The point of streaming was never to avoid ads. That was a temporary lure. It was to bypass and break the cable tv business model of bundled channels. It worked. Cable always had ads despite hefty subscription fees. Plenty of streamers don’t have ads. Cancel the ones that do.
We're finding more and more movies on the Roku free channels. It's a pain to sit through commercials, but the streaming channels I was paying for have commercials now, too.
Having had a tivo for a couple years, that ruined me for being able to watch tv with commercials. That leads me to pay the extra fees to reduce commercials on my streaming services, even though it doesn't eliminate all of them. Even Amazon gets an extra three bucks a month.
We’re not. They just want us to think we are. Just like the cable companies did. Most of us are just too lazy to find better ways. Much easier to ask for more, please sir.
Then, please, what are the better ways? I cut cable for an antenna for local news, I subscribe to a few services, now most films are paid. Where to watch w/out paying? Pirate boxes sold on Amazon? Buying DVDs and Blu-rays again (consider that most series and films are not sold in this medium)?
Don’t resort to pirate boxes, either. I promise they won’t work the way you want them to. Probably won’t work at all. It’s just the Wild West out there and I don’t think there good, complete solutions.
Apps like Hoopla and Kanopy are free and are provided by local libraries and Pluto and Zeam provide some live streaming television including local news for some markets. Frankly the whole system of ads and subscriptions has turned me off to this model of viewing. It’s chaos really.
What I've been doing is searching the movies/DVD's at my local thrift store or even purchasing hard to find ones on eBay. If you use eBay, be sure DVD's are set for your region.
I just bought Hail Caesar off eBay ($1plus shipping=~<$6) Tried to find it free on one of my paid subscription channels...nana. So now I can watch when I want for a T of $6 forever. 😆
I’ve canceled all my services in recent weeks and months. I found that we’re saving about $1000 a year and I’m not supporting the Techbros or adjacent rich folks.
Just went through all of them to cancel auto renewal. The plan is to wait for the final episode of a season to drop, buy a month and cancel immediately after viewing. I’ll be reading a lot of books in the interim.
We never pay to rent anything when we're already paying for the streaming service, and very often, the films or series they offer for rent are decades old. Amazon is the biggest offender.
I don't know how to do piracy, so I'll need some tips. Argh.
The real pisser is when they don't charge extra for the first few seasons of a show and then want more $$ to see the final season. Screw that extortion. Sure, we can afford $5, but hell with the bastards.
I am so sick of that crap. And ads! WTH? I pay for the service, you make me watch ads or pay extra and now I have to pay extra to watch certain shows? 2025 is going to be the year of not wasting my money.
Check your local library for DVDs. I can reserve older movies and have them sent to my local branch. They also get copies of newly released DVDs pretty quickly after release. Also, books!
I got rid of cable a few months ago and signed up for YouTube TV. I saved so much money it was insane! I just killed YouTube TV too because I wasn't watching it.
This. If you can't play a physical copy, you don't own it. All you're paying for is permission to watch/listen, which can disappear at any time for any, or no, reason.
Agreed. I watch a lot of old and new movies or tv series and it’s almost always “Watch on Prime with a Free Trial” followed by Surprise! You have to rent or buy.
I’m old enough to have worked in a video rental store so I get paying to rent but my rental store acct was free. I didn’t pay twice.
People are misinterpreting my post. I'm not accusing any of them of doing this because he just died. They haven't had time. I'm accusing them of
charging me for access to their content, and then wanting an extra fee when I want to watch something specific.
I understand!
Peacock did the same thing after I had paid for a year's subscription. All of a sudden everything that was free, wasn't free anymore and Peacock wanted MORE MONEY.
It's a moot point now.
I've canceled Peacock and Amazon accounts.
Get a Vseebox, V3 I prefer, off eBay for 320$ and cancel every service you have except obviously your Internet, and you will get EVERYTHING you want for a fraction of what you're paying...or so I've been told 😉
Yeah, Amazon in particular. If I can stream it by paying extra it's streamable so should be on Prime. Fuck I miss LoveFilm: three tiers of how much I desperately want you to send me the DVD, the random assortment for movie night dropping through the letterbox and they had some real obscurities.
Comments
Would you like to play Ultra Violent Mortal Kombat Monopoly?"
#GeneHackman
😼 Then you'll just have to go through the old DVDs to check if you've got any.
Or: wait a bit some channel or streaming will do a retrospective. MUBI might.
Or even: if desperate buy a couple: The Conversation is retailing for £6-7 [though check it's the best version]
The real pisser is when they don't charge extra for the first few seasons of a show and then want more $$ to see the final season. Screw that extortion. Sure, we can afford $5, but hell with the bastards.
Careful, there's still some gnarly malware on Tor
unlike the early days of streaming services a lot of movies now whether old or new now require VOD rental fee - and those $3.99+ fees add up *fast*.
Cable company bundles screwed a whole generation. Streaming service VOD fees are the new screw.
https://www.justwatch.com/us/search?q=Gene Hackman&person_id=15098
Lots of Hackman films on free services:
suggest Get Shorty
Gonna Miss you Gene
(Sorry, had to be grammatically pedantic...)
Why have them at this point? To give them an extra 4 bucks Everytime I want to watch a movie? Nah. I'm good with books thanks.
I’m old enough to have worked in a video rental store so I get paying to rent but my rental store acct was free. I didn’t pay twice.
charging me for access to their content, and then wanting an extra fee when I want to watch something specific.
Peacock did the same thing after I had paid for a year's subscription. All of a sudden everything that was free, wasn't free anymore and Peacock wanted MORE MONEY.
It's a moot point now.
I've canceled Peacock and Amazon accounts.
Now that can’t be happenstance.
In the iTunes Store
With classless and absolutely ghoulish greed
Hoosiers time!