Netflix is planning to raise prices… again

Number1SummerJam@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 1108 points –
Netflix is planning to raise prices... again
theverge.com
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Definitely don't go to fmhy.net and definitly don't join the !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com community. Also don't visit torrentgalaxy.to, 1337x.to or solidtorrents.to. You probably also wouldn't want to check out rutracker.org or therarbg.com.

Saving your comment to remember what sites to avoid.

I posted another comment with a ton of useful media sources to avoid. You might want to save that comment as well.

Please do not do this. It's illegal and you could end up getting free movies and tv shows.

It'd be a damn shame if you accidently downloaded cloudstream, an android app that allows you to download and watch offline, or just stream nearly any show or movie. I wouldn't recommend the super stream source, as it almost always has a version available. Also, just in case, maybe don't download tachiyomi to allow you to read any comics, manga, or graphic novels you want. It also has shitloads of hentai and pulls from almost every website imaginable.

And avoid Anna's archive, as it has tons of ebooks which might(I'm not a lawyer) actually just be legal?

And definitely avoid libgen and scihub, lest you accidentally learn something new without paying the exorbitant fees.

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You absolutely should not subscribe to a VPN before not visiting any of those sites. I can't recommend www.privateinternetaccess.com or www.expressvpn.com at all, clearly having never used them. They're also useless for circumventing cell network limitations on video quality. Completely useless, otherwise I'd use them to subscribe to a cheaper lower data tier but still get 4k video.

Also, stay away from usenet and definitely don't use the arr apps to automatically download your favorite shows and movies.

Any guide on how to find the usenet groups? I'd hate to stumble upon them accidentally, so it's best to be prepared.

https://old.reddit.com/r/usenet/wiki/faq

You'll need one or more indexers to find content. Keep an eye on that sub for when some of the good ones open their registrations.

Sounds too complicated for my tastes.

It's more complicated to set up but ridiculously simpler and faster once set up, from what I've heard. Also something you shouldn't do. Nobody should do it because it makes illegal things too easy.

Thanks a lot for telling us which services to avoid. You're a lifesaver.

Thank you for your service and I will never visit those websites.

Imagine if people set up a Plex/Jellyfin after visiting those sites to have their own streaming service setup. Pure madness!

After learning how to do it on lemmy.world/c/selfhosted ! Madness

Also definitely dont look into setting up sonarr, radarr, prowlarr, and overseerr in combination with Plex or jellyseerr in combination with jellyfin. Otherwise you could find yourself with an extremely low touch automated downloading and organizing system that you can let your friends log into to request movies and shows without them needing to bug you at all for it to be downloaded in your preferred quality, size, codec, etc and automatically show up in Plex/jellyfin as soon as it finishes downloading, all renamed and sorted into folders as you please. That would be horrible.

i wouldn't download a car because i have no space, but i would stream it.

So like what's the actual deal with pirating content nowadays? I remember in the early 2000s it was don't seed and don't torrent just-released content and you won't get caught. Are the companies more rigorous nowadays? Are they going after people and you really do need a VPN? Can you torrent content at a human-watchable pace (like a show or two a month, maybe a movie or two a week) and no one's going to notice you?

Depends on the country. In the U.S., instead of chasing users themselves, they have leveraged the Internet providers to act as enforcers. If you torrent something they first send you notice of violation from your Internet provider.

If you continue to torrent, they can
cancel your service or the copyright holder can start legal action.

Honestly, I would never torrent anything anymore. There are great webpages that offer streaming for no cost.

A direct download/streaming site can be shut down at any time. Torrents are resistant to censorship, as they are decentralized. Just grab a good VPN or a seedbox and you can torrent as much as you want.

Just get a VPN and torrent like normal in the 2000s. Nothing has changed. Seeding is not really a big deal anymore because everyone's internet speeds are so fast.

They generally ignore it unless you become excessive and then they just warn you, nothing horrible. But if you do it over a VPN, they can’t do anything. Or do it from a cloud instance from Amazon, or Google, and then download the files locally from there.

I personally love QBtorrent and the built in search engine, plus if you look for it there are block lists you can quickly install into it that blocks you from connecting to known IP addresses of copyright enforcers but I'd still recommend a VPN anyways for good measure from your ISP but those are cheap and easy too.

I definitely seed a lot more than I did in the 2000s but I have fiber and unlimited data so that's an easier ask.

There are supposedly great private torrent sites but I've been ok with the ones everyone else uses and haven't figured out if I need to do different.

Be careful putting that stuff on lemmy. Big studios aren't afraid to sue

I unironically love that fmhy.net's site would work well in Gopher.

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I dust off my robe and wizard hat.

Plex is a great streaming alternative. Cancelling Netflix pays for the upgrade to gigabit Internet. Hard drives are cheaper now than ever. Usenet access remains safe and speedy. The DIY community for automation is thriving.

Is that the Jolly Roger coming in to port? Welcome back old friends.

Worth checking out Jellyfin as well

I MUCH prefer Jellyfin to Plex. Jellyfin seems to have active development whereas Plex is more interested in adding in a ton of "features" (aka garbage) that I never ever wanted and continues to leave YEARS old bugs out in the wild. I think it won't be long until Plex enshittifies itself to death. They clearly have a financial situation that is not aligned with its users.

