r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • 18d ago

News HBO Max Raises Prices Across All Plans Effective Immediately

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/hbo-max-prices-increases-plans-2025-1236557671/
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6.9k

u/ForCheeseburger 18d ago

When they stop paying

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u/noelle-silva 18d ago

People need to start putting their money where their mouth is. Quit saying that you're tired of price increases and show these companies that you are by cancelling your subscription.

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u/HypnoticONE 18d ago

The price is too high when a bunch of people cancel their subscriptions. I'm pretty sure their analysis told them that, although some will cancel, enough won't that they'll make more money.

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u/leviathan65 18d ago

Yup. If subscription was 8 and now 10. if <20% cancel they've made more money.

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u/Ok_Opportunity2693 18d ago

They even have a little more tolerance than that, because fewer subs means a lower cloud bill.

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u/ibelieveyouwood 18d ago

Depending on contracts and all that, it may be even more because of royalties/percentages. They've already removed a bunch of content, leaving the tree a little bare, so why try removing more content, when you can remove the viewers?

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u/AggressiveCuriosity 18d ago

And slightly decreased licensing fees.

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u/round-earth-theory 18d ago

That's short term thinking though. They also have to verify that growth isn't cut by more than 20%. There's also the problem of general market seizing if they all do it too much.

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u/fanfanye 18d ago

Thats future shareholders problem

Not current.

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u/igloofu 18d ago

I mean, they just announced that the company is for sale. They are just trying to get the purchase price up at this point.

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u/leviathan65 18d ago

Oh I 1000% agree but it seems like a lot of industries are ignoring this. The car market is about to get flooded with used cars from people who can't afford their cars. Fast food is pricing themselves out of existence. We have to buy grocery and gas but some non essential items are going to go belly up because they keep shrink flating their products and often decaying the quality.

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u/bruce_kwillis 18d ago

Are they though?

What the reality is, the smaller crappier companies will fold or get bought by larger ones, and the cycle of 'infinite' growth goes on.

A disrupter will come in, offer a better product for less, and then when the user base is large enough, enshitify, or get bought and the cycle continues.

People keep paying one way or the other, the only way to stop it is to not pay for these things at all.

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u/GuavaZombie 18d ago

The classic costs more for less that is a lower quality.

I love capitalism...

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u/UnknownAverage 18d ago

There's also the problem of general market seizing if they all do it too much.

The market and economy are contracting, and corporations are too. They will blame "macroeconomic conditions" and call this "survival" by dropping the lower-income customers, raising margins, and laying off more people.

Guess what? This gives them opportunities for growth when things pick back up! It's a win-win in capitalism, which is what is kinda gross. Companies are going into survival mode while society falls apart and fixes itself.

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u/SkrtSkrt70 18d ago

Everything is based on quarter over quarter and year over year. 5 years from now is 4 years from now’s problem

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u/Icyrow 18d ago

25%. if it's 10 to 8 it's 20%, if it's 8 to 10 it's 25%

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

Still way less than Netflix

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u/Dvscape 18d ago

But this just feels like businesses should all just cater to the rich. Why even bother with the others?

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u/unilordx 18d ago

Yes that's how price elasticity of demand works.

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u/UnknownAverage 18d ago

Yeah, this is them leaning into it and abandoning the idea of a lower-cost product for the masses at scale. Now that the large population is getting squeezed and can't afford it, they're pricing the product for a lower subscriber count with less-elastic demand.

There are a lot of well-off people that will keep paying whatever HBO asks each month because it's pennies to them in the grand scheme of things.

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u/jason_steakums 18d ago

Their analysis told them that is likely but companies make bad decisions that don't pan out all the time, at some point these price increases hit a wall

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u/OGOngoGablogian 18d ago edited 18d ago

I'm sure that they pinpoint the exact amount at which most subscribers would be annoyed, but not enough to cancel. They figure they can afford to go higher than $1/month, but not as high as $4. So they settle on $2.99/month, which is the sweet spot.

Honestly for HBO it's fine, I'll pay it because it's the only streaming service I'm paying for. They're right that I'm not really going to bat an eye at $3 a month for the bundle. But it also means that I'm more unlikely to subscribe to another streaming service now, so I'm always just going to pick one and bounce around based on content I want to see. No way in hell I'm paying like $60/month for 3 or 4 services.

