Chatfilter: How do you manage your streaming services, & what about ads
September 13, 2023 7:40 AM Subscribe
#metafilterfundraiser2023. As streaming becomes more and more confusing, with so many streaming platforms, how do you keep track of it all? And what is the future of advertising on streaming? I'd like to hear all your thoughts on streaming and how you manage it. Or do you just subscribe to one or two platforms and not think about it too much?
Do you subscribe to all the platforms, just a couple platforms and leave it at that, or do you delete and add streaming services as you want to watch different shows?
Does anyone else keep a spreadsheet of all the shows and movies you want to watch? As I hear about new shows, I add them to a spreadsheet. Then a few times a year I'll swap out one service for another so I can watch shows I've saved up. This works for me because I don't mind waiting a long time to watch a new show, and it makes streaming more affordable.
For example, next month I'll be canceling HBO Max and subscribing to Hulu. After more than a year, I'll finally get to watch The Bear.
Have you been spoiled by more than a decade of ad-free shows on streaming? Or do you like that most of the services how have an option with ads? Do you think that the ad-free option will eventually go away, not right away but maybe in a few years? Has anyone who follows and reports on the streaming business written about this; is it something the streaming businesses have talked about?
My head has been spinning for years trying to keep up with shows that I want to watch, most of which I never end up watching anyway due to time. I'd love to hear any tips you have for managing this abundance of tv shows and movies.
Do you subscribe to all the platforms, just a couple platforms and leave it at that, or do you delete and add streaming services as you want to watch different shows?
Does anyone else keep a spreadsheet of all the shows and movies you want to watch? As I hear about new shows, I add them to a spreadsheet. Then a few times a year I'll swap out one service for another so I can watch shows I've saved up. This works for me because I don't mind waiting a long time to watch a new show, and it makes streaming more affordable.
For example, next month I'll be canceling HBO Max and subscribing to Hulu. After more than a year, I'll finally get to watch The Bear.
Have you been spoiled by more than a decade of ad-free shows on streaming? Or do you like that most of the services how have an option with ads? Do you think that the ad-free option will eventually go away, not right away but maybe in a few years? Has anyone who follows and reports on the streaming business written about this; is it something the streaming businesses have talked about?
My head has been spinning for years trying to keep up with shows that I want to watch, most of which I never end up watching anyway due to time. I'd love to hear any tips you have for managing this abundance of tv shows and movies.
I switch about once a month, so I'm only paying for one at a time. I make a list for the things I want to watch and subscribe to the one that has the most things that month. I find if I have more than one subscription at a time, I have too much choice and can't decide what to watch.
posted by pangolin party at 7:51 AM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by pangolin party at 7:51 AM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
In theory I should just subscribe to whatever's showing what I'm watching at the moment and cancel the others. In practice I have more money than time and as a result, Netflix, Disney, HBO, and Paramount are all getting my money.
posted by Alterscape at 7:55 AM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Alterscape at 7:55 AM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
I pay for three, steal two from my brother and pirate the stuff that isn't available on one of these, ppv or my library. I would much rather pay a media-tax than faff around like this. The chipping and chopping of where to find what is pushing me back onto the web where I was previously happily paying. I want to pay!
posted by Iteki at 8:16 AM on September 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Iteki at 8:16 AM on September 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
We delete and add, but we don't have a spreadsheet, just a general idea of what shows we're waiting to watch. We get the Disney Bundle through our cell phone plan, and after realizing we were using Hulu a lot more than Netflix a few months ago we dropped Netflix. We have Amazon Prime on a yearly plan, but we have a calendar reminder to think about canceling it before the next renewal. The next service we add will be (HBO) Max, because we know we want to watch "Hacks." Once we have it we'll watch a few other things and then when we've exhausted our watchlist we'll drop it. TBH I'm a little surprised we don't have a spreadsheet simply because my wife appreciates a good spreadsheet, but mostly it's just a mental running list that periodically gets shuffled if one of us learns about a show we think the other might also like.
