Link: https://www.independent.co.uk/us/money/streaming-services-subscriptions-cancelation-b2962931.html

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.

Give me example of Uber alternative or Amazon?

There is always on-again, off-again drama with Bandcamp. While it's generally not as bad as services like Distrokid or others, it's always worth a bit of digging (and reading fine print) if you leverage any third-party service. They were also bought out by Songtradr some time last year or so.

@topsongattourney has a review of their TOS here: https://youtu.be/EywCOmOUreQ (probably a bit dated by now) While her style is a bit drama focused/click baity, she has worked with Benn Jordan and Venus Theory in the past which is a major plus for her reputation for me, IMHO.

(OP, I am not sure if the list of service providers you listed were in a positive or negative context by the way you worded the description, but that is probably just a "me" problem.. Regardless, I 100% agree with the purpose and motivation of this post.)

Music services are always in a state of flux, so review everything before you distribute or sign-over any works. It seriously sucks that new producers have to basically be lawyers as a side-gig these days and has absolutely prevented me from releasing anything at all.

There isn't general advice because the best option is one that is more local to the region. We don't want to encourage another global giant.

For example for Uber, there is: Freenow, Lyft, Bolt are bigger names, but there are also smaller providers in regions that offer a similar experience.

For Amazon, a lot of nationwide stores and even smaller ones have excellent delivery.

Hell yeah Dropout!

In before some sarcastic "just walk" comments about Uber, so I'll answer seriously. The only alternative is basically walk to public transportation services or drive yourself. I live in the Denver area and our public transportation is decent enough and it does extend to many suburbs. It also requires an intimate knowledge of service schedules and how possible it is to walk to your final destination.

Any alternative to Uber is totally based on where you live and unless you live in a city, it's not always as easy as "just walking". The U.S. isn't really the best when it comes to non-driving alternatives and it kinda sucks.

For Amazon, this is also going to sound sarcastic but it isn't: Buy somewhere else or directly from the vendors if possible. Amazon is basically just a second store front for companies that also will sell directly to you. Unfortunately, you may need to be prepared for additional shipping cost, lack of Amazon "protections" and maybe higher prices.

While mom-and-pop store fronts are almost gone, it is possible to find online sources (and maybe real physical stores) that sell similar products to what you need. Electronic components are the easiest and it may be worth your time and money to order from legit distributors like Mouser or Digi-Key.

Depending on what you need and when you need it, bumping up your standards for product quality may help. Do you need something cheap and disposable, or more expensive and durable? (Example: Harbor Freight has its own reputation and mostly the exact same manufacturers as what you may find on Amazon, it is an option. It boils down to what tradeoffs you are willing to make.)

Basically, a big part of not buying from Amazon is actually a shift in perspective. Do you actually need a "thing" and do you have the time to find and buy that "thing" somewhere else?

Admittedly, these are non-answers to your direct question. It takes time (and maybe more money) to find alternatives. This is exactly why services like Amazon and Uber were successful to begin with, IMHO.

Let me edit the original post to make this clearer!

Thanks for flagging the issues around Bandcamp. Music streaming options are a minefield!

Nebula and dropout are the only subscriptions I pay for. Love some Patrick Willems and some Irish anti capitalism rants from Brennan Wee Wulligan

If you have access to hosting you could check out Faircamp. You can use it for both streaming and selling downloads to people directly. It's pretty easy to use for a website generator 👍

I bought a subscription to Shudder, as I like horror movies and there really aren’t many in other streaming services.

It’s like they want me to quit. Removing content, they rewrote the app to use custom components that break every accessibility feature, and they’re hiking the price. To give an example, they REMOVED the ability to see what language a movie is in or the genre.

What the fuck? It’s my only US based service, it’s terrible now.

Another creator-driven service I like is 2nd Try, the Try Guys channel. They modeled their service after Dropout, and most of what they’ve put out has been great.

Can’t beat it for $5/month.

for TOS i use: https://tosdr.org/en/service/609

Leaving this here for the next guy: https://www.2ndtry.tv

Leaving this here for the next guy: https://www.dropout.tv/

Leaving this here for the next guy:
https://www.nebula.tv/
https://www.dropout.tv/

Every time I see a headline saying "X% of Americans did a sensible thing", my immediate reaction is "only X%?"

How do they come to their conclusions? And how often do they adjust for updates? (If you know offhand, I'm sure I could find that info but I'm lazy atm)

We'll be dropping Netflix soon. Just want to watch a couple of things that I've had in my backlog and then they are gone. Their content does not justify their price point.

The only reason I haven't cancelled Netflix yet is that my kids watch a bunch of random stuff on it. Since they're using a kids' profile it doesn't have ads, and since they browse for stuff ad-hoc it would be difficult to try to torrent and put on Jellyfin beforehand.

Eventually my neighbor will probably cancel their Netflix. Or change their password...

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

I don't get how anyone does these things. I would have to have pretty high disposable income to splurge for a streaming service. These should be like the first place people tighten up. Like I had a sister who was a personal trainer and during bad economic times I asked about this and she said people surprisingly did not let it go till they absolutely had to to. That I get. That is a useful and valuable thing. streaming garbage though. would drop in a sec if I ever had the excess to go do it.

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.

Arrrrrrrr!

Can vouch for Qobuz. You can buy DRM free high quality music as files, directly downloaded. Then you can listen anywhere.

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.

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.

Good call. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to leave a link or not.

Yes. I would.

Don't tell me whether I

the only reason we keep ours is because we see our neighbor still watches it. fair trade for free plums.

FUCK PLUM SEASON IS COMING

I get HBO for $3 a month.

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.

Doing the heavy lifting for everyone here - thanks🙂

they link the related documents at the bottom and if you hover over the little clock next to a point it shows when it was last updated

How

I love that you included the alternatives instead of just identifying the problem. So many posts tell you what's shitty without helping you know what to use instead.
I used to use bandcamp exclusively because I don't listen to a lot of big artists and I had some lovely interactions. I asked a band called Roommate for the lyrics to a song called ghost pigeon and they actually replied. It was very sweet. Couldn't tell what the hell they were saying.

I cancelled every subscription except Netflix because my mom uses that. I steal exes' subscriptions until I get kicked off when they eventually notice hehe, not sorry.

I am not ready for whatever it is you are trying to teach me <3

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.

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 :)

So how come Netflix have more subscribers each time ? Because last reports where like look, Netflix has more subscribers now. Something does not add up.

Correct me if I'm wrong

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.

It's nice to watch tv or a film and listen to music but you don't need to download an app as and alternate to downloading another app. There are other non-online alternatives like mp3 players and dvd's. This keeps you one step removed from the greedy "tech bros".

I'll throw in a recommendation for a Surfans F20. Cheap, powerful, no moving parts, dead easy to repair. And it can use Rockbox!

It's probably "included" in a bundle that's distributing the cost. My parents get """free""" netflix and something else with a higher cable bill.

No, they actually do want you to quit Shudder. AMC's been trying to shutter it for over a year now, and I'm surprised it's still up at the moment. They even cancelled JoeBob's show, which was one of the few draws for Shudder overall.

If you think that's cheap then wait until you see this bad boy

Pass. Those are cheaply made and cheap. I've had ones like those in the past, and they're crap. Plus "up to 32GB".