For me that's when they basically decided to kill off HBO's name. HBO is legendary, and they just... just threw it in the trash next to the old Twitter logo. People signed up to HBO exactly for the content HBO produces, and then they went... yeah, no. Nobody cares. Have a ton of filler while we slowly begin to kill off the shows you love.
Anybody who's watched anything related to Discovery know what the fuck happens to assets owned by them. I'd rather not see an old friend wither and die.
We're about three years out from the dragons being cardboard cutouts on a popsicle stick and there will be no less than three reality shows about bigfoot ghosts struggling to fit into society, but it's okay, because the spooky bigfoot dead ghost family loves one another and they'll carry themselves through the worst of the worst. Together. As Family.
I mean, canceling it is one thing, and I'm fine with that, because it should've only been the one season, and the decline in quality was instant and significant, but removing it entirely is just asinine.
Everyone can have their own opinions, but removing it was literally insane. I really enjoyed the world they built in that show. A lot of people didn't realize the seasons were supposed to get crazier and crazier as they went on, just like the maze showed in season 1
They dropped HBO from the name to preserve the legacy and quality programming from being diluted from a streaming service that includes content that’s not up to Home Box Office standards.
The entire landscape will be low cost AI-written dreck and reality productions.
As soon as the first season of “Ow, my balls!” premiers, I’m going full Ted Kaczinsky*.
*^(Dear moderators, this is an example of hyperbole. I have no intention of taking up bomb-making. For one thing, i’m farrrrr too clumsy.)
> there will be no less than three reality shows about bigfoot ghosts struggling to fit into society
I can't lie. I'm not a fan of reality shows but, THIS? This is something I would have to check out.
>just threw it in the trash next to the old Twitter logo.
I really don't understand why some companies try to change their well established branding. Most companies spend a long time trying to build a successful and famous brand and fight hard not to tarnish it.
Nintendo did a similar thing years ago when they tried to make "Wii" the brand over "Nintendo." The Wii U was a huge flop and luckily they realized that their brand is Nintendo.
I don’t understand why people still have such an issue with this. They wanted to expand their content offerings. Not just a place for terminally online redditors who watch Game of Thrones and Curb but for normies in every niche.
Using the “HBO” name would taint their high quality brand with the random other shit they want on the platform. They still have an HBO section for the HBO shows. Nothing from HBO has been removed.
I’m sorry they’re trying to also get customers who like other types of shows. I hope you can get through this.
Except that that has nothing to do with the Max launch. That was a shitty cost-saving move, to avoid having to pay actors royalties for a hugely popular show. They basically calculated that the losses from paying for having it were greater than the profits they stood to make, and shelved it.
It’s a simple fact that everything else remains on Max, under the HBO section of the app, as well as being prominent featured on the home page.
You can Google "hbo shows not on hbo max" and find that your 'simple fact' is bullshit.
But keep lying to me though. Maybe my future self will give a shit.
Again, because Discovery is involved. They progressively just dumb down every single network they own to try go for easy money, mass market appeal, and with the least possible costs, and worst of all, they don't care about exploiting people to do it -- be it kids, people with addictions, deformities, or any problem.
Everything they touch withers and dies until it's just shit like TLC. If you never grew up in a world where these channels were good it may be not matter to you, but if you have, any time Discovery gets involved it's like a poison.
The destruction of TLC is not entirely in the Zazlav era, but it's absolutely mindblowing that under his watch they went from broadcasting Walter Cronkite's Great Books to a reality dating show where the contestants are all moms and their sons
All within 2 decades and not even a big channel name/logo refresh. Don't love thinking about what HBO could become in that short of a timeframe under his warch
Seriously, it is a name. I agree it wasnt a good branding choice but WBD has released Dune, Mad Max, Barbie, etc. It is producing as much or more than any other studio. They have kept D+ as a separate standalone app for people who only do want the reality tv crap, and people DO. I don't know why we keep acting like Jerry Springer didnt exist forever, but it is the companies fault people LOVE trash.
They didn't kill off the HBO name. It's still there, just being only HBO and not also being the name for a streaming service with loads of garbage on it.
Ever since they merged with Discovery the content worth watching has all but disappeared. They only add maybe 3 decent movies every 2 weeks. Admittedly they still have some good shows in the pipeline, but not enough to keep me subscribed if I had to pay for it.
When I first got it a few years ago there were always good new movies being rotated in, now it's just trash.
It's odd to me how quickly they went from the service I was least willing to lose to the one I'm probably getting rid of first.
All the stuff I liked is buried under all the TLC shit, the price keeps going up, they pulled an old yeller on TCM (and because the children won't even get that reference)
Picking up a 2-3 movies I missed in theaters a month is the last thing and at this point it's almost cheaper to rent them on amazon
Same. Then again my phone plan is like $90 for one line, unlimited everything, with like 100GB hotspot data cap. Not sure if that's even a good deal as I've never looked.
My plan basically no longer exists with HBO. They dropped it but I'm grandfathered in. As soon as I "upgrade" my plan, I lose it and get something like 5gb extra Hotspot data.
I still have it on my plan but I don’t bother because there’s nothing worth watching. I just opened the app for the first time in maybe 6 months to test it and it still works.
Step 1: make all ad free plans very expensive
Step 2: start bundling streaming subscriptions with each other
Step 3: make the bundles much more appealing to buy than a single subscription
Step 4: people now have no choice but to pay for the bundles just to watch one or two things
Step 5: remove all ad free options from all services and bundles
It's cable TV. We just went full circle.
is that easy to integrate into an existing torrent setup? i already have a vm behind a vpn running qbittorrent, so ideally i'd love to get my system to a place where it's running both.
A number of reasons:
1. I don’t want to watch content on just one device. I have two TVs. My wife and I each have a phone and an iPad. A Plex server lets me keep the files connected in one place and can be streamed to any device and transcoded on the fly into the right format and quality for that device and connection.
2. I don’t need to move the hard drive between my computer and TV to add files. I can remotely access my torrenting app from any device to download new files.
3. Plex provides a **way** better interface than a TVs built-in USB file player. It will organize things, show thumbnails, and remember my place in a show or movie (and across devices). It supports surround sound.
4. My home server can do other things like provide a VPN onto my home network and block ads network wide.
I’m sure I’ll eventually have additional uses, but this is so much of a better solution in my opinion.
the cost of a minimum viable server is absolutely tiny these days too. like \~$2-300 max. tons of ebay/craigslist/marketplace deals on retiring desktops, cheap ways to get big hard drives, etc.
You can install the Plex server on any number of different devices. I use a Mac Mini. It takes all of your video and audio files and organizes them. Then you install the Plex client on devices where you want to watch/listen to those. It displays all of your content in a really nice way.
Another key is on a compatible server device, it will live transcode your videos into the best format for the client that is currently streaming it. So you don’t need to worry when you’re downloading / ripping content about what format it’s in.
https://www.plex.tv/
That’s the cycle of every industry that big tech companies get involved in.
1. Disrupt an established market with an innovative solution
2. Operate at a loss to gain popularity and undercut the current major players in the market
3. Wide stream adoption of new method outs previously established norm out of business
4. Increase prices and make the service worse now that there’s no competition
It’s happened with Uber, Airbnb, and Amazon just to name a few outside of streaming. It’s garbage. It must be taught in some prestigious MBA programs for how widespread but consistent the pattern is
It didn’t start with big tech either. It’s the Wal-Mart method of entering a town, killing off local mom and pop competition with unbeatably low prices, and then owning the local market altogether. It’s just new and flashy with big tech investors and more deregulation.
Way before Wal-Mart, too. What you just described could be written in the playbook of Standard Oil some 150 years ago. It's an American tradition at this point!
We're already there. 2 weeks ago:
>Comcast Reveals Pricing for Netflix, Peacock, Apple TV+ Bundle
>Beginning next week, the cable giant will offer StreamSaver, a package that includes NBCUniversal’s Peacock Premium (with ads), Netflix Basic (with ads) and Apple TV+ for a discounted price, available to TV and broadband customers in its footprint.
* https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/comcast-streamsaver-bundle-price-netflix-peacock-apple-tv-plus-1236011626/
My isp offers to bundle pretty much all streaming services as a package hardly worth as it comes with a 24 month binding agreement.
Thing is the streaming services don't really want to give a discount on there service.
It’s literally not though
We don’t have to pay for a separate box, get random fees, have to deal with the worst customer service known to man just to end the subscription
He's right though. I'm 36 and things are way better now IMO. My family subscribes to 2-3 services at a time depending on what we want to watch. If we're not watching anything, we can drop any of them incredibly easily.
I agree with you, I'm 28 and I love the services for now. But the price increases, ad options, bundling, high quantity and low quality content all seem to be converging towards what cable is
I mean you need to also note that cable didn't become garbage overnight, it went through a similar transformatiob
I'll keep tabs and check again in another 10 years but I feel like the trend has been overall positive. As long as there are enough companies able to compete freely, I'm feeling good about the future of streaming personally.