We currently have an annual plan for Peacock we got through the "summer of Peacock" deal, but we wouldn't have it without the deal. We've got the version with ads, but if we were bingeing a series I'd probably pay extra for the ad-free experience for however long that took. (Maybe not, though: most of Peacock's ad breaks are just 60 seconds long). And we currently have a free 90 day Apple TV+ plan through some promo, but we'll cancel that before we have to pay for it.
In general, though, there are too many streaming services and we get by just by ignoring them until some sort of deal pops up. Then we figure out if we'll be able to focus on whatever series we've been talking about watching and finish it before the deal runs out. For example, we watched the first two seasons of "Picard" last year via a Prime Day deal. Other than that I think we watched maybe one movie through Paramount Plus while we had it. There's not enough stuff we want to watch on Paramount Plus to make it a regular subscription for us (we tried "Strange New Worlds" and just couldn't get into it). We'll get around to the third season of "Picard" at some point, but we're in no hurry. I think we've done Showtime and Starz once each, also through Prime Day deals, grabbed Acorn so we could watch "The Wine Show," and haven't yet had a reason to sign up for AMC+.
Now that I've typed all this out I'm realizing that Amazon Prime would be a good monthly signup for the summer doldrums – gain access to Prime Day channel deals, binge whatever, and then cancel it all again as the fall seasons get going. We'd spend a lot less money that way than paying for it all year.
posted by fedward at 8:26 AM on September 13, 2023
We currently have an annual plan for Peacock we got through the "summer of Peacock" deal, but we wouldn't have it without the deal. We've got the version with ads, but if we were bingeing a series I'd probably pay extra for the ad-free experience for however long that took. (Maybe not, though: most of Peacock's ad breaks are just 60 seconds long). And we currently have a free 90 day Apple TV+ plan through some promo, but we'll cancel that before we have to pay for it.
In general, though, there are too many streaming services and we get by just by ignoring them until some sort of deal pops up. Then we figure out if we'll be able to focus on whatever series we've been talking about watching and finish it before the deal runs out. For example, we watched the first two seasons of "Picard" last year via a Prime Day deal. Other than that I think we watched maybe one movie through Paramount Plus while we had it. There's not enough stuff we want to watch on Paramount Plus to make it a regular subscription for us (we tried "Strange New Worlds" and just couldn't get into it). We'll get around to the third season of "Picard" at some point, but we're in no hurry. I think we've done Showtime and Starz once each, also through Prime Day deals, grabbed Acorn so we could watch "The Wine Show," and haven't yet had a reason to sign up for AMC+.
Now that I've typed all this out I'm realizing that Amazon Prime would be a good monthly signup for the summer doldrums – gain access to Prime Day channel deals, binge whatever, and then cancel it all again as the fall seasons get going. We'd spend a lot less money that way than paying for it all year.
posted by fedward at 8:26 AM on September 13, 2023
I adopted an unorthodox strategy that probably won't work for most people: I canceled all multinational conglomerate vertically-integrated streaming services (Hulu, Paramount Plus, etc.) and "acquire" what I want to watch from other sources and load them into my Plex server.
I still have access to some of them because of password-sharing, and I'm fine with that.
I do still subscribe to smaller ones: Criterion Channel, Mubi.
posted by rhymedirective at 8:32 AM on September 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
I still have access to some of them because of password-sharing, and I'm fine with that.
I do still subscribe to smaller ones: Criterion Channel, Mubi.
posted by rhymedirective at 8:32 AM on September 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
I hate ads like poison. I pay YouTube so I don't see ads. I have MLB.tv in season, and I can't block ads there so I mute them. In October I buy a month of YouTube TV so I can watch the baseball playoffs, muting the ads. The only OTA channels I can get are 4 PBS channels, which sort of have ads but I mute them too. I do pay PBS about 60 bucks a year to watch junk on their Roku app. I don't pay anybody else. Sometimes I'll watch stuff on Pluto, but the ads are so horrible I mostly don't. I'm fortunate that I don't care very much about new shows or movies so I don't mind missing out on what people are talking about at work. Video entertainment is so expensive, and so much of it doesn't seem worth it to me, especially with all the hoops you have to jump through now, switching services, etc.