I agree, I'll give the software another try once I have more free time to learn and troubleshoot

Plex has a client on my TV and Xbox. How would I watch Jellyfin content on those?

I say this a guy that got his RasPi3 Plex server running just good and stable a year ago and doesn't touch it except to cycle in new content.

You could use Emby instead. Jellyfin is the FOSS version of Emby and Emby has apps for everything. I moved to Emby from Plex five years ago or so and it’s been great.

In the worst case scenario, you can access it via browser and then bookmark it.

I do that on my tv for which almost no apps can be installed and found no issues so far. Even HDR media plays, which I found that it is (or was?) a paid feature on Plex

Jellyfin feels like it's 95% of the way there. I switched from Plex to Jellyfin back to Plex again a year or two ago, but I am thinking I should give Jellyfin another shot some time. There was some media that Jellyfin wasn't able to play even without transcoding that Plex handled fine, but those transcoding issues could be solved by now.

Unfortunately, there's no Jellyfin application on my TV, or I'd swap :-(

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I tried but the technical gap from Plex to Jellyfin was too intense for me to try and make work at this time of my life. Plex works well for my purposes and I paid for the phone apps when needed ($6 per device I think).

I admire and support Jellyfin as FOSS and hope I can jump on when I have more time to make it work.

Yeah for sure, didn't mean to imply folks shouldn't use Plex just giving it a shout out as an alternative. I've used both and they are both pretty awesome. One of my friends set up a seed box with Jellyfin so I kinda cheated in leaving the tinkering to them but I don't think it was too bad with the provider they went with.

Exact same thing happened to me, i just couldn’t get it to consistently work.

I can't for the life of me get HW encoding working with Jellyfin. Plex was just plug and play.

i7-11800H

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Yep. Finally got Radarr and Sonarr with overseerr setup this summer because I need a GUI solution for my family. It’s been working pretty great so far!

I have the same but the one thing I can't get working is accessing overseer from outside the network (ie internet). I've read guides of course but at some point they start talking about domains and certificate signing and I start to have a siezure.

Look into Caddy, it's by far the easiest web server/reverse proxy with automatic SSL support out there. Setup both Caddy and Overseer in Docker and then just simply write

overseer.yourdomain.com {

reverse_proxy overseer:overseer port

}

Assuming you have you own domain name and have DNS records setup.

I was using Nginx and Let's Encrypt for years but it was a bit of a pain in the ass. I just rewrote my entire Docker Compose script to use Caddy so I can deploy everything in about 5 minutes.

Any thoughts on using something like Caddy, or any other reverse proxy option, if you already have a VPN that you pay for?

Currently I’m using Tailscale for my phone and tablet, but there’s not really an option for Roku outside of my home network. I’d like to give a friend access to my Jellyfin, but I can’t seem to get anything working other than Tailscale because I already pay for ProtonVPN.

Routing the reverse proxy through the VPN just complicates things. I'm assuming you mean you want to give a friend access to your Jellyfin server, not your Roku (not sure why you mentioned that), so just have Caddy listen on ports 80 and 443, and forward the ports on your router. Then setup the reverse proxy lines for Jellyfin in the Caddyfile. Assuming you already have DNS setup you should be good to go, just give your friend the URL. Caddy enables SSL by default so there really is no reason to route the traffic through a VPN tunnel. I'm pretty sure the Jellyfin docs have a section for using Caddy as a reverse proxy.

I’ll have to check again on the Jellyfin docs, but when I was las trying to follow the steps, I ran into an issue where some IP didn’t match something else and it told me I couldn’t continue.

My friend uses a Roku so getting him to use Tailscale or anything like it isn’t really an option.

Yeah, I think you're confused 😉 There is no need for your friend to use a VPN to access your Jellyfin server. All you need to do is make it publicly accessible and tell him where to find it (the URL).

It can literally be as simple as setting up NAT on your router (commonly known as port forwarding, linking the IP of the Jellyfin server and it's port to a designated port on your router accessible via your public IP) and then giving your friend your public IP and the port that you opened. THIS IS HIGHLY DISCOURAGED THOUGH SINCE NOTHING IS ENCRYPTED.

It's best to setup either Dynamic DNS (usually free, but you don't get your own domain name, usually just a subdomain under their domain name) or buy your own domain name for cheap (like $10-$30 USD/year) and setup your A records (and CNAME records if you want) in the hosted DNS section. Once you have DNS working then setup a reverse proxy using something like Caddy (simple), Traefik (more complex), or Nginx (a full blown, complex web server) and Certbot/LetsEncrypt. SSL certs and reverse proxies can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but Caddy makes it dead simple.

From there just give your friend your URL (https://jellyfin.yourserver.com or however you have it setup). He puts that in the connection box in the Jellyfin UI and it should work as intended.

buy your own domain name for cheap (like $10-$30 USD/year) and setup your A records (and CNAME records if you want) in the hosted DNS section.

Does it matter if your domain is on shared hosting already? Like, I’ve got kaitco.net, so I should be able to set up jellyfin.kaitco.net and the A and/or CNAME in the hosted DNS? Or, would I need to purchase a new one that’s not already hosted on any server already?

