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Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

joe-steel.com

101–110 of 289 posts

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#101
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.

Simple enough: stealing is bad, but sharing is good. If you had a replicator and could make physical things for free to give to your neighbors, of course you'd do that.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#102
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.

A couple, or a few? Unless they are watching the same two shows over and over for an entire year, that's quickly gonna cost more than $100.

There's thousands of kids dvds on amazon for less than $5. I'm sure the right garage sells would have a treasure trove for less.

You can buy a lot of content for less than $100, and even include a few higher priced favorites.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#103
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Mullvad. Actually good too. Something like $5.30/mo (forever). They take literal cash (as one of the options). WireGuard support. They actually do privacy, not just market it. Edited to fix price estimate and clarify it isn’t just for the first year.

I jumped from Nord to Mullvad as soon as my 3 year Nord sub was up. The throughput speed is unquestionably and substantially faster with Mullvad, and they don't force me to change my password every 3 mos like Nord got all righteous about. Mullvad costs a little more, but they're better in every way, including staying out of your way.

I'm happy where I am but if I had to jump, it'd be to Mullvad.

I personally wouldn't use Nord for free.

2018 Nord's ties to Tesonet. 2019 Data breach. Repeated rewrites of site to handle false claims allegations. Endless reports of performance issues. I guess each of these things can be minimized with enough explainers but why bother?

tesonet ref: https://old.reddit.com/r/VPNTorrents/comments/9adi37/i_inves...

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#105
post #38

Turner Classic Movies streaming app is quietly full of win. Approx 100 curated sometimes thematic movie classics that change every few weeks, View it or lose it.

Unfortunately you need to have a cable subscription with TCM to use the TCM app. They have a fantastic catalog that I cannot pay them directly to watch. I have to pay Comcast first. Not cool.

BTW cool angular animation on https://noiralley.tcm.com/?icid=espnav8-noir-alley

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#106
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.

Does anyone has experience with cancelling and switching services periodically so that you can access all the content, but not at the same time?

I don't but know folks who do. They keep track of things they want to watch until they get to the point where subscribing for a month makes sense then cancel at the end of the month.

The hard part is keeping track of what you want to watch and what service it's on and whether it's still there when you want to watch.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#107

That was a long wall of text for stating that a subscription isn't worth it. That said, expecting 12 months worth of new content seems a bit much (almost entitled). Not everyone has consumed everything worth watching.

>That was a long wall of text for stating that a subscription isn't worth it

That was an industry insider's view about WHY it's not worth it, especially right now. He sounds like a VFX guy in LA/Hollywood, and his perspective is valuable especially with regards to "who's fault is this situation".

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you're right, I watched one season of Law and Order and thought "Great, I've seen 80% of all detective shows, no need to watch any more." /s

I think it comes down to personal taste. I could likewise see someone say that 80% of all soccer matches are the same. That once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. And then on the opposite end you have people enjoying soccer who will be happy to tell you about the nuances between different matches, different players, different teams, etc.

That's actually a pretty good analogy.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#109
post #83

Is anyone here paying for any of the smaller indie streaming services? And feeling like that's a better value? If I didn't have kids I would skip Netflix, Disney and HBO. Quality has really taken a dive.

If you have kids, try PBS Kids. They have good stuff and it's free. Also, try telling your kids you can't afford streaming services anymore. They will be surprisingly understanding because, especially if they're small, they don't have money and know what that's like.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#110
post #83

Is anyone here paying for any of the smaller indie streaming services? And feeling like that's a better value? If I didn't have kids I would skip Netflix, Disney and HBO. Quality has really taken a dive.

(This isn't really for kids, but for anyone else who has a similar question.)

Dropout.tv is by far the best value of any streaming service. If you can get into their kind of content (it's only Dropout originals), it's endless entertainment for $5/month.

Examples of what they make:

GameChanger ("the only game show that changes every show") is a cool concept where they come up with a new game show for every episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsDyNOB1hZs

Dimension 20 is a D&D actual play show with high production value and an insanely creative premise for every season. (Candy Land but Game of Thrones, Manhattan: firefighter is a paladin, ER nurse is a cleric, etc.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zZxCVBi7-k

They have tons of great shows.

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