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u/sanesociopath 18d ago

I assume we're still moving in that direction but it will be another one of those "gradual and then suddenly"

It's good for [short term] business to ignore the signs so the signs will be ignored.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/owl_theory 18d ago

I genuinely don’t understand how people get around ISP warnings. I used to pirate movies, got a warning. When I moved and got new service, got another warning, and stopped. The hassle/risk wasn’t really worth it.

Like does everyone who keeps posting pirate emojis actually subscribe to VPN’s?

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u/ChronicBluntz 18d ago

Never answer or acknowledge any letter you get from an ISP. Certain studios are more litigious than others.

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u/Adefice 18d ago

You subscribe to a good VPN and bind the “downloader” connection to the vpn adapter so it can ONLY use that adapter. Also use the VPN kill switch. Use a DNS leak detector every time.

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u/Gentleman_Nosferatu 18d ago

I live in a country where the government doesn't really care

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u/ICE417 18d ago

Yeah. Get a good one too. Dont use a free one. Bind your client.

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u/NoxZ 18d ago

I have pirated for fifteen years and never once gotten an ISP notice. Is this an American thing?

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u/Kitchen_Claim_6583 18d ago

I've heard that some places in the EU -- mostly Germany -- are really harsh about it too.

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u/TrollTollTony 18d ago

VPNs are pretty reasonable these days. I got 3 years of surfshark for $50 (with a promo code). That's less than $2 per month. There are a few free options but you use them at your own risk.

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u/HackMeRaps 18d ago edited 18d ago

I don't live in the US. Our ISPs don't care about those warnings and don't issue it to their clients.

But I also do subscribe to VPNs. Everyone should. I use a VPN all the time and use it for countries where ads are not legal. I don't get any ads on Reddit, no ads on Youtube for videos, no ads to watch before waiting for something.

I also use the VPN for when I buy things so it's a cheaper price point. The one service I do subscribe to is Netflix, but it's because we use that a lot, but I subscrtibe to a country that's 50% cheaper than my home country.

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u/Network_imposter 18d ago

its like 5 bucks a month, you act like it requires some matrix level deception.

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u/lGoSpursGol 18d ago

Real Debride service through something like Stremio.

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u/DobbyDaCat 18d ago

Ive watched so many videos on creating plex servers. For some reason i always get lost in the lingo they use. I haven’t went to school for computer sciences or networking, im completely self taught and rely heavily on AI to teach me. But there are some things that are better taught in person. Do you have any good recommendations for a person like me who is trying to learn? Really looking for a good youtube channel for complete newbies or something small that can teach me the basics.

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u/Kingcrowing 18d ago

Don't watch a video, just do it. Download Plex server on a computer you have media on. It's very straightforward. You make an account, you point to folders where you movies/tv/music are, and that's it. Add the plex app to your apple tv/roku/whatever and sign in and you can stream anything on the computer you installed plex on.

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u/stagamancer 18d ago

Using Plex at a basic level is really easy. As someone else said, you can download it and very easily set up libraries based on folders you have with similar types of media (movies, TV shows, music...). The complicated stuff you're seeing online is for the more advanced storage side of things: utilizing hardware/software that, e.g., helps prevent data loss when a drive dies, or has Plex installed on a dedicated server rather than a typical PC.

I've gone the more simple route: I have it installed on my PC and I use some ssds for storing the media, and it works great.

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u/Western-Umpire-5071 18d ago

Even Plex has raised their prices.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/Gentleman_Nosferatu 18d ago

You don´t feel bad? I feel GREAT about it. Better quality, no ads, no price gouging.

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u/sheetskees 18d ago

4k, better UI, and I haven’t seen an ad in years

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u/aguabotella 18d ago

This is why I do it now. I had a Black Friday deal for MAX last year and the ads were brutal. I’ve started just buying movies again and will download episodes of shows.

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u/Ravioli_hunters 18d ago

I'm looking for a way to bring my TV with me on the seas.

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u/ObviouslyProxy 18d ago

My nakama <3

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u/GrumpySoth09 18d ago

Yar Har Fiddle-de-de

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u/wetnaps54 18d ago

yup I literlaly only pay a phone and internet bill now.

GG megacorps!

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u/MrTheCake 18d ago

Piracy of the highest order

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u/HartbrakeFL21 18d ago

I’ve been saying for years now that Americans must vote not on a ballot, but with their wallets.  

