One thing that bothers me personally is that nowadays everything is a membership, but what bothers me most about the subscription model is the fact that the price goes up and up indefinitely and many people really don’t mind paying $2 or more a month.
I mean, let’s take for example the case of Netflix (I know the image is old, but I couldn’t find anything better), where it went from costing $7.99 in 2014 a month to $15.99 in 2019, literally double, and it will surely keep going up and up, if this trend continues and it surely will soon people will be paying $30 a month without any problem.
I understand that a market like Netflix (to follow the initial example) is an expensive market to maintain, both for equipment, staff and licenses and it is obvious that the economy is not the same in 2014 as it was in 2019, but how are people ok knowing that the price doubled in 5 years? If that continues in 2024 the price would be $30, and if it was people would still be fine paying it.
I don’t use Netflix but I understand why people use it, both because of the recommendation algorithm and the simplicity, but damn, if in a year they say they are going to raise the price $5 a month people would be happy to pay it and I don’t understand it, much less those who pay several memberships of the same type (Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, etc).
I canceled Netflix when their model shifted to “focus on original tv shows that we cancel after two seasons. I canceled HBO when they became Max. I guess I get Apple TV for free but I hate their programming so idk. Right now I get Disney and Hulu through my phone plan and pay for a Prime membership because Amazon and COVID basically killed B&M shopping where I live.
I only see my subscriptions decreasing in the future and I plan to focus more on reading and physical media.
There was an interesting development on this front with Disney, who’s also jacking up prices. They had a package dispute with Spectrum, one of the largest cable providers in America. Basically, Disney wants to protect their walled garden of Disney+ so they were asking a ridiculous cut from Spectrum, who didn’t want to pay up that match.
The compromise they came to was that Spectrum customers would only get the basic Holy Rodent Empire channels (Disney Channel, ESPN, maybe a couple others), but Spectrum customers then get access to a discounted rate on a Disney+ subscription. The specifics aren’t out yet, but it looks like it will apply to the ad tier of Disney+.
Which says to me, the trajectory is for these services to become a sort of adjunct to cable, a replacement for on demand. Wouldn’t surprise me if the log-ins and interfaces start getting bundled into the cable boxes or router/modem boxes. Of course, it also wouldn’t surprise me if the net cost ends up being greater for consumers.
Cannot imagine using TV subscriptions in 2023. It’s the easiest thing in the world to pirate and none of what you would be paying is actually going to the people who made it
I don’t think people feel good about it. It does seem like people put up with it, though, which is pretty confusing.
I’m honestly surprised with people paying the extra fee for sharing a Netflix account more than anything.
I guess I understand although that doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s dumb either, I mean, if I’m not wrong (please correct me if I am) it’s necessary to have one of the most expensive subscriptions to be able to share, it seems silly to me, that means I strictly need to know someone pays those expensive subscriptions to save a little bit.
Sorry who feels good about this exactly?
Oops, I didn’t mean to generalize, although I admit I did it by mistake.
I don’t mean that most users of subscription services see that now they are going to pay more for the same service and celebrate, but that many times they either don’t know (or don’t care, maybe they can afford it) or they don’t do anything, I mean, I know that as users we can’t do anything but how is it possible that most people agree with that? I guess the extra value does not exceed having to migrate services, recommendations, learn something new, etc.
I think a lot of people have it as a reoccurring bill on their credit card and don’t pay attention to it.
I budget and reconcile my family’s shit every month, but I think that’s relatively rare lol.
Sunk cost analogue where if you pay 10 bucks, you don’t notice them so you renegotiating with yourself 5 bucks increase as a new purchase, not the whole price.
I’m more puzzled by people watching shows on repeat who don’t torrent them and stick a usb into telly
Setting up plex is somewhat involved, you need at least nas, big hdd and some juggling around.
That’s a good point, I guess people don’t mind an occasional $1 or $2 increase but if they were told all of a sudden that the price was going to go up a lot they would leave and especially for many people who are already used to a certain service it’s very hard to leave.
You’ll understand it when you realise that capitalism doesn’t just encourage pursuing profit, it encourages pursuing growth.
The “profit” being pursued under capitalism is not the profit of the company itself but instead the profit of the capital-owners with a stake in the company. These people make their profit not from the company being in the black but by the company GROWING. Thus meaning it increases its overall value on the capital markets.
Companies eventually reach a saturation point at which their growth in terms of customers hits a peak, they have acquired all of the customers and aren’t likely to acquire more. When this growth avenue closes they must turn to others to continue “growing” the value of the business for the investor class. This is achieved through measures like cost cutting, reducing staff, and installing incredibly bullshit monetisation schemes that either succeed or kill entire businesses in their attempt to continue their growth.
It has nothing to do with “expensive market to maintain”. They aren’t doing it because they need more money. They do it because they need more growth.
This is also the reason every game you play and liked once upon a time is progressively going more and more to shit.
amazon prime has gotten 75% more expensive since I first paid for it as a teenager
I’m so goddamn sick of everything in this world being a fucking subscription. I want to buy software once and be done with it. Anything these neolib sickos can apply a monthly fee to, they will.
I’ve started building a 100+Tb media server project and been pirating things in 4k. Also, just discovered repack games. Haven’t been enjoying starfield tbh, so I’m pretty happy I didn’t buy it.
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I dont know that theu feel good about it per se, I think these prices are set carefully at the upper limits of people’s begrudging indifference
People consume slop and become too lazy to explore alternatives. The only subscription I have is to a gym and some orgs as monthly donations. I cannot imagine being the rube who’s paying $50 a month for 6 different streaming services.
I only ever watch things on live.hexbear.net, lovingly referred to as hextube.
My fundamental problem with Netflix isn’t that it’s $20/mo for streaming TV/movies. Its that Netflix has gone from the single bulk distributor of streaming content to one of at least half a dozen “good(ish)” services that also all want to charge $20/mo. When they had the full Disney/Marvel list plus a bunch of self-published anime plus indie dramas plus a huge back catalog, I was fine with it. But now I’m just going to pirate, because over half of what I use Netflix for is gone.
What’s really got me in a lather is streaming sports, which has functionally become all subscription services that are even more expensive than Netflix. Fuck you, YouTube. I’m not paying $60/mo for sports. It’s practically cheaper to get tickets to the actual games.
And with sports, at least, its much harder to find live streams that aren’t scams or walls of ads or abysmally low grade streams. That’s the one thing I can’t pirate, so I’ve fallen off watching entirely.
Which really sucks, when your team is in the playoffs.
Edit: Seriously, fuck this shit.
How to get content without breaking the bank and without needing to become more tech literate:
- Open your relationship or otherwise change to ethical non-monogamy
- Collect dates/partners
- Keep going until one or more of them knows how to acquire content and share it with you for free
Joking because it takes a lot of work/learning/research to do the ethical part of ethical non-monogamy. Learning to sail the seas would be easier.