As for ad-free tiers ever going away, well, when I was about 8 in the early 1970s I remember hearing about how wonderful cable TV was going to be, because since we were paying for it there wouldn't be any ads. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
posted by JanetLand at 8:40 AM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
As for ad-free tiers ever going away, well, when I was about 8 in the early 1970s I remember hearing about how wonderful cable TV was going to be, because since we were paying for it there wouldn't be any ads. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
posted by JanetLand at 8:40 AM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
I adopted an unorthodox strategy that probably won't work for most people: I canceled all multinational conglomerate vertically-integrated streaming services (Hulu, Paramount Plus, etc.) and "acquire" what I want to watch from other sources and load them into my Plex server.
I still have access to some of them because of password-sharing, and I'm fine with that.
Yeah, our Plex server is dope! We have access to a couple of streaming services--Amazon Prime, Shudder--but mostly, uh, things appear on the Plex server.
My partner def watches a lot more TV than me because I suffer from decision paralysis. There's too much TV, too little me. So I usually just watch shows that I know will appeal to me pretty instantly (most Marvel, shows like WWDITS, some supernatural shows but the elements have to be right). Most dramas are just not my jam so I am okay with never watching watched what is considered Peak Television.
God bless the Plex server
posted by Kitteh at 8:53 AM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
I still have access to some of them because of password-sharing, and I'm fine with that.
Yeah, our Plex server is dope! We have access to a couple of streaming services--Amazon Prime, Shudder--but mostly, uh, things appear on the Plex server.
My partner def watches a lot more TV than me because I suffer from decision paralysis. There's too much TV, too little me. So I usually just watch shows that I know will appeal to me pretty instantly (most Marvel, shows like WWDITS, some supernatural shows but the elements have to be right). Most dramas are just not my jam so I am okay with never watching watched what is considered Peak Television.
God bless the Plex server
posted by Kitteh at 8:53 AM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
I've cut way back on my streaming service loadout, and have plans to cut back further. My intention going forward is to just subscribe to the major commercial services (Netflix/Hulu et al) when they have a specific original show I want to watch right then and there, and can't wait for it to just show up on DVD later.
This also gives me room to subscribe to a handful of boutique services like Criterion or Shudder; Both of these services are basically a set-and-forget entertainment expense for me, and I get way more out of them than I do from other streamers that both 1) cost more and 2) have a larger selection of things, most of which don't particularly interest me. I also dedicate a certain amount of money to independent content in the form of monthly livestreams from comedians and podcasters I follow.
I also maintain a healthy home Plex server fed from my own DVD/Blu-ray collection, and plan to spend a lot more time both watching what I've put up on there and further curating it with discs I find for cheap at second-hand shops and such. My intention here is to build both a personalized streaming service for myself alongside a personal lending library of physical media that I can loan out to friends.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:01 AM on September 13, 2023
This also gives me room to subscribe to a handful of boutique services like Criterion or Shudder; Both of these services are basically a set-and-forget entertainment expense for me, and I get way more out of them than I do from other streamers that both 1) cost more and 2) have a larger selection of things, most of which don't particularly interest me. I also dedicate a certain amount of money to independent content in the form of monthly livestreams from comedians and podcasters I follow.
I also maintain a healthy home Plex server fed from my own DVD/Blu-ray collection, and plan to spend a lot more time both watching what I've put up on there and further curating it with discs I find for cheap at second-hand shops and such. My intention here is to build both a personalized streaming service for myself alongside a personal lending library of physical media that I can loan out to friends.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:01 AM on September 13, 2023
As far as curating my to-watch lists, I keep a running watchlist/log of movies on Letterboxd, which helps me keep track of which movies in a given series or by a particular filmmaker I want to see. I don't really have anything like that for television shows, but I also watch a lot less made-for-TV content in comparison to feature films. It helps that most streaming services (including Plex) keep track of which episodes/seasons I've seen, but in general I find that I can't really watch more than two or three shows at a time anyway.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:09 AM on September 13, 2023
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:09 AM on September 13, 2023
I don't have anything so organized as a spreadsheet, but I do casually keep a list of what I want to see and churn services. The timing on this is also not regimented. In a couple special cases, I'll pay for a month when a new season of a show comes out. Otherwise it's when I'm bored with offerings on whatever I'm paying for; I'll also look for or wait for a good sale.