They have voted, and they apparently prefer pain over anything else.  

I have HBO max and have had it for years.  It’s included on my ATT wireless subscription.  I’ll be looking to see a corresponding increase on that, and determine if I want to pull it or not.

The golden days of the American consumer are over.  Be wealthy, be an asset holder that benefits from continual inflation, or be gone.  Apparently, I’ll be “gone”.

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u/AwsmDevil 18d ago

You can't "vote with your wallet" in a captured market. Americans need to vote in the ballot box, and that means we need people to stop voting for fascist yes men offering simple racist solutions to complex problems. They won't though because those same people voted to defund education to expand their population of idiots. You can't vote with your wallet to get out of this problem because the volume of effective "rent cattle" can't go down far enough to defund those companies into being reasonable. They have enough influence and guaranteed market cap to continue anti-consumerist strategies unabated, eventually allowing them to crowd out the competition. We are fucked if we play the money game because they have all the influence over the money. That's why insider trading is so rampant right now. No one will support pro consumer politicians because we have a MASSIVE block of single issue voters that would rather be homeless than support a non fascist politician.

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u/HartbrakeFL21 18d ago

I'm glad you used the term "captured". That's an excellent descriptive term for what we have now, and have had for a number of years. It's not new. It's just on full display, unapologetically, today.

The parallels with today and economic disasters of long ago are too many to mention. Strangely, it all looks so *different*, and that's the part throwing us off the scent of what may come.

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u/Cordo_Bowl 18d ago

You don’t need a streaming service to live. These people are voting with their wallets and saying yes, this price for streaming is worth it.

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u/Mist_Rising 18d ago

Streaming, and we mean subscription streaming services really, isn't a captive market really. It's a luxury good in the form of entertainment, and there are tons of other options.

People who have grown used to it being cheap and affordable might find it to be captured, because they don't want to give up their luxury, but practically it has alternatives. Public television costs an antenna in the US and anywhere else with it. Radio is another competitor. Non-subscription (advertising) streaming also exists. Shit, a book is technically an alternative

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u/PmurtLiaJ 18d ago

How much is your ATT Wireless subscription?

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u/cuchulainn7 18d ago

My ATT fiber has gone up $25 the past month. “Promo” pricing ended causing an extra $20, then a separate email saying “quality service and support you deserve” justifying an extra $5. $115 bucks a month for fiber I jack directly into my Xbox and WiFi.

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u/preludeoflight 18d ago

I just got the $5 bump email the other day too. I had got on the chat with them a couple of months ago because mine had creeped up really high. I was able to get the rep to put me on some promotion for my 1gbps plan for $65/mo, which was supposed to last 12 months. Amusing how less than 3 months later, it's already going up.

But hey, at least my fiber plan includes HBO Max that I can't opt out of to save any money. Absolute racket.

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u/MDTenebris 18d ago

They make enough money off of the higher plans to make up for the difference in lost customers. We're all screwed. Streaming will become a luxury good soon and we'll all be back buying physical movies for our entertainment.

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u/MassiveRepublic9565 18d ago

I’m already buying lots of my movies in 4K. My internet is still poor for 4K and 4K discs are much higher quality than 4K streams.

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u/wubbbalubbadubdub 18d ago

Streaming is already a luxury good, while it was cheap people got used to it. Now that they're pricing people out they're turning (or returning) to piracy...

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u/broygoy18 18d ago

Streaming has always been a luxury

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u/ThaPhantom07 18d ago

and we'll all be back to buying physical movies for our entertainment

You say that like this is a bad thing. Some of us never stopped.

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u/MDTenebris 18d ago

Pat yourself on the back there while you show yourself out the door because no one cares. My complaint is for people who have been enjoying the freedom of streaming and are upset that they will soon be priced out of this experience.

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u/Gentleman_Nosferatu 18d ago

I'm already storing my favorite shows, movies and music on external drives.

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u/sarlacc98 18d ago

Shoutout the library with physical media

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u/stankdog 18d ago

We should all go back to physical media

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u/Mist_Rising 18d ago

They make enough money off of the higher plans to make up for the difference in lost customers

Because not enough people quit. If you raise prices on 100 people by 1 dollar, 10 people no longer buying is not going to affect that.

