Below is a look at the most exasperating news from streaming services from this week. The scale of this article demonstrates how fast and frequently disappointing streaming news arises. Coincidentally, as we wrote this article, another price hike was announced.

We’ll also examine each streaming platform’s financial status to get an idea of what these companies are thinking (spoiler: They’re thinking about money).

Netflix starts killing its cheapest ad-free plan in June

Sony bumps Crunchyroll prices weeks after shuttering Funimation

Peacock is raising prices

Fubo cuts 19 channels

In a seemingly desperate push, many streaming services prioritize revenue and profits ahead of building the best streaming service for customers.

We could go on about how this might force people to reconsider their subscriptions, but we should publish before another service makes yet another policy change.

  • @BonesOfTheMoon
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    2929 days ago

    So, who wants to help a landlubber learn to sail the high seas?

    • @[email protected]
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      29 days ago

      Best place to start if you’re serious. https://trash-guides.info/

      Frugal Usenet is a good cheap and reliable option for Usenet downloading or search out some torrent trackers of your preference. If you go the Usenet route, let me know, I can send you some indexer invites.

      I’ve run most of the arr apps on windows but Linux with docker is less upkeep and easier to perform updates.

      • @BonesOfTheMoon
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        929 days ago

        I am serious because fuck this streaming shit.

        • @[email protected]
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          1029 days ago

          That’s the spirit! If you know your way around Linux admin, docker and such, don’t hesitate to dive into jellyseerr + *arr + Jellyfin, it was much simpler to set up than I expected. Once everything’s up and running, the experience is far superior to any commercial streaming service.

          • @BonesOfTheMoon
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            429 days ago

            You’re speaking Greek but I’ll figure it out. I always do.

            • @turmacar
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              29 days ago

              The trash-guides they posted are for a majority of the “arr” stack (Sonarr, Radarr, etc) that monitor stuff you ask for and automate a lot of the download handling.

              Jellyfin is a FOSS media server alternative to Plex. They each have their minor pluses and minuses. Personally plex has been easier to get non-techie friends/family to use.

              Docker is a containerization system. Basically instead of setting up a physical computer, or one or more virtual machines, you have a self contained bundle of everything a program needs to run that is linked to storage/network stuff on your actual system. Then they talk to each other.

              One thing to keep in mind is that this is all immensely scalable. Especially if you don’t care about long term storage of a bunch of shows/movies. You can set it up on your personal PC and it’ll work fine. Set it up on a dedicated machineand it’ll be a bit more reliable. Moving stuff around is generally pretty painless. ( as long as the trash-guides or some similar standardization is followed )

      • @[email protected]
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        129 days ago

        I keep seeing Usenet mentioned for downloading media, but I’ve never tried it; I’ve stuck with torrents because they’re free and what I’m familiar with. Is paying for Usenet access worth it, is it more straightforward to use with the *arr stack, is there more content available?

        • @triptrapper
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          429 days ago

          IMO Usenet is worth the cost. It’s a different process than torrenting, with some extra steps, but once you wrap your head around it it’s fairly simple. Depending on the indexer you use, Usenet can be much better organized and easier to find what you’re looking for.

        • @[email protected]
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          229 days ago

          The nice part about Usenet is it’s basically full saturation of your internet line, so if you have a gigabit line, it will come as close as possible to running downloads at that speed. Frugal Usenet is $60 for their annual account, in my opinion it’s worth it just for speed alone. I pay for Usenet ninja as well as a secondary account for failed downloads.

      • @unphazed
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        28 days ago

        I wish I hadn’t quit on acid lounge for so long… my account was closed due to inactivity (Netflix was a nice option way back then)