Yah literally everyone with more than two brain cells saw this coming…start out cheap to suck you in to kill competition and then raise prices every quarter…
Yup, while attacking the older generation from educating the young about the good things in the past, can’t let those pleb kids have physical bank notes.
I got a bone to pick with this kind of statement. Before they started raising prices exorbitantly, the techbros (mainly) all over social media would bite my head off for even suggesting their beloved tech companies would dare do so such things. It was a minority of voices who said they would inevitably follow the cable model. Did that ever chap some asses.
I was right.
Quite frankly the period roughly spanning the 2010s was wild with how enamored everyone was with tech companies.
Hahahaha oh my god, i remember those conversations and I also remember taking the same stance you did and told everyone that would listen it was only a matter if time before the honeymoon phase ends and the extortion begins…hell wasn’t there a meme going around back in the 2000’s that showed this exact thing happening
The seven seas streaming service, however, is keeping its prices frozen for another year making it now the longest streak ever of a service without raising prices.
Don't tell me you didn't get the definitive ultra mega sppporter infinite plus edition when they launched it? It had a lifetime sub so you didn't need to pay a monthly fee anymore.
Don't forget that data center's are making hardware incredibly pricey, including hard drives. Almost tripled in a year where I live. This makes even local storage of media so much harder.
Still, cable was like $75 - $100 a month for me, iirc. Streaming services I pay for one at a time until I run out of things to watch, then switch services for a while.
Cable also had difficult connection and disconnection processes. You had to call the company, schedule an installer (maybe take time off work). When you canceled, your bill didn't stop until you drove the cable box to the cable company. Oh, you had to pay monthly to rent the cable box and even rent the remote too!
Streaming, for all its faults, is still a superior experience.
They tried to charge me for the free digital conversion boxes they sent out when they converted their basic cable from analog to digital. That was a fun conversation with the poor box collection service that called me.
"Hold on, you are trying to collect the FREE boxes, that had NO charge on my bill, that I was expressly told were FREE. If I don't return them, you want to charge me $200 for the FREE boxes they sent me?"
"As they were sent to me for FREE, not for rent, they are mine. If you want them back I will sell them to you for $400."
Without invoicing a nominal amount they forfeited ownership in my jurisdiction. They later changed to charging $1 a year for them for new customers. They also had to send the invoice with-in a year. I had them for like 7 years.
At the change-over the government forced them to offer them for free.
Mailing an item to someone without a charge or an agreement of a charge means that it's their property. You can not charge people for an item delivered for free after the fact. This is to stop scammers from sending you an item for "free", then sending you a surprise huge bill a few months later. It was a pretty popular scam historically.
they were 'free' as in no per-month rental fees.. for an undisclosed period of time, anyway. they certainly would have started charging monthly for them at some point. the cable company would not ever willingly send out free, no-strings-attached electronics equipment you never had to return and was yours-to-keep.
25 years ago, i had cable with all the 'premiums', and internet.. for less than what that same company gets just for the slowest 'available' internet (only) today. despite the cost to deliver bits to the home being lower now. yes. it's faster today but the speed i had before was enough to watch a stream in realtime. it'd still be enough to watch an hd stream today (and then by extension, 'fast enough' for anything else i care to do at home). i never asked for faster, i wanted to keep the 'cheaper' but that's not an option. they want their 90 percent pure profit. the shareholders demand it.
I had just spectrum Internet for years and the price and speed just kept going up. I agree I don't need 300mbps.
I switched to 5g mint mobile for a third of the cost and half the speed.
When I quit spectrum they said I should just call them whenever the price was too high and they'd give me some promotional price for 12 months or so. That just pissed me off more.
The big promise of streaming was that you were supposed to only need to subscribe to individual channels of content. It turns out the major streamers are still providing some bundling.
They can get away with that simply because there are enough lazy people who don't care about the price hikes. I swear we have reached a form of late-stage capitalism where corpos have indoctrinated people in such a way, that they don't even consider the thought of simply not consuming something.
We also have control of what we want to watch and when, and can cancel and move between services.
My parents used to spend £35 a month for 300 channels of which they would only watch one or two of, and they had no control of when they could watch what they wanted unless they paid extra for the ability to record shows.
I moved them over to a broadband only deal and they hop between streaming service subs now. It saves them a good amount of money each month and they can watch what they want when they want.
Streaming services are far from perfect, but they are ad free (if you pay for it) and give you greater control.
Greedy bastards in Hollywood got greedier: The method of delivery is not the reason, just the excuse.
The fact that some of us let all these media companies create their own service and demand the streaming infra pricetags is part of the problem. If Americans refused to jump ship for Friends and Marvel and whatever else, we might actually just have Hulu and Netflix and the infra costs would be be lower. Instead people flocked to greedy Dickney et al and got screwed in the process. This is not an attempt to claim Netflix or Hulu wouldnae have triez to raise rates, just to point out that their argument to do so would have been harder.