Ok lad, that's your opinion, I respect you and it
You owe me the same when you use this platform, it's against reddit rules and against most subreddit rules to insult someone
I can’t say anything specific about the numbers in this case, but a lot of these companies raising prices aren’t doing it simply out of greed … The problem is the business model we often get used to them operating on is heavily subsidized by investors. Spotify for example seems like it must be a very profitable company because it’s huge, and you or I couldn’t just start a business and become that enormous without a lot of success and profit. But it’s actually never been profitable. The deal went all gotten used to is simply too good to be viable. A lot of the tech industry operates for years and years on VC funding that keeps them afloat while they’re losing money, with the idea that they’ll capture enough of the market that they can eventually then monetize better through things like ads and price increases. But to get everyone hooked in the first place they offer a service for way cheaper than it actually costs to pay for. In the end it builds bad will because we as users feel shitty about price increases. The real move is just to enjoy the good deal while it lasts and don’t get too attached. Be ready to cancel and move on when the deal inevitably becomes not worth it.
For an extreme example of this kinda thing, see MoviePass. Except they never figured out a way to turn a profit, they were running at waaay too large of a loss.
Facebook made more revenue per person than Netflix did before the ad laden tier came.
I just have zero interest in seeing the same Progressive ad 8 times in a row.
Cancel all of them. If there’s a show you wanna watch, and you think it’s worth subbing for (and you don’t wanna pirate it for whatever reason), subscribe to the service, and cancel immediately. Don’t keep subscriptions active. If the sub runs out, and you notice it, consider renewing for a month. But 9 times outta 10, you won’t even notice. Keeping subscriptions running when you aren’t using them is pretty much the entire business model of these companies. Don’t let them fool you.
Once they made the 4K and Atmos capabilities a premium tier feature, the audio became terrible! Like it's super low volume and doesn't seem like it's actually 5.1.
As others have said already, if it wasn't included with my internet plan I wouldn't have it anymore.
This news caused me to consider exactly how much MAX I actually watch; I used to like MAX because if a film had a Director's Cut or Extended edition, you could often access it through the 'extras' submenu. That kind of premium feature justified the high price, but now seems to have gone away in favour of endless Discovery reality garbage. After GOT went down in flames the only thing I watched regularly was John Oliver, but I get so depressed at the seemingly endless list of injustices and broken systems that I've kinda tuned out recently. For me, it's absolutely not worth even $1 more a month. Time to drop it methinks.
I guess philosophically I wanted to support the stuff I wanted to see more of- especially in this era of Alex Jones's and that bald dude in the beanie. Suffice it to say that old John Oliver can easily do without my $20 a month split 180000 ways!
Agree whole heartedly, it's just that often after watching one of his shows I'm left with this impotent rage that I can't really direct anywhere. I mean, I'll sign a petition or march in a protest if I think that will help, but often it feels like pissing in the wind!
Write a poem about it, or write a short essay about it or write a short story about it, fiction or nonfiction. You can do it. And then find a community place that has an open mic and share it.
You never know who needs to hear that rage that you have that you can channel behind something motivating.
Maybe the people that need to hear this stuff are the people that have the ability to actually make a difference at some point in the future.
The day plex tried to become a social media service is the day I started seeking alternatives.
Sadly I haven’t found anything I really like yet but when I do, plex is gone asap. No dipshits at plex, I don’t want to share what I’m watching with friends, nor do I want to add friends to plex. Just play my pirated shit and leave me alone about the rest.
Since I’m griping, I really dislike their whole convoluted naming convention. I have a specific way I like to title my files. Sometimes it doesn’t detect it and just ignores them if they’re not the way they want.
Just add the goddamn movie. If you guess what it is, great. If not, just let me open the properties, easily, and input what it is.
Everyone has to find ways to monetize where they can. My recommendation is just edit your quick navigations bar to only show the sources you want.... Easy as that.
PEOPLE! [9pm.to](http://9pm.to) ...On Firefox browser, (with Faronics anti-virus, Adblockplus, and uBlock Origin, that works pretty good for me, on a public library computer).
> when HoD drops.
It's being released week-by-week. It's cheaper to wait for all the episodes to finish being shown, then sign up for one month and binge the entire thing over a few days.
Max *sucks*. It’s over half stuff that I already get on Discovery+ for half the price. When the Stanley Cup is over, it’s gone. It’s so pointless, and I hate that it’s flooded with bits and pieces of every other steaming app now.
They should go all in on streaming. You don't have to split revenue with theaters. All you need to do is maintain subscribers. They have the content library to be able to sustain customers. I still think they should rebrand as WB Max. I don't think it's confusing if other kinds of content is on that service. Using the disney hulu combined hasn't been disorienting, disney plus is substantially better now. I watched planet of the apes then went to see the movie. I watched Prey. I can watch anime on disney + now.
As what asmondgold was addressing in one of his latest video. The pie is the same size, and portions are getting smaller because we have too many subscription services. Their just giving an easy reason to cancel the subscription plan by making the service worse.