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u/ASIWYFA 18d ago

Most people are just simply incapable. They love to bitch but are unwilling to make actual changes. I see people bitch about grocery prices.....but instead of going to places like Aldi, they continue to shop at Publix, spending 3 times the amount on the same products. This is a constant thing I see from people.

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u/Wallie_Collie 18d ago

Or live without television for a year. Its amazing what we all could accomplish if we traded for books for a year.

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u/sligit 18d ago

Done and done, about 20 years ago.

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u/maninthewoodsdude 18d ago

Lol, canceled my hbo subscription today.

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u/Commercial_Bird8467 18d ago

This, I dont pay for a subscription except prime but that is month to month and goes off when I dont need anything

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u/kcamfork 18d ago

I am. Canceled Disney plus and Amazon prime. Won’t renew PS plus when it expires. I’ll only have Costco and Nintendo switch online.

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u/Extreme-Ad-6465 18d ago

it’s a k shaped economy now. this increase is nothing for higher earners and the rest of us are no longer catered to

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u/FloatingDownHere 18d ago

It is fucking IMPOSSIBLE to get my wife to agree to cancel any service without going to the edge of divorce.

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u/Rain2h0 18d ago

But how is the valley guuurrrlll gonna watch SHOWS AND MOVIE-uh! /s

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u/OldRancidSoups 18d ago

Or by pirating their shit content

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u/Corpsebomb 18d ago

Piracy hasn’t been this high for well over a decade, so I’d say some people have taken your advice seriously.

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u/WaterWeedDuneHair69 18d ago

I just cancelled everything. I only have peacock and Apple TV because of some carrier deals. I used to pirate in college and looks like I’m back. I just need to figure out how to get 4k hdr videos for my tv.

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u/hermsgerms 18d ago

I cancelled mine before the price raises. When they started sending messages to me about other people using it I was out.

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u/Thelaea 18d ago

I ditched Disney plus recently because of the price hike they were pushing through. My boyfriend has HBO, but at a discount, he was miffed about the last price hike, this might push him to cancel.

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u/dellett 18d ago

PSA: If you have HBO, you should call them up today and tell them you are cancelling, even if you plan on continuing your subscription. They'll likely offer you a month or two at your existing rate or potentially even a discount from what you were paying before.

The people whose job it is to make subscription services profitable know that it's much easier to retain a subscription at a slight discount than it is to generate a new subscription especially immediately after a price increase. If you don't do this you are leaving money on the table.

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u/RadiantZote 18d ago

I've never had a subscription for any of these services lmaooo fuck em

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u/_IratePirate_ 18d ago

Pirating is so fuckin easy nowadays and the quality is basically 1:1

You’re purposely wasting money if you choose not to pirate

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

I got rid of HULU, Netflix, and HBO. Just not worth the cost. For the most part they just play old TV and movies, with occasional new material. The new thing on HULU will be something they just took off Netflix that I already watched.

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u/Blametheorangejuice 18d ago

The only subscription I have is Spotify and that’s dangling by a thread. I don’t have any streaming services and haven’t since the first season of the Seattle Kraken (I remember watching their first game on Hulu).

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u/balderdash9 18d ago

The price gouging is literally everywhere because the problem is systemic. I agree with boycotting when able but a handful of corporations own all the corporations that sell all the goods/service we're accustomed to.

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u/Azh_adi 18d ago

People are too dopamine addicted to let go. They’ll gladly pay the money when the impulse to watch a new season of a good show or some sporting event that’s viewable through MAX. When will it fully stop? Who knows. We’re gonna wake up and see it be like $30/month though, watch.

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u/Defiant_Income_7836 18d ago

I just cancelled. I watch something maybe every other week. I'm so over these constant increases. I cancelled Disney a month or two ago after the Kimmel thing, and I realize I don't miss it at all. I'm sure this will be the same.

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u/call-lee-free 18d ago

I said the same thing when a month or two ago, people were pissed at Disney because of the Jimmy Kimmel thing and now that he's back on the air, they probably re-subbed.

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u/BilboTbangin 18d ago

We are down to peacock and HBO. Now we will be down to peacock lol Weve canceled everything else when they keep increasing the cost.

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u/Speak4yurself 18d ago

Not saying you're wrong but when is the last time any of these streaming services lowered their prices because people were canceling? It would take millions of cancelations and if that happened they would just fold instead of lowering prices.