60 Comments
BuckFutter@timeyak.com · 57 pts · 1d
Yah literally everyone with more than two brain cells saw this coming…start out cheap to suck you in to kill competition and then raise prices every quarter…
Sunshine@piefed.ca · 10 pts · 1d
Yup, while attacking the older generation from educating the young about the good things in the past, can’t let those pleb kids have physical bank notes.
OctopusNemeses@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
I got a bone to pick with this kind of statement. Before they started raising prices exorbitantly, the techbros (mainly) all over social media would bite my head off for even suggesting their beloved tech companies would dare do so such things. It was a minority of voices who said they would inevitably follow the cable model. Did that ever chap some asses.
I was right.
Quite frankly the period roughly spanning the 2010s was wild with how enamored everyone was with tech companies.
BuckFutter@timeyak.com · 3 pts · 1d
Hahahaha oh my god, i remember those conversations and I also remember taking the same stance you did and told everyone that would listen it was only a matter if time before the honeymoon phase ends and the extortion begins…hell wasn’t there a meme going around back in the 2000’s that showed this exact thing happening
AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social · 47 pts · 1d
The seven seas streaming service, however, is keeping its prices frozen for another year making it now the longest streak ever of a service without raising prices.
kgbbot@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 20 pts · 1d
Hard drive space is the cost going up whilst on the seas.
anon_8675309@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1d
Purge, don’t hoard.
Keep only the stuff you’ll legitimately watch again. Purge the one and done.
huquad@lemmy.ml · 11 pts · 23h
Why shouldn't I keep it?! My... Precious
iamthetot@piefed.ca · 5 pts · 19h
If everyone had that attitude, things will get lost forever. Someone's gotta keep seeding.
Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 1d
I just spun up some old old 12 tb I had from my last bump so I wouldn't need to prune data.
I will use this to justify my continued hoarding of obsolete gear for far long than it makes sense.
drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 19h
Even at current prices, where a 10 TB hard drive is ~$410, that's only ~35 cents for a DVD's worth of content (8.5 GB).
AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social · 1 pts · 1d
I'm not a hoarder, so I watch and delete after a while.
Steve@startrek.website · 11 pts · 1d
Yet VPN use keeps gaining more friction. I can’t log into my bank without shutting it off, for example.
huquad@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 23h
Are you kidding? Jellyfin just tripled their prices
PagPag@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 22h
Maybe don’t use it?
P2P doesn’t require jellyfin lol.
huquad@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 22h
Yeah, but P2P just quadrupled their prices
PagPag@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 22h
I’m honestly not sure if you’re joking or just completely missing the topic at hand.
You can delete items after watching or simply stream shit…
Edit: https://fmhy.net/video
tquid@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 12h
The joke is that X * 0 is still 0
iamthetot@piefed.ca · 3 pts · 19h
Jellyfin is entirely free.
PagPag@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 12h
Was thinking plex for some reason
TrumpetX@programming.dev · 2 pts · 22h
/woooooosh
AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social · 1 pts · 22h
Don't tell me you didn't get the definitive ultra mega sppporter infinite plus edition when they launched it? It had a lifetime sub so you didn't need to pay a monthly fee anymore.
Dagnet@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
Another common jellyfin W
BooBees@fedinsfw.app · 44 pts · 1d
Excuse me while I grab my fainting salts, I am so SHOCKED to find exactly what I expected has occurred!
Sunshine@piefed.ca · 23 pts · 1d
They took away my headphone jack and now they’re taking away my PlayStation disc reader so they can force me to stream movies and video games.
RedSnt@feddit.dk · 13 pts · 1d
Don't forget that data center's are making hardware incredibly pricey, including hard drives. Almost tripled in a year where I live. This makes even local storage of media so much harder.
Sunshine@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 1d
Hans Island will seek revenge against data centres.
RedSnt@feddit.dk · 1 pts · 1d
I initially misunderstood so I just had the silliest picture in my head of an underground smugling tunnel on Hans Island
Sunshine@piefed.ca · 1 pts · 1d
We got a plan to cave in our data centres from the rebel hole on the island.
mycodesucks@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
It's called "courage"
/S
Jaysyn@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 1d
I wouldn't know.
osanna@lemmy.vg · 6 pts · 23h
yarrrrrrr
deacon@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 1d
And what additional value are consumers getting in return for these ludicrous price rises?