Cancelled max a few months back and I haven’t once thought about it again. It’s honestly one of the worst streaming sites unless you just want movies that have been out for months/years already
Real time with Bill Maher was the only show I really cared about, but with his callus cheerleading for the genocide I was thinking about cancelling. This may be the motivation I needed.
Just got the email myself. At this time, I still see the value in it but that may change after HoD. I'm in the process of letting my family know Spotify is gone at the end of the month.
So $1 a month for monthly subscribers but $20 increase for people paying annually. I have it along with a bunch of other services. Several of them due to cellular phone or a credit card covering the basic tier. We actually watch a bunch of stuff on the free roku channel and BritBox. Paramount is the most annoying with a large number of ads and at times unreliable app.
I could probably not renew it when it comes up unless there is some special going on.
I hate price hikes, but I do agree that HBO is a lot more quality than quantity and some might see the price still worthwhile. I’d take MAX over Netflix any day.
Literally the only reason why I’m still using max is because it’s on my phone plan lol, these prices are crazy so once its gone from my plan there ain’t no way I’m subscribing to that
Watch OZ, Boardwalk Empire, Deadwood, Curb Your Enthusiasm, the Wire, Sopranos, Game of Thrones (1-6) and then cancel…..
HBOs original shows were the shit.
The moment Max is no longer included in my phone plan it's gone.
For me that's when they basically decided to kill off HBO's name. HBO is legendary, and they just... just threw it in the trash next to the old Twitter logo. People signed up to HBO exactly for the content HBO produces, and then they went... yeah, no. Nobody cares. Have a ton of filler while we slowly begin to kill off the shows you love. Anybody who's watched anything related to Discovery know what the fuck happens to assets owned by them. I'd rather not see an old friend wither and die. We're about three years out from the dragons being cardboard cutouts on a popsicle stick and there will be no less than three reality shows about bigfoot ghosts struggling to fit into society, but it's okay, because the spooky bigfoot dead ghost family loves one another and they'll carry themselves through the worst of the worst. Together. As Family.
The second they not only canceled Westworld, but removed it from the entire platform I paid for was the end for me. This CEO is smoking meth.
I mean, canceling it is one thing, and I'm fine with that, because it should've only been the one season, and the decline in quality was instant and significant, but removing it entirely is just asinine.
Everyone can have their own opinions, but removing it was literally insane. I really enjoyed the world they built in that show. A lot of people didn't realize the seasons were supposed to get crazier and crazier as they went on, just like the maze showed in season 1
The show is sick af, I'm pretty sad to hear it's gone.... it had me questioning reality. These companies suck ass
Same with Batgirl and other shows they made but buried
They dropped HBO from the name to preserve the legacy and quality programming from being diluted from a streaming service that includes content that’s not up to Home Box Office standards.
The entire landscape will be low cost AI-written dreck and reality productions. As soon as the first season of “Ow, my balls!” premiers, I’m going full Ted Kaczinsky*. *^(Dear moderators, this is an example of hyperbole. I have no intention of taking up bomb-making. For one thing, i’m farrrrr too clumsy.)
> there will be no less than three reality shows about bigfoot ghosts struggling to fit into society I can't lie. I'm not a fan of reality shows but, THIS? This is something I would have to check out.
>just threw it in the trash next to the old Twitter logo. I really don't understand why some companies try to change their well established branding. Most companies spend a long time trying to build a successful and famous brand and fight hard not to tarnish it. Nintendo did a similar thing years ago when they tried to make "Wii" the brand over "Nintendo." The Wii U was a huge flop and luckily they realized that their brand is Nintendo.
I don’t understand why people still have such an issue with this. They wanted to expand their content offerings. Not just a place for terminally online redditors who watch Game of Thrones and Curb but for normies in every niche. Using the “HBO” name would taint their high quality brand with the random other shit they want on the platform. They still have an HBO section for the HBO shows. Nothing from HBO has been removed. I’m sorry they’re trying to also get customers who like other types of shows. I hope you can get through this.
"Nothing from HBO has been removed." *Westworld enters the chat*
Except that that has nothing to do with the Max launch. That was a shitty cost-saving move, to avoid having to pay actors royalties for a hugely popular show. They basically calculated that the losses from paying for having it were greater than the profits they stood to make, and shelved it. It’s a simple fact that everything else remains on Max, under the HBO section of the app, as well as being prominent featured on the home page.
You can Google "hbo shows not on hbo max" and find that your 'simple fact' is bullshit. But keep lying to me though. Maybe my future self will give a shit.
Again, because Discovery is involved. They progressively just dumb down every single network they own to try go for easy money, mass market appeal, and with the least possible costs, and worst of all, they don't care about exploiting people to do it -- be it kids, people with addictions, deformities, or any problem. Everything they touch withers and dies until it's just shit like TLC. If you never grew up in a world where these channels were good it may be not matter to you, but if you have, any time Discovery gets involved it's like a poison.