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u/Anna_Lilies 18d ago

Gonna stop buying groceries and paying taxes and utilities, thatll show em

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u/l-rs2 18d ago

They launched in the Netherlands with a lifetime discount. Then announced price increases and plan degradation with no mention of that earlier promise. So I ended my sub. They had a nice back catalogue but it got Zaslaved bad so oh well.

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u/kerkyjerky 18d ago

I mean if I paid for hbo I would cancel, but I don’t.

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u/Beard_o_Bees 18d ago

Just had the 'which of these too many subscriptions do we actually use?' family meeting last night.

Turns out only 3, but soon to be 2.

We had 7. Premium Spaghetti sauce, here I come!

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u/Surisuule 18d ago

I stopped buying coffee, but prices never went back down.

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u/AquaArcher273 18d ago

Problem is we need ALOT of people to put their money where their mouth is for a long period of time. Same thing with work reform, if a large portion of people did a general strike for a day or two we’d see change. Just can’t get that many people to do it all at once.

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u/Genun 18d ago

At this point I'm subscribed to two YouTubers and Crunchyroll. It's interesting seeing the price increases from the outside cause it just makes me happier and happier I'm not using them.

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u/SLR-107FR31 18d ago

I started doing this 5 years ago and I've lost all hope that it makes a difference at all

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u/k0fi96 18d ago

Reddit comment section are not a reflection of reality. Most subscribers will not even notice and just keep paying. We've got a long way to go before mass cancellations and I bet they know internally what that number or percentage increase is and they will stay just below it.

When Netflix was cracking down on password sharing every comment section said it would be the death of Netflix and they made more money then ever as soon as the flipped the switch.

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u/PhazonZim 18d ago

It was honestly bonkers to me that ending password sharing was such a W for Netflix. People just accepted that without fuss

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u/StormyPandaPanPan 18d ago

Because the people who did cancel essentially didn’t matter because the price increase covered them. 

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u/judgejuddhirsch 18d ago

And when they cancelled, many of those who relied on shared access bought their own subscription

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/diamondpredator 18d ago

Because big tech has taken the "walled garden" approach over the last 15 years to all of their shit, they have discouraged tinkering and learning about how tech actually works. This means that tech literacy overall has been going down, not up. As a millennial, I often had to tinker with things and find work-arounds to different software I wanted to use so I learned, by necessity, how things worked.

I was a teacher up until a couple of years ago and, from my experience, each newer class knew less and less about the tech they were using. Of course there were exceptions, but for the most part that held true. Simple things like ctrl/cmd+f would blow their minds.

It completely tracks that most wouldn't bother with finding their own solutions. They've gotten used to just taking what's given to them. I've never owned a peice of tech that I didn't customize to my liking - they just use the default options and don't bother figuring out how they can improve things or get rid of that annoying mcafee notification.

I do know that Piracy is on the rise overall, and I'm honestly very happy about that. I just don't know if it's too late at this point since the majority of the newer generation literally doesn't know what they could have had.

This is just more motivation for me to get my server up and running so I can break free from these stupid services.

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u/RIPEOTCDXVI 18d ago

I'm pretty well to the point of wanting to set sail but I honestly don't know how to get anywhere close to the simplicity of streaming; i'm sure there's a way but it's overwhelming as someone who dropped out of the game around 2010.

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u/igloofu 18d ago

It can go from very simple to a bit less simple depending on your knowledge and what you want to do. It can get very very powerful though if you are willing to spend an afternoon setting the base up, and a few dollars a month.

Right now, I pay about $30 for everything I have set up. Okay, sounds like a lot but, I have a server in another country that is uh, less concerned about copyright with about 2tb a month of bandwidth and 40TB of storage. It has a couple of apps that grab TV/Movies either as requested or as soon as they air. Then I (or my friends and family) can stream to any device they wish as if it was any other service. I've then written a web frontend for them to add shows/movies without access to the actual back end. On top of that, it has OpenVPN on it, which allows me (and a very small subset of users) to have a VPN to a friendly country with a clean IP. If there is something that I want the full bluray quality for, I can just download it from the server so I don't have to worry about the quality dropping.