Thank you for answering my asinine questions about this btw 😅

It's perfectly fine to use a subdomain of kaitco.net 😉 Happy to help, I've been doing this for years.

I just set up a VPN with wire guard and duckdns. Connected my phone and works great. Some one will mention a show and I'll pull out my phone and add it via overseer. Get it on plex in like 2 minutes.

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Plex is cracking down on pirated content. They can't do anything locally (yet) but they sent out a mass email about two weeks ago saying that anyone that hosts a Plex server in the cloud (they didn't specifically mention Hetzner, but that's who is largely being affected) will lose access on October 12th.

That's because people were creating their own 'streaming services' using pirated content and selling access to it using Hetzner servers, which is very bad for all parties involved because it brings a lot of negative attention when actual profits are being generated from distributing pirated material.

Yeah, but it sucks for people like me who just set everything up a few weeks ago and are using it privately. I've hosted a massive Plex server locally for about a decade, but finally decided to stop doing everything locally. I had it running for two weeks in the cloud before I got the email from Plex. I just setup Jellyfin yesterday and all of my users will have to migrate to that.

That sucks for you, but you gotta understand Plex there as well I think. They know that all their clients are pirates, but they can't just ignore something like that, lest risk catching unwanted attention.

People thought hosting copyrighted content on someone's cloud and making it available to others was a good idea? 🤦🤦‍♀️🤦‍♂️

This is why we can't have nice things.

It's specifically people doing this and selling access to the servers en masse, like these servers have a hundred or more users each. The don't care about the small fish that are doing this privately for no monetary gain.

Yeah, I guess it's often profit-driven. If you can get $5 per month from 100 people, you can probably clear hundreds of dollars per month. So that ten times, and this becomes quite a serious profit stream.

Plex is cracking down on pirated content.

I'm just as jaded and cynical as the next guy, but I think that this is a mischaracterization of that email. People were hosting Plex servers with thousands of users and terabytes of pirated content on Hetzner and selling access. I don't read them taking action as a signal for them blocking local libraries in the future.

They all do it just to get the lawyers off their backs. Plex is just a bigger target. Plex can't block anything locally so they take action against user distributing pirated content on a cloud service and are like "Here, we took action, can you leave us alone now?". It would practically be impossible for them to block the distribution of pirated content at the local level.

Plex fucked up when they created their Client-Server model because it allows traffic to run through their servers (the Plex Relay and their "phone home" model). This makes them legally responsible for "facilitating access to pirated content" even though they don't host the content. Jellyfin doesn't have this pitfall since you host everything yourself, they just provide the software.

You're the second person that says " Plex isn't cracking down on pirated content.... but they're banning people who are hosting servers with pirated content." If that's not " cracking down on pirated content" IDK what is....

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That’s their entire userbase. Bold call haha

Yeah, people act like Plex and other media servers are used for legally obtained content only. Plex is just covering their asses and they can't block users hosting locally so this is a "here we did something, are you happy now?" to the copyright lawyers.

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Good to know, hopefully this creates a drive to make alternatives a little more user friendly to set up

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Got any names in particular? I’ve been looking at Usenet for a long long time and I think I’m going to finally get serious about it

Is there any links/guides on how to get into the usenet side of things? I've been using torrents forever but people keep saying usenet is safer.

Google/learn about/consider these things

VPN, Usenet provider (i.e. EasyNews), Usenet indexers (i.e. NZBgeek), Usenet client (i.e. NZBget), Managing your library (Sonarr, Radar, Prowlarr, Filebot),

Media server & streaming (i.e. Plex, Jellyfin)

I watch through my firestick or android phones

I might be missing something, but there are lots of guides once you figure out what you're looking for. A little technical know-how makes things go smoother and faster though.

Thanks for the info. I've got. Sonarr radarr and prowlarr set up with qbitt right now and jellyfin. I'll have to do some digging this weekend.

Worth mentioning that NZBget is no longer in development. It still works but there is a fork out of a new client someone is developing. I can't recall the name but easily findable. This would be the equivalent of your torrent client.

It's nearing year end and you can get end of year deals soon on providers and indexers so off hold off until November\December. I think I got a lifetime NZBGeek membership last year for like $100 or something. It was my first time doing usenet but I actually switched my instances to use usenet indexers first over torrent indexers its that good.

There's a few recent guides on Reddit that discuss this and automation. I got access to some private torrent trackers this year, but haven't touched them since I got my Usenet subscription. I've been waiting decades for it to be this easy once you get it set up.

If you already have that automation part going, this should be pretty straight forward. Add a Usenet download client to your *arr programs, put in the account info from your Usenet provider, add on your account info for nzb trackers, and it works just the same except with more consistency and speed.

I tried to get into Usenet but I’m old and unable to learn new tricks. I just looked at EasyNews and it’s $9.99 pm for 20GB :| so, like, a single 4K movie with Atmos. I don’t understand the allure of UseNet, perhaps because I am a dumb.

Running a VPN makes torrenting just as safe and you'll be paying a subscription fee for Usenet so it's a wash in my opinion.

Stremio + Real Debrid is definitely not worth investigating. Avoid it at all costs. Keep giving these media companies more money. All the money. Disney needs your dollars.

