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.
I’ve put all the movies my (primary school) age children could think of on my server, all the TV shows (Bluey, Sesame Street, Spider-Man, Teen Titans Go, etc etc) and also any YouTube they’ve been interested in (mostly video game playthroughs) downloaded and onto the server. Works out well to get a separate kids profile set up. Give it a shot.
I really ought to do that, although I also need to buy some more hard drives to make it happen 'cause I’m running out of storage space. That makes it an ongoing subscription cost vs. higher up-front cost issue too, not just an instant savings from cancelling.
Kids don’t need more than 1080. I don’t even get more than that for myself unless it is a particular movie I want to keep as a collectible an rewatch repeatedly. Most YouTube play through videos are 6 to 10 hours and I’m not going to waste space beyond 720 on those. Young kids don’t mind.