I've had a mostly hate partial love relationship with streaming services. I refused to get Netflix after being over people's houses to watch something only to sit staring at a bunch of thumbnails scrolling by for ages. (There's a study confirming our brains melt from too much choice). So, I actually cannot remember why I got a subscription. It had to have been for some show, seriously I don't remember. (Maybe Degrassi Next Class but I'm sure I saw it for free elsewhere) Anyway, I've got it.
I have a Stan account for Twin Peaks the reunion, but I kept it for Better Call Saul (I did cancel for a while and borrow someone else's account but decided the Peaks was worth going back to it). I barely use it since I'm too cheap to allow more than one active sign in and I have the Return on DVD now anyway.
Then I got Prime. And I fucking dislike paying for a service that still forces me to rent some movies when I'd rather pay more to get full access. I'd also like to add, what the fuck determines what's for rent and what's free on Amazon? Like why are you asking money for Ghost Rider? I'm assuming it's a distribution issue, and what they've already got to rent for non-Prime video customers. I think there's some needless convoluted BS behind it. But free shipping (most of the time - one second I could get author copies with free shipping the next second I couldn't) I guess is worth the 7 bucks a month. It's interface isn't so great, you get more than one thumbnail for each show season. Which is stupid.
I skidded past SBS on Demand and cancelled my free subscription because I couldn't disable ads. I tolerated them barely for Letterkenny but haven't touched the new account since. They do have Nirvana the Band the Show, but again, ads.
Then there was Apple, which has easily the least amount of content, to the point they "trick" you by making four thumbnails for one fucking series. Overall it barely has 100 shows and movies available. I've seen one thing I wanted to see and I only have it because I replaced my phone and got a year's free. I might watch other shit on there. Again, I've barely looked at it.
Lately, I've wanted to watch certain things. But, as I suspected, they disappeared. Just as well I got the DVDs. I was beyond pissed certain A24 movies were pulled, the more it looks like studios want their shit back to stream themselves, the more shit vanishes from existing services. Services which operate at a loss and churn out exclusive content just to have content.
And God help me if I ever get sucked into Disney+.
Despite having free access for one of these, I don't get my money's worth out of it at all. Because I'm on YouTube rewatching the same channels where I have no ads and no monthly bill. I've given up on sourcing any movies outside of these services but when I'm not able to find one movie across FIVE platforms (or I do see it on Amazon but I still have to rent it), I get so resentful I go back to YouTube out of spite. I did bust out my DVDs the other day but I'm finally starting to see the fuss over HD/4K at least in terms of not having to fuck with the aspect ratio on my TV just to deal with something not shot in widescreen suddenly being in widescreen and making an otherwise svelte Matthew McConaughey look stupidly wide during True Detective. At least streaming for the most part delivers a certain quality. So I get pros from some of this but I'm not shocked by how many people have failed to see the obvious cons.
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