6 ms·

I think there is a model for rotating streaming provider. You can easily watch a year's worth of a provider's [good] content in 3 months. Just change provider

by hunta2097 7y ago

I think there is a model for rotating streaming provider. You can easily watch a year's worth of a provider's [good] content in 3 months. Just change provider every 3 months to a different one, then binge it all. Maybe a service that automatically deactivates your account at the best point in the billing-cycle? If you could do it without too much overlap you could actually do it on a monthly basis: Jan - Netflix Feb - Disney+ . .

cptskippy 7y ago
I look forward to Netflix et al removing the account deactivate button from our profile pages in favor of a phone number that calls into an IVR Labyrinth.
- lucasverra 7y ago
  simpler method trick 1) Create virtual card 2) Switch payment method to new card 3) Delete virtual card 4) Cha ching !
  - Spare_account 7y ago
    If the contract states that you are responsible for payments until you cancel the contract, then the failed payments would (could?) simply result in your debt being sent to a collection agency. Defaulting on a payment isn't always a good way to end a contract.
    - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
      You pay for a month and then receive service. In order for that to work they would have to keep providing service to users who's credit card rejected the payment. Then the model simply shifts: 1. Get credit card numbers illegally 2. Create Netflix accounts with those credit cards 3. Sell those accounts on EBay, even after the user reports the card as stolen it will continue to work.
  - Snoddas 7y ago
    In Sweden at least "non payment" is not a valid way to cancel a service. You could end up with late fees and debt-collectors after you instead.
    - theelous3 7y ago
      You pay for access, not for use, so there is no way of incurring debt.
      - icebraining 7y ago
        So they just don't suspend your account even if billing fails, then after a year or so they can go after the price for 12 months of access. Alternatively, they can do the same as the ISPs around here: jack up the sticker price, then give a large discount - conditional on your permanence as a client for X months. If you decide to cancel, you have to pay them back the discount accrued.
        pyronik19 7y ago
        Even more reasons to pirate. I don't pirate because I think it's right. I pirate because I just don't care.
    - marcosdumay 7y ago
      Well, I bet that if you are able to show in a small damages court that unsubscription was made unreasonably hard, you'll get them not only to throw away your debt, but also get some nice amount from the company as image damage reparation. It's a hassle, but this makes companies not willing to go after the debt.
  - Slartie 7y ago
    This will just result in you getting lots of debt collection fees and an abysmal credit rating. If you never again plan on taking part in the economy, it may be a convenient solution, though.
  - madengr 7y ago
    My credit card is stolen every other year. Somehow XBox live (for my son) has no problem figuring out how to keep charging me, despite the number changing.
    - cgriswald 7y ago
      Credit card companies will often honor recurring payments on a “real” card number reported stolen. This is for your convenience so a stolen card doesn’t mean a cessation of all services. You’re supposed to update these companies with your new number. That’s not going to happen with a virtual card you canceled.
CoolGuySteve 7y ago
I end up doing this organically with HBO. When Westworld/Silicon Valley/Game of Thrones comes out I'll subscribe. But after that, there's usually only 1 new movie on there that I'm interested in so I cancel it. Considering the actual compression quality of HBO is much worse than Netflix or Amazon and the app sucks to use, it seems like they don't have the resources at HBO to actually do streaming well. Overall, it doesn't really seem like an efficient way to buy content for either them or me. It's like if a studio made their own DVD player.
personlurking 7y ago
Though unrealistic, all things considered, there needs to be a single site for everything (akin to pirated tv/film sites, incidentally). The user would go to a central place where all streaming options are available to be browsed and watched. The point of differentiation would be at payment, as the cost to the user, for whatever they just selected, would go to those who own the rights. No walled gardens, everyone wins. The user pays one monthly price, or within a fixed range. How to figure that all out, well, that's where complexities arise. My personal soltuion, thus far, is to pay for the service I'm using the most (currently, MhZ Choice), then find other solutions for that which I don't pay for.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Technical aspects are trivial - pirate streaming sites have no problem managing a single portal that pulls from a wide array of video sources and players. The problem is with the exclusive deals, with the IP holders ruining the space for everyone in an attempt to maximize short-term revenue (it will kill their long-term revenue), perhaps thinking this is battle royale, and they obviously will be a platform that wins in the end.
  - Freak_NL 7y ago
    > battle royale I don't think it's the Highlander end-game they are envisioning, rather there seems to be a drive towards a new (imagined) equilibrium with specific streaming services servicing specific demographics — like Disney is aiming straight for the 'wholesome and family-friendly'-niche. Of course we all lose as consumers (until you hoist the Jolly Roger in despair).
    - blaser-waffle 7y ago
      Disney owns wayyy too many different subsidiary companies and IPs to just focus on wholesome, family programming. Like they own Fox, FX, ESPN, National Geographic, Hulu, Lucasfilm, Pixar, Marvel Entertainment, huge chunks of other networks like A&E and Vice Media. You know that hip, edgy Vice News, the one with stories about doing drugs in war torn Africa? Yeah Disney owns like ~16-20% of that. Disney is EVERYWHERE; be afraid of The Mouse.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