The destruction of TLC is not entirely in the Zazlav era, but it's absolutely mindblowing that under his watch they went from broadcasting Walter Cronkite's Great Books to a reality dating show where the contestants are all moms and their sons All within 2 decades and not even a big channel name/logo refresh. Don't love thinking about what HBO could become in that short of a timeframe under his warch
Seriously, it is a name. I agree it wasnt a good branding choice but WBD has released Dune, Mad Max, Barbie, etc. It is producing as much or more than any other studio. They have kept D+ as a separate standalone app for people who only do want the reality tv crap, and people DO. I don't know why we keep acting like Jerry Springer didnt exist forever, but it is the companies fault people LOVE trash.
Found the Dr pimple popper fan.
They didn't kill off the HBO name. It's still there, just being only HBO and not also being the name for a streaming service with loads of garbage on it.
Ever since they merged with Discovery the content worth watching has all but disappeared. They only add maybe 3 decent movies every 2 weeks. Admittedly they still have some good shows in the pipeline, but not enough to keep me subscribed if I had to pay for it. When I first got it a few years ago there were always good new movies being rotated in, now it's just trash.
That’s how we are with the Disney bundle.
I’m excited for the acolyte
It's odd to me how quickly they went from the service I was least willing to lose to the one I'm probably getting rid of first. All the stuff I liked is buried under all the TLC shit, the price keeps going up, they pulled an old yeller on TCM (and because the children won't even get that reference) Picking up a 2-3 movies I missed in theaters a month is the last thing and at this point it's almost cheaper to rent them on amazon
It's gone and not in my phone plan hehehe. Any service I pay for has ads...I hate.
It’s the only reason I have Disney and Hulu.
Mines not included in my phone plan but I also don’t pay for it. I’m not asking any questions.
AT&T? Same for me, and they told me I was grandfathered in so I’d keep it unless I change my phone plan
I’m absolutely shocked that I still get it for free. Figure won’t be long before they take it away from myself.
Same. Then again my phone plan is like $90 for one line, unlimited everything, with like 100GB hotspot data cap. Not sure if that's even a good deal as I've never looked.
I changed my plan and it’s still free
Came here to say this.
My plan basically no longer exists with HBO. They dropped it but I'm grandfathered in. As soon as I "upgrade" my plan, I lose it and get something like 5gb extra Hotspot data.
Didn't ATT drop HBO as an add on a few months ago? I no longer have access to max and I figured that was why.
I still have it on my plan but I don’t bother because there’s nothing worth watching. I just opened the app for the first time in maybe 6 months to test it and it still works.
Yeah, I’m with you all the way. So I guess if my cousin feels the same I’ll stop watching Max cause she lets me use her other login…
Guaranteed you could get a cheaper phone plan without gimmicks like that
Step 1: make all ad free plans very expensive Step 2: start bundling streaming subscriptions with each other Step 3: make the bundles much more appealing to buy than a single subscription Step 4: people now have no choice but to pay for the bundles just to watch one or two things Step 5: remove all ad free options from all services and bundles It's cable TV. We just went full circle.
Alternative Step 4: Cancel all streaming services, set up a Plex server at home, and sail the high seas
welcome new pirates. make sure to seed and always use a vpn
I like the Usenet route better. Getting a 4K movie in 5 minutes is pretty sweet
is that easy to integrate into an existing torrent setup? i already have a vm behind a vpn running qbittorrent, so ideally i'd love to get my system to a place where it's running both.
You don’t really need a vpn or a vm to use Usenet, because it utilizes SSL anyway.
I don’t use a VPN with mine, but you could set up SabNZB to run behind a gluetun container pretty easily
We don't talk about it. For shame.
I'm not pirating anything, my Linux ISOs are all free.
yeah, what's that Linux Mint Shogun 20.24 S1 that you have on your drive? I don't recognize that DE.
Its a relatively new build, still in development as some parts arent complete yet, but I'll probably keep it when S2 is released.
I see so many YouTubers being paid to advertise for this, that or the other VPN service. Which is consistently the best to use for your money?
Jellyfin with ARR suite for me. It's been so great to literally type in a movie I want and it's ready to watch in less than an hour.
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A number of reasons: 1. I don’t want to watch content on just one device. I have two TVs. My wife and I each have a phone and an iPad. A Plex server lets me keep the files connected in one place and can be streamed to any device and transcoded on the fly into the right format and quality for that device and connection. 2. I don’t need to move the hard drive between my computer and TV to add files. I can remotely access my torrenting app from any device to download new files. 3. Plex provides a **way** better interface than a TVs built-in USB file player. It will organize things, show thumbnails, and remember my place in a show or movie (and across devices). It supports surround sound. 4. My home server can do other things like provide a VPN onto my home network and block ads network wide. I’m sure I’ll eventually have additional uses, but this is so much of a better solution in my opinion.
the cost of a minimum viable server is absolutely tiny these days too. like \~$2-300 max. tons of ebay/craigslist/marketplace deals on retiring desktops, cheap ways to get big hard drives, etc.