I don't give Amazon money so Prime is not in the mix. I dropped HBO after the rebrand just because I thought it was dumb and I have no interest in the merged content, and there hasn't been anything I want to see enough to draw me back. I think I got Starz for something like $20 for six months, which is about what its catalog is worth to me.
Commercials.. wow, I hate them with the fire of a thousand suns and have long done everything I can to avoid them. In most cases I would rather not have the service than have the service with ads. That said, I have Hulu with commercials because it's free with my Spotify account, and it is awful. They put them in incredibly frequently and I never knew the advertising world had so much to say, so often, about boners.
I don't think this will change. I think we have lived through the good times and it's only going to get worse from here, especially with the strike. The future I see is more pointless mergers, bland catalogs, removal of shows, and price hikes. The writing on the wall is so clear to me that I've started to move towards building up my DVD collection, which hasn't really had an update in ~20 years, with anything I'm inclined to want to rewatch.
posted by wormtales at 9:33 AM on September 13, 2023
I don't give Amazon money so Prime is not in the mix. I dropped HBO after the rebrand just because I thought it was dumb and I have no interest in the merged content, and there hasn't been anything I want to see enough to draw me back. I think I got Starz for something like $20 for six months, which is about what its catalog is worth to me.
Commercials.. wow, I hate them with the fire of a thousand suns and have long done everything I can to avoid them. In most cases I would rather not have the service than have the service with ads. That said, I have Hulu with commercials because it's free with my Spotify account, and it is awful. They put them in incredibly frequently and I never knew the advertising world had so much to say, so often, about boners.
I don't think this will change. I think we have lived through the good times and it's only going to get worse from here, especially with the strike. The future I see is more pointless mergers, bland catalogs, removal of shows, and price hikes. The writing on the wall is so clear to me that I've started to move towards building up my DVD collection, which hasn't really had an update in ~20 years, with anything I'm inclined to want to rewatch.
posted by wormtales at 9:33 AM on September 13, 2023
We have a few ongoing subscriptions to streaming services that we watch regularly year-round, plus one that I frankly don't ever watch anymore but a friend who is in a tight money situation uses my login and it's a small thing I can do for them to keep it active so I do, plus one slot for a rotating service-of-the-month. (Really it's more like "service of the quarter," as I might e.g. active Apple Plus and take a few months to watch through a backlog of everything I've been meaning to see, and then I cancel it and re-activate, say, HBO. At that point I'll have gone a year or so since I last had HBO so I catch up on whatever I've been meaning to watch in the interim and then switch again.)
I use Letterboxd to track movies I want to watch (and see what services they're on) and mostly use an app called TV Time to track TV shows I want to watch. But these days so much of my TV watching is Chinese, Korean, and Thai shows that I might switch to MyDramaList for TV tracking as it's more up to date and detailed for those shows, and then just keep a text file list somewhere of the handful of American shows I want to keep tabs on.
posted by Stacey at 9:42 AM on September 13, 2023
I use Letterboxd to track movies I want to watch (and see what services they're on) and mostly use an app called TV Time to track TV shows I want to watch. But these days so much of my TV watching is Chinese, Korean, and Thai shows that I might switch to MyDramaList for TV tracking as it's more up to date and detailed for those shows, and then just keep a text file list somewhere of the handful of American shows I want to keep tabs on.
posted by Stacey at 9:42 AM on September 13, 2023
I'm a binge watcher and a repeat watcher, so I prioritize the streaming services that have the shows I love to binge (Peacock: Top Chef; Paramount+: Survivor, The Challenge) and pay for ad-free. I also currently have Disney+ for some reason, but I don't know that I'll keep it, though I do love having access to The Great Muppet Caper at absolutely any time.