It's a workaround, but it's still making streaming feel more like cable TV, since now you again have to watch shows according to a schedule. The core selling point of streaming movies and shows is the "on demand" part. It removes an entire dimension from the problem of planning movie nights or your personal entertainment. If a show is available on the service you're subscribing to, you can watch it any time you want. With enough shows available, this boiled down to "any time I want to watch something, there's something interesting to me available". Now with the balkanization of streaming space and people already doing provider rotation manually, the experience becomes more like this: "sorry hon, we won't be watching X tonight because it's on HBO, and we're switching to it next month, and Y we wanted to check out just got pulled from Netflix and is on CBS now, which is not worth paying for, and Z is geolocked everywhere, so I guess we have to find something else...". ... which can be quickly followed by: "you know what, I saw a streaming site that's not exactly official, but it costs like $4/month for ad-free experience, has every show you can name available - even ones nobody streams anymore - and guess what, it's perfectly legal to use; so screw the official platforms, and let's watch X tonight". It's greed that's dooming the streaming services.
- nickjj 7y ago
  > It's a workaround, but it's still making streaming feel more like cable TV, since now you again have to watch shows according to a schedule. This already happens now if you're only subbed to Netflix. They are constantly removing titles. It definitely starts to feel like a schedule because now it's like "I have to watch this before October 1st otherwise it'll be pulled". The worst is when you deal with series too. Like casually watching a 6 season series and you get to the end of season 1, give it a break for a bit but then when you want to resume it a month or 2 later the entire thing is gone. Combined with a horrible browsing ability for your watch list and you end up adding these great shows to your list but then 2 months later you have no idea how many of them are gone since you can only browse like 6 titles at a time on your watch list that might have hundreds of titles. Once you feel pressured into watching things due to a fear of missing out you've entered a dangerous place and this is when people will begin looking for alternatives.
  - 7y ago
Bombthecat 7y ago
Until the streaming services go full circle: show is only visible money to Friday next episode next week. When all episodes are "aired" they start from episode one from Monday to Friday. So that you need to be subscribed for several months. (that's when they go back to more episodes which they just cut to 10)
- dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
  Yeah, but at this point the streaming service is not better than the cable + PVR.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
    Presumably they'd still be ad-free.
    - Bombthecat 7y ago
      You think? I doubt that..
    - funnybeam 7y ago
      Unlikely. I pay for NowTV in the UK and that is showing more and more ads Or at least I did, until they put the price up and I noticed they had bundled in another service without me realising and I was actually paying 3 times more than I thought. Had been meaning to cancel for a while, but that made me pull the trigger
imglorp 7y ago
> binge it all Yeah until they spread out releases of a program over long periods to force you to keep a subscription. Eg Hulu and Disney (1). The reason people pirate is they want to watch WHAT they want, WHEN they want, in the REGION they want and on the DEVICE they want. The content makers want to control all those things. https://thestreamable.com/news/disney-is-saying-no-to-binge-releases-for-disney-launch https://thestreamable.com/news/disney-is-saying-no-to-binge-...
- sbarre 7y ago
  And they will leave money on the table because of it. That ship has sailed, and people don't want "appointment TV" anymore. I will stop short of saying they will "fail" because we all know they won't, they have too much money, but I think they will certainly discourage people from giving them money if they try to enforce some drip-feed delivery model just to squeeze more money out of their customers.
  - FussyZeus 7y ago
    Expanding on this, I wonder how much money all these supposedly "struggling" companies are burning building data centers and the required backbone to support all these stupid streaming services for the various walled gardens of content? I mean they could just host their stuff on Netflix/iTunes/Amazon but no let's build an entire new server farm doing the exact same work, likely on the exact same hardware and the exact same software, because some executive somewhere got a bug in his ass about Apple taking 30% for providing merely a marketplace, userbase, advertising, delivery model, customer support... Idk. From a non-industry person this seems like common sense, but I also don't understand how VC backed companies burning billions of dollars to schedule McDonalds deliveries is a long-term business model so maybe this is just some galaxy brain business head stuff.
    - simion314 7y ago
      If all use Amazon or Google to stream then there is not that much extra expense. IMO I prefer to buy a game from the developer and get it cheaper or give the money to the creator but this days most games are on stores and not on the dev website, a good example is Minecraft ,it would probably be more expensive if it would have been on Steam and I would have to install the Steam client to play the game, and I could not play game A on my PC and my son to play game B on his PC, I am forced to use the trick of getting into offline mode.