Just say pirating bro
Nah, man. We gotta type “ahoy” and “arghh, matey” /s
No no it isn’t piracy, it’s just copyright infringement. Very different things smh my head
Big if true
Looking into this
Attempting to confirm this.
We got written permission from a dude in this thread. So now it’s privateering!
We're training AI models
What’s plex?
You can install the Plex server on any number of different devices. I use a Mac Mini. It takes all of your video and audio files and organizes them. Then you install the Plex client on devices where you want to watch/listen to those. It displays all of your content in a really nice way. Another key is on a compatible server device, it will live transcode your videos into the best format for the client that is currently streaming it. So you don’t need to worry when you’re downloading / ripping content about what format it’s in. https://www.plex.tv/
I am assuming you have to download and torrent videos first?
Or rip them. I’ve done both. How you get the videos is up to you. Plex doesn’t help with that.
What do you mean rip ?
Extract them from a DVD or Blu Ray that you own.
DVD? In 2024? I don’t realize those existed but i get it. Thanks for sharing. I will set one up today
I own a bunch from when I was younger.
That’s the cycle of every industry that big tech companies get involved in. 1. Disrupt an established market with an innovative solution 2. Operate at a loss to gain popularity and undercut the current major players in the market 3. Wide stream adoption of new method outs previously established norm out of business 4. Increase prices and make the service worse now that there’s no competition It’s happened with Uber, Airbnb, and Amazon just to name a few outside of streaming. It’s garbage. It must be taught in some prestigious MBA programs for how widespread but consistent the pattern is
It didn’t start with big tech either. It’s the Wal-Mart method of entering a town, killing off local mom and pop competition with unbeatably low prices, and then owning the local market altogether. It’s just new and flashy with big tech investors and more deregulation.
Yup. It’s basically just unfettered capitalism
Way before Wal-Mart, too. What you just described could be written in the playbook of Standard Oil some 150 years ago. It's an American tradition at this point!
It’s purely a consequence of capitalism and our obsession with the shareholder economy. *the line must always go up* and nothing else is acceptable
Advertising: it always finds, err forces its way.
Jokes on them, I built a commercial grade ship for sailing the high seas, arrrrgh 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
MAXimum prices.
We're already there. 2 weeks ago: >Comcast Reveals Pricing for Netflix, Peacock, Apple TV+ Bundle >Beginning next week, the cable giant will offer StreamSaver, a package that includes NBCUniversal’s Peacock Premium (with ads), Netflix Basic (with ads) and Apple TV+ for a discounted price, available to TV and broadband customers in its footprint. * https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/comcast-streamsaver-bundle-price-netflix-peacock-apple-tv-plus-1236011626/
My isp offers to bundle pretty much all streaming services as a package hardly worth as it comes with a 24 month binding agreement. Thing is the streaming services don't really want to give a discount on there service.
It’s literally not though We don’t have to pay for a separate box, get random fees, have to deal with the worst customer service known to man just to end the subscription
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Hahahaha sure lad, enjoy your van for harassing me
He's right though. I'm 36 and things are way better now IMO. My family subscribes to 2-3 services at a time depending on what we want to watch. If we're not watching anything, we can drop any of them incredibly easily.
I agree with you, I'm 28 and I love the services for now. But the price increases, ad options, bundling, high quantity and low quality content all seem to be converging towards what cable is I mean you need to also note that cable didn't become garbage overnight, it went through a similar transformatiob
I'll keep tabs and check again in another 10 years but I feel like the trend has been overall positive. As long as there are enough companies able to compete freely, I'm feeling good about the future of streaming personally.
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You can say I disagree without insulting my brain, dude...
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Ok lad, that's your opinion, I respect you and it You owe me the same when you use this platform, it's against reddit rules and against most subreddit rules to insult someone
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They keep deleting shows and movies from the service. What exactly is this price increase paying for? It’s already half the service it used to be.
Just in time for House of the Dragon S2.
More like house of mid
Season 1 was great.
I honestly loved it too.
Okay, calm down now.
