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Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

joe-steel.com

211–220 of 289 posts

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#211

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.

Same kid stage here, but I did drop down to the ad-supported level due to the recent price jump. They claim kid profiles won't get ads, but I suspect they'll reverse course on that. When they do, that will be it for me. I'm not going to pay to have ads spewed into my childrens' faces.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#212
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.

I think you'll be surprised how economical DVDs can be bought for.

Also why limit to 1 year's budget? The magic of owning assets over renting is you keep them. If you spend 100$ a year on DVDs you'll fill up a shelf in short order.

Best of all: you can pick what you want. So often I've read a recommendation for a high quality movie only to have no method to watch it despite paying for Disney and Netflix. I remember as a kid Netflix had everything, now it appears to have nothing. Meanwhile the high quality classics are the exact ones cheap and easy to buy in DVD form.

Not to mention, this year is only the start. If streaming services are not bad enough value for you now, wait a few years. They are only going to get worse.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#213

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.

Same kid stage here, but I did drop down to the ad-supported level due to the recent price jump. They claim kid profiles won't get ads, but I suspect they'll reverse course on that. When they do, that will be it for me. I'm not going to pay to have ads spewed into my childrens' faces.

Children's shows have almost all been ads ("toyetic") for a long time. Paying for Disney is paying for ads.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#214
post #44
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Once you see a detective show, you basically seen 80% of all detective shows. That's why it seems that there can be nothing to watch, because 80% is basically a rehash, just with different characters and slightly different plots.

Once you've read one HN comment you've basically read 80% of all comments.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#215
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix's tech is unremarkable now, though it was impressive 10 years ago. The tech difference from a user's perspective between HBO, Disney, Hulu, and Netflix today is nil.

Given the existence of torrents, it really wasn't. Ever.

Some may claim that sonarr + jellyfin give them a better experience than the commercial service. Locally cached, all services combined, low fees for VPN. Password sharing with friends.

There was a time when this was to much hazel to set up compared with a Netflix subscription.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#216
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why??

Deep seated reasons he probably hasn't spent the time exploring.

I'm 43. To this day I can put Aliens on in the background on Plex in my office while I'm working. I could watch it every single day. One, it's an exceptionally well-crafted action movie (the first action scene doesn't even take place for almost one hour into the film), and the second, my Mom is very much like Ellen Ripley, even down to appearance and build - long, curly black hair, pretty, smart, driven, soft and caring, but harsh and brash when necessary.

It took me many nights smoking cigars and sitting around discussing movies with my friends before it dawned on me that's why I enjoy Alien and Aliens so much. I'm basically watching my Mom be a space trucker Xenomorph-killing badass.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#217
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix's tech is unremarkable now, though it was impressive 10 years ago. The tech difference from a user's perspective between HBO, Disney, Hulu, and Netflix today is nil.

I think Netflix still has an edge on syncing progress across devices making it seamless to switch devices (ex iPad to apple tv) mid-show and just keep watching, although I haven’t tried the others for that recently.

You sort of defeated your own point. This is an edge case, not a purchase influencing decision.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#218
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.

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.

The Hobbit audiobook? Hmm, at which age? Seems like a different age category than Disney+.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#219
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Don't tunnel all your traffic through a VPN; only the one which can lead to civil court case with anti parency gang.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if Netflix wants to do short shows, they should follow the British model of TV series. Short series but with a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Not this bunch of half started stories that just stop.

Netflix is just following the Japanese model of animated series where you put out an incredibly strong season one and then cut all funding to it.

Most of those are just advertisements for the source material. Anime originals plan things out and wrap up nicely (unless Gainax, but even that is an old meme now)
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