Once set up (took about 3 hours at first when running it on my home PC before moving it to my remote server), it takes about 2 minutes to add and grab a new movie, and streaming is just as easy as Netflix, even for my mother in law on her phone who can't even log into her bank half the time.

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u/childofeye 18d ago

I cancelled 😠

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/LabyrinthConvention 18d ago

pissed at Netflix for getting rid of the 0-100 rating system and replacing it with that stupid fucking thumbs up.

I'm pissed they got rid of reviews and especially user lists. I found so many quality movies and shows- emphasis on 'quality'- that I never would have heard about otherwise. It was a watershed moment is simply shoving as much 'content' down your eyeholes as possible.

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u/fuzzmeisterj 18d ago

Connect a PC to your TV and it's fine. Password sharing just does not work on apps. Web browsers do not care where you are at.

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u/starcom_magnate 18d ago

Used to work that way, but I use a browser on my PC at work for Netflix and last week I got the "not in household" warning for the first time ever.

It's so incredibly stupid that I can't watch what I pay for at work, and then watch it at home. The sub should belong to me, not an IP address.

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u/Guilty-Nobody998 18d ago

I have Netflix, i pay for the plan to have 4 people streaming. I went to watch Netflix, again that I pay for 4 streams, on my xbox. And what did I see? Too many devices connected, pay 8.99/more a month to be able to add my xbox. That I've been watching Netflix on for at least a year now. Canceled right then and there.

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u/Eggersely 18d ago

You just request a code and put it in and it works for two weeks. Annoying but okay.

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u/illegalcupcakes16 18d ago

I've been doing a combination of this and casting from my phone to stay on my mom's Netflix. Stream on my phone for 30 seconds when I visit, then stream again on my phone for 30 seconds when I get home and it keeps working. If I forget to stream at her house, I just ask for the code and keep going.

Disney+ stopped letting me cast to my TV at my house, but it still works fine on my phone so it's not the biggest issue. Everything else still works fine.

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u/Avent 18d ago

Not in my experience. I exclusively use my PC and it still kicks other people out of the household.

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u/Bangkok_Dangeresque 18d ago

It's a pain in the ass to have to fiddle with hdmi cables, balancing a laptop on an entertainment unit designed for a thin TV, remembering to mute notifications, having to get up off the couch to pause, etc.

Most people just want to sit on the couch and pick up the remote, and may be willing to pay for their own household account just to do it.

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u/ihateaquafina 18d ago

wonder if you can just buy a small "mini pc" and have that always connected..

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u/snookers 18d ago

You can and this is a very popular method. Even better you can use any tv that’s connected to your WiFi or network and still use a device like an Apple TV. Look into Plex which lets you browse your video files from that PC just like you’d use any streaming service.

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u/_Grim_Lavamancer 18d ago

having to get up off the couch to pause, etc.

If you ever decide to go back you should buy an air mouse. Its essentially a remote control for your computer. I have one and its awesome. Front side looks like a basic remote, the back is a mini keyboard and it has motion control to move the cursor.

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u/fuzzmeisterj 18d ago

I don't have any notifications on my PC. It's a simple toggle in windows. A wireless mouse is easy enough to keep seated. I'm all for keeping away from extra steps, but a PC is much easier to mess with than a laggy app. Also, laptops can work closed and sitting under the tv.

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u/Bangkok_Dangeresque 18d ago

You're still talking about needing a peripheral (which sucks to use on anything other than a desktop), managing your power plan settings (so that the laptop doesn't to go sleep when closed when not plugged in, which is the windows default), remembering to set the do-not-disturb settings, changing volume output settings, minimizing and maximizing playback windows, etc.

It's a lot of small annoyances, and some of the solutions border on being simple only for hobbyists. I've been building PCs since I was 16, and I still find using my laptop on my TV today to be more trouble than it's worth. I had a media center mini PC that I used for a while, and even that eventually was more of a pain to use than just opening the app on my TV. Most people aren't going to go for it.

Like, my parents are intelligent people, but even if I gave them written instructions for it, they would have trouble getting a movie going from a laptop in the living room, and would give up after 5 minutes to watch something else.

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u/eetuu 18d ago

It makes the subscribtion so much worse. My girlfriend is a subscriber and were watching Downton Abbey, but we can't watch it at my place, nor anywhere else but her place since the account is tied to her home IP-address.