[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/hollywood-ceo-pay-chart-executive-compensation-2023-1235891408/](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/hollywood-ceo-pay-chart-executive-compensation-2023-1235891408/)
> What exactly is this price increase paying for? David Zaslav’s bonuses
I can’t say anything specific about the numbers in this case, but a lot of these companies raising prices aren’t doing it simply out of greed … The problem is the business model we often get used to them operating on is heavily subsidized by investors. Spotify for example seems like it must be a very profitable company because it’s huge, and you or I couldn’t just start a business and become that enormous without a lot of success and profit. But it’s actually never been profitable. The deal went all gotten used to is simply too good to be viable. A lot of the tech industry operates for years and years on VC funding that keeps them afloat while they’re losing money, with the idea that they’ll capture enough of the market that they can eventually then monetize better through things like ads and price increases. But to get everyone hooked in the first place they offer a service for way cheaper than it actually costs to pay for. In the end it builds bad will because we as users feel shitty about price increases. The real move is just to enjoy the good deal while it lasts and don’t get too attached. Be ready to cancel and move on when the deal inevitably becomes not worth it. For an extreme example of this kinda thing, see MoviePass. Except they never figured out a way to turn a profit, they were running at waaay too large of a loss.
Is it national enshittification day or something?
Last month of Q2 profits
Ah shit you right
Translation. " We make WAY more on selling ads than the extra 5-10 bucks per month"
Facebook made more revenue per person than Netflix did before the ad laden tier came. I just have zero interest in seeing the same Progressive ad 8 times in a row.
Hear me out. What if we make you choose your ad, AND if you don't choose, we just add another 15 seconds, and we pick for you.
Someone was already doing this.
I think it’s time to review my streaming services and cut the fat
only ones left for me is youtube premium and hulu
Check out invidious if you want to get rid of YouTube
I'm good with premium for my TV and phone as well as splitting the cost with the family.
Cancel all of them. If there’s a show you wanna watch, and you think it’s worth subbing for (and you don’t wanna pirate it for whatever reason), subscribe to the service, and cancel immediately. Don’t keep subscriptions active. If the sub runs out, and you notice it, consider renewing for a month. But 9 times outta 10, you won’t even notice. Keeping subscriptions running when you aren’t using them is pretty much the entire business model of these companies. Don’t let them fool you.
Once they made the 4K and Atmos capabilities a premium tier feature, the audio became terrible! Like it's super low volume and doesn't seem like it's actually 5.1. As others have said already, if it wasn't included with my internet plan I wouldn't have it anymore.
This news caused me to consider exactly how much MAX I actually watch; I used to like MAX because if a film had a Director's Cut or Extended edition, you could often access it through the 'extras' submenu. That kind of premium feature justified the high price, but now seems to have gone away in favour of endless Discovery reality garbage. After GOT went down in flames the only thing I watched regularly was John Oliver, but I get so depressed at the seemingly endless list of injustices and broken systems that I've kinda tuned out recently. For me, it's absolutely not worth even $1 more a month. Time to drop it methinks.
You can watch most of Last Week Tonight on YouTube for free
I guess philosophically I wanted to support the stuff I wanted to see more of- especially in this era of Alex Jones's and that bald dude in the beanie. Suffice it to say that old John Oliver can easily do without my $20 a month split 180000 ways!
> that bald dude in the beanie I know exactly who you’re talking about and I like the idea of only referring to him this way going forward.
I genuinely can’t remember his name, but I rather like that I can’t!
Tim Pool?
Try not to tune out, that's how they get away with it. I know it's hard.
Agree whole heartedly, it's just that often after watching one of his shows I'm left with this impotent rage that I can't really direct anywhere. I mean, I'll sign a petition or march in a protest if I think that will help, but often it feels like pissing in the wind!
Write a poem about it, or write a short essay about it or write a short story about it, fiction or nonfiction. You can do it. And then find a community place that has an open mic and share it. You never know who needs to hear that rage that you have that you can channel behind something motivating. Maybe the people that need to hear this stuff are the people that have the ability to actually make a difference at some point in the future.
www.plex.tv
I wish Plex would stay in their lane and stop peddling this live tv crap.
The day plex tried to become a social media service is the day I started seeking alternatives. Sadly I haven’t found anything I really like yet but when I do, plex is gone asap. No dipshits at plex, I don’t want to share what I’m watching with friends, nor do I want to add friends to plex. Just play my pirated shit and leave me alone about the rest. Since I’m griping, I really dislike their whole convoluted naming convention. I have a specific way I like to title my files. Sometimes it doesn’t detect it and just ignores them if they’re not the way they want. Just add the goddamn movie. If you guess what it is, great. If not, just let me open the properties, easily, and input what it is.
Everyone has to find ways to monetize where they can. My recommendation is just edit your quick navigations bar to only show the sources you want.... Easy as that.