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the capitalists are unable to understand that the "eternal growth" their books mention is not feasible in real world and in fact it is a bug. There are physical upper limits that cannot be overcome. There will not be unlimited people that will always enrol in a new subscription. They need to somehow understand that at some point a company may reach their ceiling. This is not reason to do whatever panic change in order to show growth in the numbers. It will just not happen.

Ah but when the prices can't go any higher they can always remove content, paying their suppliers less and getting cheaper hardware. I wish I was joking but these are the options that are left.

"Do we really need all these CDNs everywhere?"

"And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds left to conquer."

-- H. Gruber.

The thing is, they do know this. They are perfectly willing to drive a company into the ground on the promise of annual growth, and they'll dump it the moment it cannot serve them monetarily.

Lies!

It's mathematically possible to have infinite growth as long as it's in nominal terms and you have infinite inflation!

(Joke aside, ponder on why central banks have a positive non-zero inflation target...)

When will the greed stop? At what point will these corporations realize that the average American is completely stretched thin financially and will have to cease unnecessary expenses? They’re all just shooting themselves in the foot.

"When will the greed stop?"

Never

It‘s laughable to expect corporations to act against their only purpose. As soon as a company sells shares it takes the route of infinite growth which is impossible. First they grow their user base and once they start to inevitably stagnate, they start milking their costumers, shaving off features and laying off workers in order to grow their income. It is really the only way for them to remain existent when the market is saturated. They cannot stay in business when they make billions a year when these billions aren‘t even more billions than last year. You can‘t attract new investors that way and therefore cannot continue to exist. Enshittyfication only just started. It cannot possibly get better when they can‘t expand their user base, only worse. They know they will self destruct eventually, but that doesn‘t matter as long as shareholders get their piece of the cake and jump ship to sink the next one. Just being a massively profitable company is bad business if you‘re not growing. That‘s the state of capitalism we‘re in.

As soon as a company sells shares it takes the route of infinite growth which is impossible

yeah, the stock market makes that a company that is stable and generates a reliable income each year is seen as bad, but a company that has large grow in obviously unsustainable speed, which doesn't have plans on how to ever become profitable is good (i am not specifically taking about netflix here)

When the platform dies.

“first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. “

Source

Incorrect.

It will stop when our species exterminates itself out of greed.

Climate change will probably only thin our numbers by the billions as a result of of the owner's greed, but then they want to profit off AI, and CRISPR, and innumerable other potentially profitable means to our self-extinction.

The greed will stop when all the humans are dead almost certainly by our own hands, and humans are actively working to accomplish this.

As consolidation continues corporations do not need to compete on prices as there are no alternatives. Yes people will pirate but they’ve already lobbied vendors to embrace DRM and governments to make it illegal so that makes it as annoying as possible.

Are we reading the same thing? Netflix has more competition now than it ever has. When Netflix had cheaper prices when it has no competition than it does now. Piracy has been making a huge resurgence as well.

"More competition" meaning less access, people having to pay for multiple different services instead of having it in one place.

The competition should be about having the best platform, not exclusive content. There's no reason why the same show couldn't be on two different platforms. And available globally. Practically, all you really need is more local servers for where there's more traffic.

The competition should be about having the best platform, not exclusive content.

Those both sound like competition to me. What you are really asking for is "I want things to be cheaper" which is a separate and sometimes related issue to competition, but separate nonetheless.

The path to lower prices the way you want would be government-mandated price controls on the industry.

The path to lower prices the way you want would be government-mandated price controls on the industry.

Now you're just talking dirty cause you can.

The path to lower prices the way you want would be government-mandated price controls on the industry.

Mandatory price controls can be tricky economically. I could certainly consider them on thinks required for living (food, housing, fuel), but putting them on optional entertainment like streaming? That sounds very counter productive.

When Netflix started they entered the market as a licensor of content from studios to be distributed as part of a streaming service.

This possibility largely no longer exists. All of the studios have bought out competition, stopped licensing a lot of their popular content, and now release their content themselves. This means there is little competition in the film distribution market for streaming, beyond PayPerView.

As long as people pay for it and they make massive profits through it.

I mean, look at the last situation in which netflix addressed account sharing. Their user number actually increased because of it from what I have read.

Those people that can't afford it will most likely switch to a less expensive tier and then probably see ads. I have seen that recently with my father who wasn't even bothered or annoyed by the constant ads while watching a single episode.

I don't understand how people are ok with ads? They annoy me so much. It's wasting your time so it can attempt to manipulate you into buying stuff with the money you can't afford to spend.

Oh you sweet summer child....

America is founded on greed and power, it'll never stop.

When enough people cancel. Keep paying, they'll keep raising the price.

We keep saying this but they keep profiting more and more every time lol. Remember when everyone on reddit was gonna quit Netflix for the password sharing block? Ya, their users increased afterwards.

AND KILL THE AMERICAN DREAM THAT ANY MAN CAN BE KING?! might as well just side with those broke natives /s

They’ll stop if everyone sailed the high seas.