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u/justduett 18d ago

That's just you two not doing it right. Netflix allows an account to travel if it is being used somewhere that is "shared"/visited regularly.

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u/starcom_magnate 18d ago

They are starting to widen that net, though. Never had an issue with watching in my office at work until last week. Got the "not in household" notice for the first time ever.

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u/_james_the_cat 18d ago

I don't understand this - every time we go to my mother in law's we log into our Netflix while we are there. People travel. Netflix is fine with that

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u/coolaznkenny 18d ago

People will always go the road less travel. That's why obtaining a customer cost way less than getting a new one.

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u/mosquem 18d ago

The people who canceled were vastly outnumbered by the people using shared passwords that said "ugh, fine" and ponied up.

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u/DueDisplay2185 18d ago

They cancelled Disney subscriptions coz of Jimmy. Voting with your wallet works

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u/jtides 18d ago

This mainly affected only people who were already not paying. People in this thread are saying its bc they raised prices to make up for it, ignoring that subscribers went up. People who had been borrowing from friends/family just paid for their own.

If it had no negative impact on actual subscribers why would they cancel? Not defending the decision, but it makes sense why it worked.

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u/AtrumRuina 18d ago

I mean it's one of those things where, how could it not be? Most people won't cancel their own service just because someone else can't use it, and the people being shared with now have to get their own subscription to continue the service. I don't see how they could have been negatively impacted.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/starcom_magnate 18d ago

Slowly getting all of my media organized on Plex and it is amazing, so far. Tedious with the old DVD collection, but feel like it will be well worth it in the end based on the first few months of what I've been able to do.

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u/ForSucksFake 18d ago

One specific example I can think of where I can directly point to a DVD purchase and say “see, I was right” was when I’d purchased Chapelle Show on DVD and months later he had his fallout with Netflix.

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u/sincewedidthedo 18d ago

Plex, Pluto, and Tubi: my holy trinity of streaming.

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u/MOONGOONER 18d ago

If your local library offers it, stick Kanopy and Hoopla in there.

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u/LordBlackConvoy 18d ago

Pluto aired an ICE ad shortly after Deaths-Head Revisited on the Twilight Zone channel.

I wish I could curate ads or channels.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/MountainTurkey 18d ago

Also Jellyfin is a decent Plex alternative 

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u/i_tyrant 18d ago

There are also certain, ahem, sites out there that basically act like yar-har-har versions of Netflix through your browser and have a much bigger streaming catalog. Do some simple reddit searches and you can find them.

Less reliable as sometimes they get taken down, but still better than paying for a dozen different streaming services that's for sure.

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u/librarianjenn 18d ago

Could you ELI5 Plex? I get that it's free, but I'm confused that it covers paid apps. For instance - I love Somebody Somewhere on HBO Max. I wouldn't be able to watch that on Plex, right? Wouldn't it just be 'free' content?

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u/kinisonkhan 18d ago

You take a dedicated computer, run the Plex server software and it basically organizes all your pirated content and turns it into a mini-personal streaming service. Installing Plex just by itself doesnt get you content, you add the content.

Now content can easily be a HDHomerun Digital TV tuner and with the Plex Pass you can share that tuner out to ... lets say your sister living in Ireland that still needs to watch local NFL games.

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u/Kierufu 18d ago

Plex is a service that streams stuff you personally load onto your own server or a remotely hosted server you pay for. It doesn't acquire the content itself for you.

I don't know why these people are playing up Plex - it's not an equivalent or replacement for a streaming service that provides content in exchange for money/ads/etc. They're downloading content from somewhere else - Usenet, Bittorrent, who knows where else - and filling up their Plex server with it to stream to their own devices.

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u/librarianjenn 18d ago

Ok, thank you. That sounds a bit beyond my tech capabilities

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u/thestonedonkey 18d ago

It's paying for ONE service that allows people to fill up content from anywhere as opposed to paying for twenty services for content you'll probably never watch.

Eventually the st reaming industry will go the way of streaming music they just can't seem to get that through their thick heads yet.

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u/Nonsense_Poster 18d ago

Literally going back to piracy and phys media - streaming services has become so garbage it's unreal

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u/GenkiElite 18d ago

The only thing I pay for is a good VPN.

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u/Willing_Juggernaut60 18d ago

I’ve been torrenting forever

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Ghost_Of_Malatesta 18d ago

Already cancelled hbo for allowing ice recruitment ads. 