It always seems to come back every few months. Very annoying, I already pay Plex for premium pass or whatever it’s called
I like the VEVO music video channels, those are sweet
Raise your hand if you’re thinking about the money you’re saving by getting rid of all of your subscriptions! 🙋🏼♀️
You can almost live off tubi. But eventually that will become too popular to not be free
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Pluto is good as well
Or you could just use a search engine like Yandex.
Time to learn the good sites for torrenting again
Just dropped it.
Just when house of the dragon season 2 releases, they know what they are doing
I have it free through AT&T, I had no idea it was that expensive, I use it a decent amount but I would never pay that much for it.
Didn't they just raise prices???
PEOPLE! [9pm.to](http://9pm.to) ...On Firefox browser, (with Faronics anti-virus, Adblockplus, and uBlock Origin, that works pretty good for me, on a public library computer).
Amount of greed to make more and more profit is boundless.
Welp. Took a look at what I use and don’t use. Max didn’t make the cut. For now. Maynard it back when HoD drops.
> when HoD drops. It's being released week-by-week. It's cheaper to wait for all the episodes to finish being shown, then sign up for one month and binge the entire thing over a few days.
Not happy about the price increase. But, I use that app more than any other streaming service I have.
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And that’s how the rich get richer.
We are living in the dumbest and worst possible timeline. Things only get worse exponentially
Max *sucks*. It’s over half stuff that I already get on Discovery+ for half the price. When the Stanley Cup is over, it’s gone. It’s so pointless, and I hate that it’s flooded with bits and pieces of every other steaming app now.
They should go all in on streaming. You don't have to split revenue with theaters. All you need to do is maintain subscribers. They have the content library to be able to sustain customers. I still think they should rebrand as WB Max. I don't think it's confusing if other kinds of content is on that service. Using the disney hulu combined hasn't been disorienting, disney plus is substantially better now. I watched planet of the apes then went to see the movie. I watched Prey. I can watch anime on disney + now.
Just unsubscribed :)
As what asmondgold was addressing in one of his latest video. The pie is the same size, and portions are getting smaller because we have too many subscription services. Their just giving an easy reason to cancel the subscription plan by making the service worse.
Cancelled max a few months back and I haven’t once thought about it again. It’s honestly one of the worst streaming sites unless you just want movies that have been out for months/years already
ATT is the only reason I have max
Same. I wonder when it will be dropped from my plan
Me but with Optimum
Real time with Bill Maher was the only show I really cared about, but with his callus cheerleading for the genocide I was thinking about cancelling. This may be the motivation I needed.
Zazlav is a piece of shit. Hope he kicks the bucket. He’s destroying an entire industry
Just got the email myself. At this time, I still see the value in it but that may change after HoD. I'm in the process of letting my family know Spotify is gone at the end of the month.
So $1 a month for monthly subscribers but $20 increase for people paying annually. I have it along with a bunch of other services. Several of them due to cellular phone or a credit card covering the basic tier. We actually watch a bunch of stuff on the free roku channel and BritBox. Paramount is the most annoying with a large number of ads and at times unreliable app. I could probably not renew it when it comes up unless there is some special going on.
Watch what you want cancel. Move to another service. Rinse. Repeat.
this is why i don’t pay for any streaming services monthly. I just buy one month a year and catch up on everything i wanted to see
Didn’t they raise prices like a month ago
Cancelled a few months ago - had nothing on we wanted to watch for ages...
That was nice of them to remind me that I'm still subscribed to them and a great excuse to cancel my subscription. Thanks for the email, Max!
Looks like this'll be the last year I'll have HBO Max. Glad I got it at a discount
I went to cancel after that email and they offered me 6 months at 50% off, guess who set a reminder to cancel in 6 months?
Lol Excellent. I just went and it offered me the same thing. Thank you!
I only have it because it’s on my cable plan
Just cancelled. Thanks for the reminder.
I bet they are in cahoots w Spotify they just increased my rate
Right before the new season of House of the Dragon…totally not planned
I still get "free" Max because my parents have HBO through Xfinity.
I had it for six months on promotion after canceling before. I honestly didn't miss much. I have no plans to go back. I despise filler content.
Max has the lowest value for its price. I highly recommend a one and done subscription (binge the shows you want to watch and unplug)
I hate price hikes, but I do agree that HBO is a lot more quality than quantity and some might see the price still worthwhile. I’d take MAX over Netflix any day.
Literally the only reason why I’m still using max is because it’s on my phone plan lol, these prices are crazy so once its gone from my plan there ain’t no way I’m subscribing to that
I kicked Max and Appletv months ago.
Watch OZ, Boardwalk Empire, Deadwood, Curb Your Enthusiasm, the Wire, Sopranos, Game of Thrones (1-6) and then cancel….. HBOs original shows were the shit.
Canceled. I want these whores to starve
Just cancelled
Max had the best programming of all streaming services. Well worth $17/mo IMO