posted by epj at 9:55 AM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by epj at 9:55 AM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
We have the Disney/Hulu/ESPN+ bundle, which I pay an extra couple of bucks for to upgrade to ad-free. I also have YouTube Premium for the ad-free YouTube experience. We do almost all our YouTube viewing via a Roku so ad-blockers in a browser don't help me. I'm still paying for Peacock because my wife likes it. My Premier League team got relegated, so if I'm watching soccer on weekend mornings it's The Championship on ESPN+. We can get all the networks OTR, not that we really watch much that way, mostly just Jeopardy as it's not on any streaming service that I know of.
posted by COD at 10:14 AM on September 13, 2023
posted by COD at 10:14 AM on September 13, 2023
We get HBO Max free through our wireless plan (AT&T), use my brother's DIRECTV STREAM login (which allowed me to cancel MLB TV a few years ago since he's got all the sports channels) and recently cancelled Netflix after they stopped the ability to share outside one's household, even though the people who had our login never used it. We don't watch a ton of TV, usually have a single show we watch through and then start another one, so we just add things to our watch list periodically. We recently were like "there's nothing to watch on HBO Max!" so I did some googling and found several things to add which should keep us stocked for the next few months. My husband was the Netflix subscriber and is apparently getting bombarded with offers to come back at half price so maybe everyone should cancel and resubscribe if you want to save a few bucks.
posted by jabes at 10:49 AM on September 13, 2023
posted by jabes at 10:49 AM on September 13, 2023
I also have and love the Plex server, I pay for two streaming sites, have a password for another, and add the rest in the same way as above. There are fewer streaming sites available to me being in France. I also have a spreadsheet for movies and TV shows, and I use the TV Club app to track release dates of TV show episodes. I hate adverts on YouTube so I pay to get rid of them.
posted by ellieBOA at 10:53 AM on September 13, 2023
posted by ellieBOA at 10:53 AM on September 13, 2023
for a calendar of what we would like to watch we use: https://next-episode.net/calendar/
streaming from a very small windows based htpc to the TV means that I can use uBlock Origin for any screen elements that bother the experience such as the top-bottom pause gradients, the side pause ads, and, somehow have managed to block the ads on Hulu (don't ask me how, we do not have the ad-free version, the screen just "blinks" once and the show continues). we also use a VPN to access a wider catalog.
posted by alchemist at 11:00 AM on September 13, 2023
streaming from a very small windows based htpc to the TV means that I can use uBlock Origin for any screen elements that bother the experience such as the top-bottom pause gradients, the side pause ads, and, somehow have managed to block the ads on Hulu (don't ask me how, we do not have the ad-free version, the screen just "blinks" once and the show continues). we also use a VPN to access a wider catalog.
posted by alchemist at 11:00 AM on September 13, 2023
Forgot about the ads: If I'm paying for a thing, I'm paying for the no-ads version of that thing, pretty much across the board.
posted by Stacey at 11:02 AM on September 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Stacey at 11:02 AM on September 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
I have YouTube Premium for the ad-free experience and YouTube Music is good enough for what we need music-wise so it does double duty for us. We get a pretty solid annual Disney offer through my Amex card so have that year-round primarily for our kid. We have Netflix off and on using the ads options because it’s not THAT annoying. And then we binge a few others when they are free- once a year Prime is offered for a month for free, every time we upgrade an iPhone we seem to get a few months of Apple TV and we are in Canada and get a Crave offer for a free month maybe once a year. The one real hole in my arsenal is books because between the library, Kindle Unlimited trials, etc - I’ve never found a way to read what I want at the volume I want without just buying items individually.
To be honest, we may be outliers on the consumption spectrum - when things got complex and expensive, I think we just started doing things other than watching TV and movies. I read more, spend a lot more time with podcasts or YouTube than I do with traditional media forms. So on some level the complexity got simple for us because my default isn’t media being produced on these platforms anymore and so I kinda shrug at paying for much.
posted by openhearted at 11:11 AM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
To be honest, we may be outliers on the consumption spectrum - when things got complex and expensive, I think we just started doing things other than watching TV and movies. I read more, spend a lot more time with podcasts or YouTube than I do with traditional media forms. So on some level the complexity got simple for us because my default isn’t media being produced on these platforms anymore and so I kinda shrug at paying for much.
posted by openhearted at 11:11 AM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Ok, wow. I’ll add my approach since I’m blown away at how much thought/effort I’m seeing here. I grew up with no cable and a B&w tv until the late 80s, so.