Price of WD red HDD's about to go up too

Storage right now is probably as cheap as its gunna get for a while, good time to stock up

Well... New tech should make higher storage densities mainstream again in 1-2 years. Seagate just released 32TB HAMR drives for commercial use

Damn boooy

A couple of those and I don't even have to delete stuff I already watched

/r/DataHoarder would like a word

We should all know that Netflix's method of "throwing money at the wall and hope one of the shows becomes a hit, cancel immediately after a season if it doesn't work out" is completely unsustainable at this point, as this kind of dehumanizing disposablilty of production is the exact " industry disruptive" approach to expect from a bunch of arrogant Silicon Valley techbros, so this cost increase should not come as a surprise.

Many long running shows have had pretty bad first seasons, "Parks and Rec", the US version of "The Office", and "The Simpsons" comes to mind, and these shows would never have even gotten off the ground if Netflix was running them, because as with all industries, it takes a while for people to find their footing and get to know each other to work together effectively.

The real sad part is, the industry that has copied Netflix's "disruptive" approach are now finding out that the emperor has no clothes and are desperately trying to pass the cost off to anybody else for their own survival, which is why it is more important than ever to fight for the dignities of the people who worked on your favorite shows for your entertainment.

I could very well be mistaken and please correct me if I am. I remember reading that canning a show before season 3 or so was a way of getting around union costs that kick in for a 'longer' running show. A very anti labor strategy designed to cash in quickly then drop it so Netflix wouldn't have to share the wealth.

I thought it was a balance between new shows getting better engagement than old shows, and contracts lasting 3 seasons, which required re-negotiations in favor of the talent. Basically a business model hyper-focused on subscriber growth metrics instead of subscriber retention.

Imo they're really poisoning the well. If they pump out shit show after shit show what will happen (and is likely already happening) is consumers wait until the second season for a show releases to make sure they're not wasting their time getting invested into a show that will be canceled anyway. That will then lead to fewer and fewer shows actually becoming successful, eventually leading to people cancelling the subscription because the last time they watched anything (good) on Netflix was 10 years ago.

I agree, but IMO part of the problem is people watching just whatever to pass time - and this is also going into the stats.

To be frank, I don't think they care about anything else other than keeping people on the platform. Which is not such a bad goal to be had if they tried to achieve that with quality of service, good offering of entertainment, etc. What they are doing is desperately trying to create some long running series where on which people will get hooked and won't be able to leave even if everything else starts sucking. Should this ever happen I think we can fully expect their next step to be reduced amount of licensing towards other shows and movies.

But as you rightly put it, you can't grow forever and ever increasing revenue can only be had in dreams.

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Thanks for reminding me that I haven't even watched Netflix in a minute. I cancelled it. Fuck them.

They're not even slowly raising prices, they are very rapidly raising them. We've reinvented cable.

Perhaps they realized number of people that keeps paying versus number of people who cancel their subscription results in net positive revenue, so they are testing where the line is. All the while trying to fund some new content to get more people to come back.

I wouldn't doubt there's collusion. It's very convenient that none of these services are taking advantage of this and are seemingly raising all of their prices simultaneously.

Actually, cable didn't even raise prices this fast. We've, unsurprisingly to anyone familiar with capitalism, created something worse.

I'd be mad but I cancelled last time this happened.

Yea I didn't but I'll cancel this time.

Should make an event with other people. Set a date and cancel all at the same time.

I suck at modding communities but I'd help promote and join any if someone got it going.

Netflix is planning on raising piracy again. 😅

In a 4-D chess move, by canceling everything with no resolution, they've made their shows not worth pirating by making them not worth watching.

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But I can only cancel my subscription once, and I already did, months ago.

they outplayed you 😂 you might be paying $0, but you can't stop them anymore from charging you 2x$0 next year

I canceled after they lost Star Trek. And then I never subscribed to the place that does have Star Trek now. Now I'm so annoyed with all of the price hikes that I may only ever subscribe to the high seas going forward. Lol

Never mind the price, Netflix just doesn't have stuff I want to watch anymore.

Netflix does have good shows, but they're just so few and far in between. I stopped my subscription about a year ago, and haven't missed it. I'll resubscribe this month to watch Fall of the House of Usher, then unsub again just because there's nothing to watch.

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if others are doing this, the streaming companies catch on, and we pay a bulk amount for a season a la early iTunes again

They also actively pigeon hole users into a small portion of their content, they've been stripping away all search and discovery functionality over the years. They are going down the route of "our algorithm is perfect and knows exactly what you want so why would you want to do anything else"

I bet there's a ton of content you'd actually enjoy that Netflix will never recommend to you because it's outside of what the algorithm thinks you want to see

I keep thinking about this, big tech companies and their recommendation algorithms that keep getting worse and recommending you content you don't actually care about but is designed to keep you on their platform is probably one of the biggest bullshit they come up with.

maybe I should write about this in longform next week

I agree, I just hate that when they do have good shows they cancel it immediately 🤦. I cringed when they canceled 1899 and inside job.

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Ah yes, because derivative reality shows and bottom-of-the-barrel adult cartoons are so expensive to produce.

What the hell happened, you used to be good.

Just cancelled, haven't touched NF since I subbed to HBO (and even that is getting cancelled next month). Maybe its time to try Hulu.

Hulu will still show ads for some things, even if you pay extra for ad free. Pisses me off, they're a terrible company. They'll never get another dime from me.

They're not great, but I haven't seen any ads on ad free. Their interface is weird as hell and it almost seems like they purposely bury things you've recently been watching which is weird.

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No, bullshit. It was like 3 shows due to old licensing. This is not a thing

Idk why you're trying to tell me bullshit to something I experienced for myself, but okay. I can tell you that it did happen and it pissed me off, and it was enough to make me never want to go back. Plus (I'm not sure if this is still the case) they wouldn't let me fast-forward commercials on programs I had recorded from their live TV programs. Even though I had also paid the extra there to get no/fewer ads. Something like $80 a month at the time.

So yeah, no bullshit. Sorry to disappoint you.

I don't know what the fuck you paid for, but it wasn't the ad free service the rest of us got. They have a web page dedicated to explaining the few exceptions they had to ad-free. Live TV is a separate thing from normal Hulu. Are you confusing the two?

Idk why you're coming at me, dude. Does Hulu pay your bills or something? Like I said, I'm just describing my experience, idk why you're being a confrontational ass about it.

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They used to do that for a handful of shows due to streaming contracts, but last time I checked (~2019) it was literally two shows. Is it more now?

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No it doesn't. At most it shows what channel produces the show you are watching and when to expect more episodes, and it takes less than 5 seconds

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I say we should collectively strike from streaming platforms to send a message. If you want to watch shows, collect DVDs from the library or thrift store and rip them to a USB drive. If you have a newer TV with a built in media player, it can read the video formats on the USB drive for quick access to your favorite shows.

Yeah cause collective strikes of a vocal minority work out so great in the end lol

but in this case me cancelling all my subscriptions led me to a great hobby and acquiring my own media instead of trying to figure out what streaming service has what is so much better, plus sharing it with friends and family so they dont need streaming services, at least not all of them is great

Sure. It won't change Netflix, their pricing or their decisions though. Unless something really big happens (and by that I mean like 20% of all subscribers leaving) they won't care.

Right, but it's not like I miss out on shows I want to watch if I just go watch them "online" instead of paying.

Yeah sure. Let's just not act as if people on lemmy represent the entire society - and them not paying for streaming somehow will make Netflix notice

The subtext here is that we should just go, "Screw you guys," and just pirate everything.

Im at a stage where I am more than happy to pay for really good shows. It really isn't about price, just value. It's just been ages since NF made anything stellar.

They said about The OA (I loved season 1)...

Neflix describes The OA as "a big creative swing we were proud to take," but says that when it comes to deciding what to renew and what to cancel, "viewing versus cost" is always what it takes into account.

This philosophy means we get loads of average crap. They aren't a regular network, why the hell are they acting like it.

I've said before, because it's linked with delivery, Prime seems to be the only service willing to take risks, and they make some great stuff because of it. HBO seems to be a distant second.

Funny enough I just cancelled my Hulu after they jacked the ad-free price up to $18. It was $12 when I first subscribed about 6 or 7 years ago.

I will say thier D+ and Hulu price doesn't seem bad with the current promotion, but I'm getting D+ currently from family. I've always sailed the seas even when subbed to Hulu, but once D+ starts blocking sub sharing I'll be shoving off for the long foreseeable future once again.

Hulu is my most used service. Honestly I could drop all others and be happy

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Argh matey, I'd rather walk the plank than pay those greedy pigs! Tis the high seas for me landlubbers!!!

pigs in plural, yes. How many streaming services are there now? I lost track a couple of years ago.

Sounds like Netflix is panicking and scrambling. The frequency of their subscription hikes increases and increases. Perhaps they think they can price hike their way out of the dissatisfaction they have delivered to subscribers. Keep trying Netflix, find that magic subscription price point that will surely cover for all the subscribers you're shedding with your idiocy and will definitely not hasten your arrival to 0% revenue. Increasing that price won't lose you more subscribers right? Of course not. Burn Netflix burn.

More like they took on a shitload of very low interest debt back when the fed rate was 0%. Now that the fed rate is 5.5%, they can't just roll over the loans and have to start paying them back.

They're finding the optimal price point. Each time they raise they lose some customers, but their increased revenue leads them to being more profitable afterwards. Eventually the price increases will result in so many people leaving that they'll have to stop.

Problem is, this strategy has exactly one direction: irrelevance. It can take a very long time to get there, but eventually you lose so many subscribers that your competitors have begun eating your lunch. The profits were solid so you didn't care. It's the normal business life cycle, and Netflix is well into the mature phase. We have worse quality and higher prices to look forward to.

Netflix's lowered revenue growth is the highlight. That's what they and their investors focus on, with subscriber satisfaction being an afterthought. The price hikes haven't shown any effect on that downward trend either. But hey, keep hiking I say. Fires burn bigger when fuel is added and these people can't differentiate water from gasoline. Having washed my hands of this company, I'm looking forward to further scrambling when revenue growth is nil and then negative and the stock drops and drops and the corporatists wail.

I've been a Netflix customer for over 20 years. The recent password crackdown and constant price gouging led me to cancel their service yesterday. Yo Ho MF'ers.

I canceled just after the CEO said that paid customers could be getting ads. Knew that was the beginning of the end

it's amazing that they think people are going to continue to pay them at these prices for no content

Some people seem to believe the customers are suckers who will eternally take the price hikes, but even the most gullible fool still doesn't have infinite money. At some point they'll have to cut something or the bank will cut it for them.

