With the simultaneous rollout of restrictions on account sharing and price increases/addition of advertising, I’m cutting back severely on streaming services.

I allowed my streaming subscriptions to grow without thinking about it. Without trying to remember the constant merging and bundling, I was subscribed to probably a dozen services at one point. They ranged from Netflix and HBO and Hulu to Shudder and Showtime. I had Paramount, Criterion, Disney, Peacock, and others. I’d do the typical thing where I’d search for a movie, find it is exclusive to a platform, and grab the free trial and forget to cancel. I excused it if I found a movie even every couple of months on it. There were still nights where it’d take an hour to find something I wanted to watch. I was probably closing in on $200/month all told, and I don’t have sports subscriptions.

I’m interested in learning what other people are doing regarding the price hikes and service compromises. Are you cancelling? Are you taking advantage of bundles with your internet services? Are you rotating on some interval? Or are you not changing at all?

  • EssentialCoffeeEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    For the main streaming services, I had Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+.

    I cancelled Netflix back when they announced a price hike in early 2021? I’d been a customer since 2006.

    Disney+ I cancelled a few months ago, but the plan goes through November, so we still have it technically. Not planning to renew.

    Prime will get renewed, but I don’t subscribe to it specifically for streaming, it’s just included in the package.

    For non-traditional streaming services, I still have a number of subscriptions on Twitch and with Subtember, I’ve gotten a bunch of 6 month subs to my favorite creators. Also given out gift subs to my favorite creators.

    I also subscribe to Dropout and while my subscription is expiring in the next few months, I’ll certainly renew it for another year when I have time to binge Dimension 20 again.

    I really don’t have any interest in streaming services that give traditional options anymore. Even before I cancelled Netflix, I could look in my recent connection history where it shows the five most recent logins and see timestamps going back 2+ years. I transitioned away from that kind of content a long time ago.