cptskippy 7y ago

I look forward to Netflix et al removing the account deactivate button from our profile pages in favor of a phone number that calls into an IVR Labyrinth.

lucasverra 7y ago
simpler method trick 1) Create virtual card 2) Switch payment method to new card 3) Delete virtual card 4) Cha ching !
- Spare_account 7y ago
  If the contract states that you are responsible for payments until you cancel the contract, then the failed payments would (could?) simply result in your debt being sent to a collection agency. Defaulting on a payment isn't always a good way to end a contract.
  - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
    You pay for a month and then receive service. In order for that to work they would have to keep providing service to users who's credit card rejected the payment. Then the model simply shifts: 1. Get credit card numbers illegally 2. Create Netflix accounts with those credit cards 3. Sell those accounts on EBay, even after the user reports the card as stolen it will continue to work.
- Snoddas 7y ago
  In Sweden at least "non payment" is not a valid way to cancel a service. You could end up with late fees and debt-collectors after you instead.
  - theelous3 7y ago
    You pay for access, not for use, so there is no way of incurring debt.
    - icebraining 7y ago
      So they just don't suspend your account even if billing fails, then after a year or so they can go after the price for 12 months of access. Alternatively, they can do the same as the ISPs around here: jack up the sticker price, then give a large discount - conditional on your permanence as a client for X months. If you decide to cancel, you have to pay them back the discount accrued.
      - pyronik19 7y ago
        Even more reasons to pirate. I don't pirate because I think it's right. I pirate because I just don't care.
  - marcosdumay 7y ago
    Well, I bet that if you are able to show in a small damages court that unsubscription was made unreasonably hard, you'll get them not only to throw away your debt, but also get some nice amount from the company as image damage reparation. It's a hassle, but this makes companies not willing to go after the debt.
- Slartie 7y ago
  This will just result in you getting lots of debt collection fees and an abysmal credit rating. If you never again plan on taking part in the economy, it may be a convenient solution, though.
- madengr 7y ago
  My credit card is stolen every other year. Somehow XBox live (for my son) has no problem figuring out how to keep charging me, despite the number changing.
  - cgriswald 7y ago
    Credit card companies will often honor recurring payments on a “real” card number reported stolen. This is for your convenience so a stolen card doesn’t mean a cessation of all services. You’re supposed to update these companies with your new number. That’s not going to happen with a virtual card you canceled.

CoolGuySteve 7y ago

I end up doing this organically with HBO. When Westworld/Silicon Valley/Game of Thrones comes out I'll subscribe. But after that, there's usually only 1 new movie on there that I'm interested in so I cancel it. Considering the actual compression quality of HBO is much worse than Netflix or Amazon and the app sucks to use, it seems like they don't have the resources at HBO to actually do streaming well. Overall, it doesn't really seem like an efficient way to buy content for either them or me. It's like if a studio made their own DVD player.

personlurking 7y ago

Though unrealistic, all things considered, there needs to be a single site for everything (akin to pirated tv/film sites, incidentally). The user would go to a central place where all streaming options are available to be browsed and watched. The point of differentiation would be at payment, as the cost to the user, for whatever they just selected, would go to those who own the rights. No walled gardens, everyone wins. The user pays one monthly price, or within a fixed range. How to figure that all out, well, that's where complexities arise. My personal soltuion, thus far, is to pay for the service I'm using the most (currently, MhZ Choice), then find other solutions for that which I don't pay for.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Technical aspects are trivial - pirate streaming sites have no problem managing a single portal that pulls from a wide array of video sources and players. The problem is with the exclusive deals, with the IP holders ruining the space for everyone in an attempt to maximize short-term revenue (it will kill their long-term revenue), perhaps thinking this is battle royale, and they obviously will be a platform that wins in the end.
- Freak_NL 7y ago
  > battle royale I don't think it's the Highlander end-game they are envisioning, rather there seems to be a drive towards a new (imagined) equilibrium with specific streaming services servicing specific demographics — like Disney is aiming straight for the 'wholesome and family-friendly'-niche. Of course we all lose as consumers (until you hoist the Jolly Roger in despair).
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    Disney owns wayyy too many different subsidiary companies and IPs to just focus on wholesome, family programming. Like they own Fox, FX, ESPN, National Geographic, Hulu, Lucasfilm, Pixar, Marvel Entertainment, huge chunks of other networks like A&E and Vice Media. You know that hip, edgy Vice News, the one with stories about doing drugs in war torn Africa? Yeah Disney owns like ~16-20% of that. Disney is EVERYWHERE; be afraid of The Mouse.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