Nothing but shit and slop.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 1d
Even though I'm not spending any money on this and pirating everything it's still bad
deacon@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Avast me hearty
thenextguy@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 1d
Still, cable was like $75 - $100 a month for me, iirc. Streaming services I pay for one at a time until I run out of things to watch, then switch services for a while.
amgine@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 1d
And had contracts to keep you locked in
partial_accumen@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 1d
Cable also had difficult connection and disconnection processes. You had to call the company, schedule an installer (maybe take time off work). When you canceled, your bill didn't stop until you drove the cable box to the cable company. Oh, you had to pay monthly to rent the cable box and even rent the remote too!
Streaming, for all its faults, is still a superior experience.
The_v@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
They tried to charge me for the free digital conversion boxes they sent out when they converted their basic cable from analog to digital. That was a fun conversation with the poor box collection service that called me.
"Hold on, you are trying to collect the FREE boxes, that had NO charge on my bill, that I was expressly told were FREE. If I don't return them, you want to charge me $200 for the FREE boxes they sent me?"
"As they were sent to me for FREE, not for rent, they are mine. If you want them back I will sell them to you for $400."
Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 1d
None of that matters. Equipment being offered for free doesn't mean it's yours and doesn't mean your not contractually obligated to return it.
The_v@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Without invoicing a nominal amount they forfeited ownership in my jurisdiction. They later changed to charging $1 a year for them for new customers. They also had to send the invoice with-in a year. I had them for like 7 years.
At the change-over the government forced them to offer them for free.
Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 23h
Wait, your jurisdiction has a law requiring corporations charge for required equipment. Do you not see how that is anti-consumer?
Bizzare. You got lucky. Everyone else has to pay for something the company didn't want to charge for.
The_v@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 22h
It's a pretty common law in many countries.
Mailing an item to someone without a charge or an agreement of a charge means that it's their property. You can not charge people for an item delivered for free after the fact. This is to stop scammers from sending you an item for "free", then sending you a surprise huge bill a few months later. It was a pretty popular scam historically.
adarza@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1d
they were 'free' as in no per-month rental fees.. for an undisclosed period of time, anyway. they certainly would have started charging monthly for them at some point. the cable company would not ever willingly send out free, no-strings-attached electronics equipment you never had to return and was yours-to-keep.
The_v@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
State forced them to send them out as part of the digital conversion. It was a condition of allowing the change.
adarza@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 1d
25 years ago, i had cable with all the 'premiums', and internet.. for less than what that same company gets just for the slowest 'available' internet (only) today. despite the cost to deliver bits to the home being lower now. yes. it's faster today but the speed i had before was enough to watch a stream in realtime. it'd still be enough to watch an hd stream today (and then by extension, 'fast enough' for anything else i care to do at home). i never asked for faster, i wanted to keep the 'cheaper' but that's not an option. they want their 90 percent pure profit. the shareholders demand it.
thenextguy@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
I had just spectrum Internet for years and the price and speed just kept going up. I agree I don't need 300mbps.
I switched to 5g mint mobile for a third of the cost and half the speed.
When I quit spectrum they said I should just call them whenever the price was too high and they'd give me some promotional price for 12 months or so. That just pissed me off more.
myyass@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1d
I just pay for internet. Everything else is free.
pnwpixel@programming.dev · 8 pts · 20h
Oopsies, I dropped something...
https://wiki.servarr.com/
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it · 5 pts · 1d
Streaming is just cable but you can choose what to watch rn, heck you even get ads on lower tier subscriptions
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club · 4 pts · 1d
The big promise of streaming was that you were supposed to only need to subscribe to individual channels of content. It turns out the major streamers are still providing some bundling.
lemmyng@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
If buying streaming services ain't owning, piracy ain't stealing.
Funkt4st1c@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
Honestly piracy and going to the theatre are the move nowadays
GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Physical media forever, baby. They can't take my DVDs away from me.
blackberry28@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 1d
They can get away with that simply because there are enough lazy people who don't care about the price hikes. I swear we have reached a form of late-stage capitalism where corpos have indoctrinated people in such a way, that they don't even consider the thought of simply not consuming something.
mintiefresh@piefed.ca · 3 pts · 1d
Shocking /s
Ptsf@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
It's still so much better than it was. At least with most services I can pay to opt out of ads, that didn't exist for cable.
Schal330@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
We also have control of what we want to watch and when, and can cancel and move between services.
My parents used to spend £35 a month for 300 channels of which they would only watch one or two of, and they had no control of when they could watch what they wanted unless they paid extra for the ability to record shows.
I moved them over to a broadband only deal and they hop between streaming service subs now. It saves them a good amount of money each month and they can watch what they want when they want.
Streaming services are far from perfect, but they are ad free (if you pay for it) and give you greater control.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 18h
Predicted this over a decade ago. I hate that I was right.
kenjen@feddit.online · 1 pts · 1d
Dumb headline: