed to arrange the bits in one section on my computer in the same order as the bits on somebody else's computer because they did it first. If enough special people agree, they can give themselves permission to come steal my money or put me in timeout in a cage for a long time."

But then it always is hard to explain things when I don't understand them myself.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#79

One counter point to why I personally pay for Disney+ is that I have kids, and kids love repeat content. I don't think new content particularly matters to them, at least not at their age. I wonder how much Disney+'s numbers will be helped by that tranche of subscribers.

This what I use the PBS Kids apps for. Free repetitive content without any kind of monetization or need for me to curate.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#80
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something a bit twisted about using my kids for their own financial gain. Hence my pirating of said shows - no issue getting those repeat views in via Plex/NAS.

I keep thinking about Plex but I struggle with the idea of teaching my kids that stealing is okay. Like, for a little kid: "This kind of theft is okay, this kind of theft isn't." seems nuanced for a little kid.

They won’t know it’s stealing unless you tell them. As far as they’re concerned it’s just another app on the magic box that makes shows play.
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