My MIL (shared household) pays for Netflix and I think Crave, and we pay for Disney+ (kids who are Marvel fans etc.) We also have Prime kind of incidentally. I have the free level of CBC Gem (I think there’s a paid?) I’ll put up with ads.
We generally just pick from those. We have limited access to Kanopy and things on Hoopla through the library. Very rarely we purchase things through iTunes or Prime. I don’t have a spreadsheet although sometimes I remember I might like to watch X thing and should see if we have access to it somewhere.
Boring I know. We can usually find something for family movie night or date night.
posted by warriorqueen at 11:15 AM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
My MIL (shared household) pays for Netflix and I think Crave, and we pay for Disney+ (kids who are Marvel fans etc.) We also have Prime kind of incidentally. I have the free level of CBC Gem (I think there’s a paid?) I’ll put up with ads.
We generally just pick from those. We have limited access to Kanopy and things on Hoopla through the library. Very rarely we purchase things through iTunes or Prime. I don’t have a spreadsheet although sometimes I remember I might like to watch X thing and should see if we have access to it somewhere.
Boring I know. We can usually find something for family movie night or date night.
posted by warriorqueen at 11:15 AM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
People have covered the streaming side well. Plex for me with a satellite subscription and several streaming services. For me, the issue is the tracking side. I am so tired of having 50 shows I don't care about in whatever app I want to use to track a few shows and keep track of new ones. Netflix used to let me hide movies by rating them not interested. That doesn't seem to work as well with the thumbs down option. I don't want to rate it, I just want to hide it. Just Watch wants me to pay for that option.
Instead I just made my own file. First, I grabbed the allshows.txt file from epguides.com and put that into a spreadsheet. I grab the new ones a few times a year. I mark every show with Yes No or Maybe to indicate that I want to watch it. I mark shows I've watched in a different field, All, Some, or None. I will also add shows manually when I hear about them. If this all sounds really complicated, it is and I have not even explained my entire process. For me, tinkering with my tv db is fun. If it isn't for you, I'd try a much simpler spreadsheet that just lists shows and maybe what episode you are on. Tabs can hold a personal list and a family list. You can fill in the service or channel if you know it, but that kind of thing can be searched up easily when it is time to watch.
posted by soelo at 11:53 AM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Instead I just made my own file. First, I grabbed the allshows.txt file from epguides.com and put that into a spreadsheet. I grab the new ones a few times a year. I mark every show with Yes No or Maybe to indicate that I want to watch it. I mark shows I've watched in a different field, All, Some, or None. I will also add shows manually when I hear about them. If this all sounds really complicated, it is and I have not even explained my entire process. For me, tinkering with my tv db is fun. If it isn't for you, I'd try a much simpler spreadsheet that just lists shows and maybe what episode you are on. Tabs can hold a personal list and a family list. You can fill in the service or channel if you know it, but that kind of thing can be searched up easily when it is time to watch.
posted by soelo at 11:53 AM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
My spouse and I have always just had Netflix, and we have been happy with that. We don't see any ads. I would pay some amount not to see ads. This has been at least 10 years.
We also have had no other TV for at least seven years. Cable is too expensive, and we can't get a signal over the air.
But I am into classic movies, of which many don't stream, or at least on the same service. So after Netflix stops sending discs, I will be getting movies regularly from my local and university libraries.
posted by NotLost at 12:45 PM on September 13, 2023
We also have had no other TV for at least seven years. Cable is too expensive, and we can't get a signal over the air.
But I am into classic movies, of which many don't stream, or at least on the same service. So after Netflix stops sending discs, I will be getting movies regularly from my local and university libraries.
posted by NotLost at 12:45 PM on September 13, 2023
I like having DVDs for when my streaming service stops showing my old faves. Netflix & Prime are all I pay for currently. Never had cable. But my best investment has been my $12 Antenna to pick up local free channels. I have SVENGOOLIE to thank for getting me to do this so I could watch on MeTV by antenna every Saturday night.