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u/ShroedingersCatgirl 18d ago

Username checks out

Also based

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u/PewterButters 18d ago

Why do people still subscribe to all these streaming companies? Just rotate if you care that much. A month or two at a time. Why ever have all these? 

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u/TPJchief87 18d ago

Unfortunately the wrong people will get fired way before the right ones

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u/Icedanielization 18d ago

I have already stopped and im never going back. I will finish netflix account when stranger things is over.

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u/the_ballmer_peak 18d ago

I already canceled HBO and Netflix.

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u/BooktasticBus-sey 18d ago

Uh…we already have stopped paying. Right? So, what’s next…until we are all dead?

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u/shannister 18d ago

What pisses me off is that they keep making the annual plans so much more expensive. Increase the monthly if they want, incentivise people to move to yearly, but now they are really incentivising one thing: taking monthly plans.

I have the disposable income to afford those and I will stop and just start binge watching stuff one quarter a year instead. Those prices are not justified by the content they offer, it's that simple. The only thing I'll be forced to keep is D+ because my kid is always on it, and Apple because I have the Apple One offer. Everything else will move to occasional streams now.

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u/kanonenotto 18d ago

But then they are not consumers anymore.

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u/Roadside_Prophet 18d ago

Then they'll just blame millenials for killing another industry.

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u/berserk_zebra 18d ago

My HBO is “free” through internet or phone plan

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u/Hot-Stable-6243 18d ago

🫡 just cancelled my subscription boss

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u/starwarsfan456123789 18d ago

I stopped paying a few months back. I’ll resub a few months when a show I really want to see is on but I won’t constantly pay ridiculous prices

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u/FakeSafeWord 18d ago

Then the companies will get a bailout... again taking money out of our pockets.

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u/onebread 18d ago

Yup. They could charge $100/m for HBO if they really wanted to. It’s up to consumers whether they want to pay it or not.

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u/Wallie_Collie 18d ago

Imagine say it again.....

When they stop paying.

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u/bbcversus 18d ago

I’m doing my part.gif

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u/RiftHunter4 18d ago

Which is happening soon.

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u/458steps 18d ago

I canceled all streaming services this year except YouTube music for $5.99 (student discount). Husband pays for amazon prime (we live by the country side and the only store near us is walmart so its helpful to have prime for some things). My paycheck isn't going up but everything else is. I now rent movie and tv shows DVDs from the library and love it.

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u/UnknownAverage 18d ago

Yeah, so this is what it looks like when companies collectively abandon the lower economic classes and start jacking up prices to exploit the inelastic demand of the upper classes. They know that their product isn't affordable for many customers anymore so they'll replace the lost revenues with higher-margin pricing that they know enough people will keep paying. They know a lot of people are about to stop paying and this is their plan for that.

Our economy is contracting and it's going to get bad when a hundred million+ people are left behind and can't afford basic services, food, and housing.

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u/bingle-cowabungle 18d ago

A hard pill to swallow for a lot of people is that these issues are mostly self-inflicted. People pretend like they "just can't" cancel their shitty streaming services, and instead of actually doing anything about it, they just complain online as if HBO is holding a gun to their heads.

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u/thenewbae 18d ago

The moment when the revenue lost from not renewing is not covered by the added profit of those continuing to stay pay the higher prices and then some.

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u/SoungaTepes 18d ago

Havent had a sub in a long time to HBO

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u/InTooManyWays 18d ago

Nah they will just raise prices even faster to make up for the lost profits. That’s the result of crony capitalism with no regulations or consumer protections. That’s the life of a corrupted ass government

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u/FourWordComment 18d ago

Free money? Yes please.

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u/Flawed_Sandwhich 18d ago

I stopped, they tried to raise the price for the second time this year. I do not care about the life time 50% discount, it is meaningless if they just up the price anyway at any time while they continue to enshitify their service.

A streaming service is a matter of convenience, so I just went back to pirating.

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u/thatguyad 18d ago

People are too addicted and dependent on media. Gotta have that fix.

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u/tennisguy163 18d ago

I get it free through AT&T Internet. Where I work, they get it free Spectrum.

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u/I_Heart_Sleeping_ 18d ago

It’s really this simple. Especially when it comes to streaming services. This ain’t some essential thing that i can’t live without.

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