It's a workaround, but it's still making streaming feel more like cable TV, since now you again have to watch shows according to a schedule. The core selling point of streaming movies and shows is the "on demand" part. It removes an entire dimension from the problem of planning movie nights or your personal entertainment. If a show is available on the service you're subscribing to, you can watch it any time you want. With enough shows available, this boiled down to "any time I want to watch something, there's something interesting to me available". Now with the balkanization of streaming space and people already doing provider rotation manually, the experience becomes more like this: "sorry hon, we won't be watching X tonight because it's on HBO, and we're switching to it next month, and Y we wanted to check out just got pulled from Netflix and is on CBS now, which is not worth paying for, and Z is geolocked everywhere, so I guess we have to find something else...". ... which can be quickly followed by: "you know what, I saw a streaming site that's not exactly official, but it costs like $4/month for ad-free experience, has every show you can name available - even ones nobody streams anymore - and guess what, it's perfectly legal to use; so screw the official platforms, and let's watch X tonight". It's greed that's dooming the streaming services.

nickjj 7y ago
> It's a workaround, but it's still making streaming feel more like cable TV, since now you again have to watch shows according to a schedule. This already happens now if you're only subbed to Netflix. They are constantly removing titles. It definitely starts to feel like a schedule because now it's like "I have to watch this before October 1st otherwise it'll be pulled". The worst is when you deal with series too. Like casually watching a 6 season series and you get to the end of season 1, give it a break for a bit but then when you want to resume it a month or 2 later the entire thing is gone. Combined with a horrible browsing ability for your watch list and you end up adding these great shows to your list but then 2 months later you have no idea how many of them are gone since you can only browse like 6 titles at a time on your watch list that might have hundreds of titles. Once you feel pressured into watching things due to a fear of missing out you've entered a dangerous place and this is when people will begin looking for alternatives.
- 7y ago

Bombthecat 7y ago

Until the streaming services go full circle: show is only visible money to Friday next episode next week. When all episodes are "aired" they start from episode one from Monday to Friday. So that you need to be subscribed for several months. (that's when they go back to more episodes which they just cut to 10)

dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
Yeah, but at this point the streaming service is not better than the cable + PVR.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
  Presumably they'd still be ad-free.
  - Bombthecat 7y ago
    You think? I doubt that..
  - funnybeam 7y ago
    Unlikely. I pay for NowTV in the UK and that is showing more and more ads Or at least I did, until they put the price up and I noticed they had bundled in another service without me realising and I was actually paying 3 times more than I thought. Had been meaning to cancel for a while, but that made me pull the trigger

imglorp 7y ago

> binge it all Yeah until they spread out releases of a program over long periods to force you to keep a subscription. Eg Hulu and Disney (1). The reason people pirate is they want to watch WHAT they want, WHEN they want, in the REGION they want and on the DEVICE they want. The content makers want to control all those things. https://thestreamable.com/news/disney-is-saying-no-to-binge-releases-for-disney-launch https://thestreamable.com/news/disney-is-saying-no-to-binge-...

sbarre 7y ago
And they will leave money on the table because of it. That ship has sailed, and people don't want "appointment TV" anymore. I will stop short of saying they will "fail" because we all know they won't, they have too much money, but I think they will certainly discourage people from giving them money if they try to enforce some drip-feed delivery model just to squeeze more money out of their customers.
- FussyZeus 7y ago
  Expanding on this, I wonder how much money all these supposedly "struggling" companies are burning building data centers and the required backbone to support all these stupid streaming services for the various walled gardens of content? I mean they could just host their stuff on Netflix/iTunes/Amazon but no let's build an entire new server farm doing the exact same work, likely on the exact same hardware and the exact same software, because some executive somewhere got a bug in his ass about Apple taking 30% for providing merely a marketplace, userbase, advertising, delivery model, customer support... Idk. From a non-industry person this seems like common sense, but I also don't understand how VC backed companies burning billions of dollars to schedule McDonalds deliveries is a long-term business model so maybe this is just some galaxy brain business head stuff.
  - simion314 7y ago
    If all use Amazon or Google to stream then there is not that much extra expense. IMO I prefer to buy a game from the developer and get it cheaper or give the money to the creator but this days most games are on stores and not on the dev website, a good example is Minecraft ,it would probably be more expensive if it would have been on Steam and I would have to install the Steam client to play the game, and I could not play game A on my PC and my son to play game B on his PC, I am forced to use the trick of getting into offline mode.