Nearly 75% of Americans are frustrated that the streaming platform they subscribe to keeps raising their prices. With 40% having cut back their streaming subscriptions in the last three months due to financial concerns and rising costs of living.
These companies continue to raise prices, hoping inertia will prevent most people from switching. This is true not only for streaming sites but also for all these platforms.
We need to move away from businesses that exploit their monopolies and try to get your content or goods directly, where possible.
Some alternatives you can check out…
Media:
- Nebula
- Dropout TV
- Corridor Digital
Music:
- Qobuz (buy directly from artists)
- Soundcloud (artist-driven)
- Bandcamp (buy directly from artists)
The same principle applies to Uber, Amazon and many others.
Jellyfin is really easy to setup and use. Just sayin’…
There should be a starter pack for newcomers :) “Here you go, a collection of the top 100 movies and top 10 tv shows!”
Arrrrr
Strongly disagree. Lemmy keeps suggesting Linux too, but most tech illiterate casual users can’t handle that level of DIY tech. This is even more true for self-hosting. This will be beyond the tolerance and competencies and interest of the vast majority of people.
I’ve got an excellently maintained Jellyfin, Arr’s, Usenet setup. My wife will not use it. She’s gone and paid for Netflix WITH ADS and would rather use that. Any network hiccups, any need for server restart, subtitles not synchronising (or not downloaded), or trying to install Jellyfin on a new device and being asked the server URL…all this instantly scares her away. Netflix shits itself far more than my Jellyfin setup does, but she knows how to restart the phone or TV, knows how to log out and log back in and is just generally more tolerant of an outside service being down rather than my server (my responsibility) not behaving right. I would say my Jellyfin works perfectly more than 98% of the time.
It is not like my wife is some freak, I’ve given Jellyfin accounts to a bunch of friends and my mother. None of them use it.
Eh, a Windows box with Jellyfin installed. Whoever is the maintainer needs to be somewhat tech literate. IP addresses, folder navigation, torrenting, and vpn I think would cover a bare minimum setup.
But when users are on the same network, Jellyfin is not difficult to use from an end-user perspective. My kids can navigate Jellyfin on our Roku TV. My tech illiterate wife can navigate it on her phone.
For the maintainer, I speculate it’s a tradeoff of time and money. I save $70 a month, don’t have to navigate multiple BS streaming providers, and get to feel like I’m putting it to the man.
Not that it will solve all your issues but there’s an Arr stack app called Bazarr that will make sure you’ve got the subtitles you want automatically. Removes just one more impediment :)
If my partner paid for something that had ads when we have higher quality the same thing available for free without ads, I’d get them medical help for brain broken.
The level of DIY needed to set up Linux Mint or Jellyfin is an essential life skill. It is sad that people are that afraid of putting the circle-shaped block in the circle hole, but that doesn’t make the recommendation incorrect.
Of course if someone is as illiterate as a grade schooler even as an adult, just telling them to fix it isn’t helpful. Something is holding them back from learning in a healthy way, and that blockage takes emotional support or even therapy to clear.
What if I want to but can’t somehow? I’ve always struggled with tech stuff, and not in a completely tech illiterate boomer way. Google sends me in loops when I search something like that. Even searching VPNs only gets me best and worst ratings. I’m not dumb but I am exhausted and sad for personal reasons. I’d be willing to pay someone for a couple hours of setting me up. Do I go on fiverr and hire someone for something I should do for myself? Is it wrong that I want someone to do this for me, or is it the same as hiring a plumber for something I could theoretically do myself? Do I just crave having my hand held?
Sure, but imagine an expert in reading recommends people who cannot read learn how to read.
Does he think it’s easier to learn than it actually is? Probably.
But does that mean reading is any less valuable of a skill, that you should forego it because it is harder than he thinks and anyway there’s TTS now? No.
People will spend more hours of their lives looking at screens than at the faces of their children. This is not some sort of niche expertise, this is a massive part of people’s lives. Their quality of life would increase so much if they could get over that psychological hurdle.
Installing Linux Mint is easier than driving a car. It’s easier than safely changing a lightbulb. It’s easier than assembling ikea furniture. It’s easier than navigating to this comment to reply to it. It’s easier than filing taxes and it’s easier than making a budget.
I understand people aren’t familiar with it, but please, for your own sake, get familiar with it. You will benefit from it for the rest of your life.
But are you willing to walk me through it?
What I did is gave my wife the NZB360 app so she can download whatever she wants.
All series and movies are than synchronized between kodi and jellyfin. She find kodi a lot more user-friendly and logical than jellyfin. She’s not tech savvy at all but the combination of NZB360 and kodi works like a charm. We haven’t had any streaming services for the last 7 years.
I reverse proxy my jellyfin so for them it’s easy.
watch.domain.com or something like that
Mine is reverse proxied too. My wife has seerr with auto approval for her. The barriers are multiple and not well understood by us enthusiasts. There’s perceived complexity of use, unfamiliarity with the platform, choice paralysis (when everything on the world is at your fingertips), a longing for algorithm suggestions, etc etc.
Like I said, I’ve given user accounts to a bunch of people I know. For all these people I’ve installed the apps for them and logged in for them when I’ve been at their houses. They just need to launch the app and watch. I check server logs from time to time…none of them use it.
But my 5year old definitely uses it happily on his child account and has never had a problem. My 7 year old has accidentally uninstalled the Jellyfin app before and he came to me to ask “what does server URL” mean, I told him the login process once and he happily does it himself. Lack of understanding is not the problem for adults. Tech companies really have a grip on the population in making their services addictive.
It certainly isn’t the top movies but there is quite a bit of public domain stuff to be had. Just about every movie you ever saw in a dollar store dvd collection is public domain. Check out whats available on Archive.org for instance. Lots of old sci-fi and noir style detective movies etc.