My Watch list in the notes section of my phone is made of Fanfare entries.
posted by edithkeeler at 3:07 PM on September 13, 2023
My Watch list in the notes section of my phone is made of Fanfare entries.
posted by edithkeeler at 3:07 PM on September 13, 2023
Response by poster: It's been so much fun to read all the answers! Thank you everyone (and I hope we'll have another Chatfilter fundraiser next year). So interesting to see all the similarities and differences in how people watch tv.
I started my spreadsheet a few years ago. If I were to describe what I do, it sounds like a lot of work but it's actually fun for me because I enjoy organizing things. I have one tab for streaming subscriptions, with start and end dates so I never pay for something I've forgotten about. For annual subscriptions, I also set a reminder in my calendar.
Adding shows I want to watch is necessary for me because I rarely find shows just by browsing through a streaming service. I subscribe to a platform for specific shows, and because there's a long time gap before I re-subscribe, I need to be able to remember what shows I want to watch, and on what platform. I subscribed to Hulu for 4 months in 2022 and canceled in June 2022, so I have a bunch of shows I want to catch up on.
I too hate ads like poison. Even if they keep raising the prices on the ad-free tier, I'll keep paying, I'll just subscribe to fewer services at the same time to keep it in my budget. Like some others, I pay for YouTube Premium. I didn't mind the ads too much when I was sitting at my desk and I could skip the ad after a few seconds. But then it seemed like they changed something with ad placement and ads would appear in the middle of a sentence. When I started doing exercise videos and ads would appear in the middle of a kettlebell swing, that was the final straw and I got Premium. Getting music included also helped justify the expense since I didn't already subscribe to any music services.
I don't think I've watched a tv ad in over ten years. When I watch cable tv (which I'm canceling soon, forever) I just mute them. If the streaming services were to ever eliminate the ad-free tier (unlikely, but who knows, really), that would be the end for me. I'd start reading more books which isn't a bad idea anyway.
posted by daikon at 11:36 AM on September 14, 2023
I started my spreadsheet a few years ago. If I were to describe what I do, it sounds like a lot of work but it's actually fun for me because I enjoy organizing things. I have one tab for streaming subscriptions, with start and end dates so I never pay for something I've forgotten about. For annual subscriptions, I also set a reminder in my calendar.
Adding shows I want to watch is necessary for me because I rarely find shows just by browsing through a streaming service. I subscribe to a platform for specific shows, and because there's a long time gap before I re-subscribe, I need to be able to remember what shows I want to watch, and on what platform. I subscribed to Hulu for 4 months in 2022 and canceled in June 2022, so I have a bunch of shows I want to catch up on.
I too hate ads like poison. Even if they keep raising the prices on the ad-free tier, I'll keep paying, I'll just subscribe to fewer services at the same time to keep it in my budget. Like some others, I pay for YouTube Premium. I didn't mind the ads too much when I was sitting at my desk and I could skip the ad after a few seconds. But then it seemed like they changed something with ad placement and ads would appear in the middle of a sentence. When I started doing exercise videos and ads would appear in the middle of a kettlebell swing, that was the final straw and I got Premium. Getting music included also helped justify the expense since I didn't already subscribe to any music services.
I don't think I've watched a tv ad in over ten years. When I watch cable tv (which I'm canceling soon, forever) I just mute them. If the streaming services were to ever eliminate the ad-free tier (unlikely, but who knows, really), that would be the end for me. I'd start reading more books which isn't a bad idea anyway.
posted by daikon at 11:36 AM on September 14, 2023
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My gf has subscriptions to a lot of services bc she watches a lot and bc she pays for services for her parents. So, if there really is a show I want to watch that I don't have access to under my own bill, she will sometimes cast from her phone to my Chromecast device.
I don't think ad free tier will go away, but I do think they will widen the cost spread between ad tier and no-ad tier. They will make you pay if you really don't want ads. There is no reason to eliminate the adfree tiers, just raise the price.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:49 AM on September 13, 2023