Well, back to the seas it seems. It was fun while it lasted. One might as well pay for a VPN instead.

I'm sure they did the math they've calculated that the increases will offset the loss is subscribers. From the article it looked like the royalties will increase so less subscribers paying more is even more profitable.

It wouldn't be the first time companies precisely calculate next quarter earnings and fail to account for the long term survival of their business.

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The customers are suckers who will take a lot. Look up skylink satellite tv provider, and their "always free" tier that's currently 6,90€ a month.

They gave it for free just around the time analog tv was being decomissioned. And after they've captured the large userbase, who couldn't switch back, they pulled the trigger.

If you go with Mullvad (which is one of the best private VPN providers) you even save some money, as it's just 5 EUR/month. You can also take the 20 bucks that you would have given to Netflix and pay a seedbox company like RapidSeedbox to torrent anonymously.

Huge +1 for Mullvad for their pricing model. 5€/month regardless of "plan" and you can buy as many or as few months as you like. I never feel chained to Mullvad, never worried about subscription running out or getting charged at random moments. Pay 5€, watch whatever you want on the foreign tv websites, forget about vpn for the next 3 months.

If you love Mullvad's pricing, you may check out iVPN's one-week plan for $2. Like Mullvad, you don't need an email address to register, just generate an ID and supports WireGuard. Personally, both Mullvad and iVPN have a similar connectivity performances.

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Every time Netflix changes anything, people freak out and say they're gonna lose all their subscribers.

And every time, Netflix makes more money than before, because they have awesome data analysis and have a very good idea of how many subscribers will leave and how much more money they'll make from the remainder.

I remember when they lost like 4% of their subscribers a few years back and everyone was all doom and gloom, but they'd raised their rates like 15%

Eventually they'll figure if they can get one person to pay 10 billion dollars a month, they can lose all their other subscribers and still hit their quarterly goals.

But they are

Exactly. No one I know cancelled. They just had to buy separate accounts while complaining.

I'm the only person I know who cancelled. Like you said everyone else just complains about it.

Yeah, this is exactly like the Reddit and Twitter situation. No matter how bad it gets, people don’t care. If they’re used to something, they’ll rather put up with the new bad stuff than changing their habits.

I keep hearing people say this no content thing. Meanwhile I just went through Castlevania, one piece, sweet tooth and Kingdom this past week and there's like 30 shows and movies on my cue

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You know I really should get around to getting a paid tier of proton VPN so that I can have cannons on me ship when I sail the high seas.

Proton vpn is great! I have switched to their ecosystem.long time ago and only thing they could do better is linux vpn. The official linux vpn cannot do any of the new things as for examole windows app.

The official linux vpn cannot do any of the new things as for examole windows app.

I believe one examole is 10^(18 + 23) * 6.02214076

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I can’t complain about performance. The iOS and macOS apps are good. I am leaving the country for a vacation soon so we’ll see how it goes.

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Yo ho, yo ho... 🏴‍☠️

Speaking of which, I'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that Stremio* + Torrentio is a thing, and contains the entire catalog of every streaming provider combined. Works on smart TVs too.

Because of this comment, I'm converting. Thank you so much! Doesn't seem to hard to figure out and there are plenty of articles online for this. I see a lot of them also add Real Debrid for higher quality and to remove the need for VPN. Anyway, you rock!

Yes, Real-Debrid is a nice addition. Not only can you stream faster with it, you can use it on your PC as well to download any torrent you want instantly without waiting for seeds. It's a game-changer.

Edit: Also Trakt.tv is another good plug-in if you want suggestions based on your viewing habits.

They really want us to cancel? My family only barely decided to keep Netflix after they last raised prices, and now they're doing it again.

Oh god, I can't find it now but before the whole crackdown on shared accounts someone tried to argue with me that it was worth it. As cutting account sharing would allow Netflix to keep their current prices to undercut competition. I actually bet them that that would not be the case and Netflix would still hike the prices again. I wish I could find them just to say “I told you”.

Might finally get me to cancel Netflix, but who am I kidding, I probably have 6+ hours of it playing in the background daily.

The problem I really have is the lack of 4k without buying a ton of extra screens. A single screen 4k plan would fix 99% of my complaints about pricing.

You could go with YouTube if you want something on the background. Or just pirate the media buy BluRays and DVDs of the shows and movies you rewatch.

YouTube works for the other 6 hours of content I’m playing in the background. Netflix having long tv series keeps me on the platform cause where else am I going to find 20 seasons of one show easily accessible

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For background content, I use either Pluto or Live TV on Plex.
It's kinda great that, as an older person, they're replaying all the same stuff what constantly being replayed when I was kid. And there's news and music, etc.

I cancelled my Netflix in 2018. I've signed back in for a single month three times over the past five years to catch up on things I've missed. I had a hard time finding much to watch over those three months.

Do those have Ads though? I guess I just assumed they did which is why I haven't bothered. I have a lifetime plex sub if it matters

Yep. It’s like regular tv. Maybe your definition of background content is different from mine. I don’t mind a few commercials.

Ahh ok thanks, appreciate the reply.

I think our definition is probably the same, I'm just very anti-ad, the idea of being continually manipulated to consume rubs my fur backwards. I'm fine paying for ad free though.

I’m very much with you on anti-manipulation and anti-consumerism but I grew up in a time before the internet and have little issue with an acceptable amount of appropriately paced ads for certain content for a given price.

I hear you, I'm Gen X so grew up on cable tv. But I was also a punk rocker as a kid. As I age I find myself increasingly realigning with the values of my youth lol

5 bucks a month to a reputable VPN provider will get you access to more than you can ever watch.

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Streamers are currently benefiting from the actors strikes as no new content is being bought and made while they continue to receive subscription payments for old content.

This, and price hiking is simply greed, nothing more.

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Already going "hybrid" when it comes to content and Netflix only survived the last round because family members voted "stay". Not sure about the next time, especially since their little fabricated "crackdown" on sth. that was once not only tolerated, but actively encouraged definitely rubbed me the wrong way.

I wonder what this Netflix live action anime ONE PIECE is all about?

The real treasure was the torrents we downloaded along the way.

What is even left?

A VPN.

Mullvad is £5/mo. AirVPN is €7/mo.

Both are top tier VPNs. Mullvad has all RAM servers. AirVPN offers port forwarding.

Plex with Sonarr/Radarr/VPN/qBitTorrent is the way to go.

The whole industry is a profit driven capitalistic trap to squeeze as much monies from us as possible. The same companies behind extortionate CD / DVD prices and market control are behind the streaming services. While the coast is still semi-clear and we can pirate what we want, they've slowly infiltrated the governments around the globe and introduced stupid copyright laws so that they can go after the common man. I expect that the future is bleak, with more governments succumbing to the industry's lobbying and making it harder for the average user to pirate, so much so, that we'll be forced to pay as much as they ask us

Just finished watching Peaky Blinders on Netflix, guess that was the last good show on there, now they keep pushing Beckham and reality shows in my face, like I care about that, can't find anything good. I've cancelled it.

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More reasons for me to get out of streaming subs.. Itturned into what cable was 🫥

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This is the best summary I could come up with:


Netflix is planning to increase the cost of its streaming service yet again, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

The streamer will reportedly issue the price hike a “few months” after the Hollywood actors strike ends, which could happen in the coming weeks.

Just last week, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) ended its strike and began voting on a contract with major Hollywood studios, including Netflix, that could change the business of streaming.

For example, Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, and other services will now have to share streaming data with the WGA under the new contract, allowing writers to see how well their content performed.

Netflix is likely waiting until the end of the strike to raise prices, as hiking up costs when no new content is coming out doesn’t seem like a smart move.

Once both writers and actors are back to work, there will likely be a lot of new shows and movies coming out that Netflix can use to justify the increase.


The original article contains 414 words, the summary contains 169 words. Saved 59%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

It’s still not clear how much Netflix will raise prices, and Netflix declined to comment.

Curious, is there any price hike y’all would consider fair? Serious question.

Depends on if it coincides with raises for working class staff, or there was enough transparency in operating costs and expenditures to be confident it's not just being done for additional profit margins. If the cost of serving video has actually gone up by $2 * subscription count every month, then no problem. I suspect that isn't the case, though.

I think all pricing ends in 99. They can round it up to the nearest dollar

And my desire to have an account has reduced even further. It's already way too expensive, but on top of that we have endless license wars, so the actual consumer will never win. We're playing checkers while they are playing monopoly where every spot is get out of jail for free

Infinite Free Netflix hack:

Sign up for a month and pay. Immediately go and cancel the subscription. It will say the cancellation takes effect in 30 days, however they will actually cancel your subscription in 2-3 days and issue you a refund. In that 2-3 days you can watch Netflix. Repeat.

Could be the get fed up with you after the 10th time you try that, and ban you or your IP.

I’ve personally done it twice. Mostly was trying to actually sign up for a 30 day period to watch a show, but wasn’t planning on letting the subscription run unquestioned like I used to. The price is too high for that. Turns out Netflix is petty. Either you let the subscription run, or they cancel you.

Their greed made me put on my eye patch years ago. And since then I’ve only convinced more to do the same.

Screw these greedy bastards.

All while they can't make new content from the strikes? They better buy up some gold for shows to binge watch like Battle Star Galactica.

I still have it cause it's free with t mobile.

Gave up on netflix some time ago due to lack of good content

Well, if you linearly extrapolate from recent events, eventually they will have a single user who is paying a billion dollars a month for their subscription.

Some people will still say it is cheaper than going to cinemas everyday.

I watch Netflix on occasion and share it will my sibling, who watches it a ton. If it does go up any higher, I'm going to have to have them start paying for half. Otherwise, I'll just have to cancel. They don't have enough content to justify me paying anymore than I currently am. I'm mostly on Hulu anyway.

I have been a user for 6 years and I'm tired of it now please stop

I would love to cancel it. I almost never watch it and there's nothing I do watch that I couldn't live without. Unfortunately, my mom does watch it constantly, and she'd just sign up for her own account if I got rid of mine, so in the interest of keeping her bills down, I'm kind of stuck. At least I got her to dump Hulu's outrageously overpriced live tv option, so I got that going for me.