Tbh, the worst part is when you pay for it and still get ads anyway. Feels like double dipping, but it’s obviously going to happen because wall street doesn’t like when line only goes up a little.
Yeah that’s totally galling. Shrinkflation for online services.
You know some shiny-suited corporate asshole got a huge bonus for coming up with that though.
Enshrinklification of the internet
Rolls off the tongue
Yeah it’s crazy. We have TV plan with some 100 channels bundled up with internet, and sometimes rarely when I watch TV I’m just baffled by the fact a paid service still is full of ads
We let it happen. You either put your foot down at the first instance of this thing or you lose any ability to do it because it eventually gets so big you can’t stop it without some whole new technology. But there’s always going to be people who say “how else are people going to pay for websites if not advertising” I say not my fucking problem. Just like robbing my free time with bullshit ads wasn’t their problem.
I’ve become a strong proponent of the joys of piracy.
This. I’m building a media server as we speak. Fuck these assholes
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This is really the best option. Plus media server
Given my entertainment options, I found a small developer that sells an app for a couple bucks that allows me to pull streams through my phone and transcode it and chromecast it to my projector. Juijitsu Kaisen never looked so good.
the problem is that making the line go up even a little gets exponentially harder with time. because the graph not going up at any given point in time is so unimaginably horrible to them, they keep having to think of new insidious ways of satisfying it
I actually find myself wondering lately “what’s so bad about stable (+/- 5%/annum) profits for some stretches of time.” Sure you’re not eating up market share, but a couple million in the pocket every year really isn’t that bad…
I… May not be cut out for capitalism…
Only private companies can get away with thinking like that. Companies that can put the stakeholder’s interest ahead of the shareholder.
Companies who stay private can do this. It’s when you have investors that you’re fucked and the ponzi scheme starts.
The idea, in its purest form, is that companies will innovate to keep investors happy. They will keep expanding and making wonderful new products. As an example, a printer company will start making phones, then laptops, then maybe expand into chemicals or farm equipment, making bold innovations at every step.
Companies who can’t innovate do this shit (inflate prices until they suck) and then they die because they’re no longer competitive.
…in theory.
Pirate everything. Pirate streams, torrents, whatever.
Pirate. Everything.
*unless it’s an independent artist of some sort. then, just buy some merch from them or something.
While listening to Spotify using a custom APK, which enables premium features: I support this message!
In fact you should even pirate piracy. Next time steal someone else’s torrent and seed that instead!
Note: Yes, I do realise ;)
Remember when you didn’t have to pay for a subscription to play console games online?
It’s infuriating.
I mainly play on PC where thankfully I don’t have to worry about that.
But I also have a Nintendo switch, and get this shit… they don’t even let you back up your save games online. we’re talking about fucking kilobytes of data per game that they’re too stingy to provide.
You can’t even back up game saves to the microSD!
If your switch breaks, is stolen, or you just get a new one, you lose your game saves unless you pay for Nintendo online.
They are not stingy, it’s all part of a plan to keep you locked in.
Well yeah. The fact they don’t even allow you to back it up to your microSD is proof of that
Exactly. If you could move across consoles, you would, especially when a competitor like SteamDeck comes along.
Everyone is saying Piracy but I say Public LIbraries, which often have CDs/DVDs/BDs/games now (depending on your locale). They’re taxpayer funded, so you might as well get your money’s worth, and they keep track of how often stuff gets borrowed which determines future financial support.
(And if you are tech-savvy enough to be on Lemmy, you probably know how to make a … permanent copy … for yourself to keep)
Brothers, sisters, others, it’s time we return to the old ways. To the high seas. We steal from those who own, but do not pay to own, the content they distribute. We will share this media amongst ourselves until they learn that we were willing to pay with dollars, but not with time.
we shall pirate on the beaches, we shall pirate on the landing grounds, we shall pirate in the fields and in the streets, we shall pirate in the hills; we shall never surrender
We shall pirate in the alleys, in the fields, in the chats and we shall never surrender to the greedy hands of Sony, Nintendo and alike
I miss good old fashioned LAN parties of the 90s and early 00s
I like to bootleg the major studios and patreon the indie artists that are giving their shit away for free.
Yes! I’m right there with you.
I don’t have Peacock but I’m hanging out at my parents house and apparently when you pay for Peacock you have to watch ads at the beginning and end of shows PLUS every time you pause.
Every single time they paused it transitioned to an ad. What psychopaths run NBC?
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Kabletown
Image Transcription:
A crazy trollface stick figure hides behind a crudely drawn square, holding a shotgun and saying “I HATE SUBSCRIPTION BASED SERVICES I HATE SUBSCRIPTION BASED SERVICES I HATE SUBSCRIPTION BASED SERVICES” as an army of harp darps wearing blue helmets with various logos on them come through a crudely drawn door.
Around the harp darps are various statements they are making as they move into the room. At the front left, below a harp darp wearing the Adobe logo, is the text “You can afford it, come on”. To the right of the Adobe harp darp is one wearing the Dropbox logo. Behind the Adobe harp darps is one wearing the Netflix logo, and behind the Dropbox harp darp is one wearing the Spotify logo. Between the front four harp darps is the text “Just $15 bro”. To the upper right of the Spotify harp darp is the text “Limited Ads dude”. Behind the Spotify harp darp is one wearing a Twitter (now X) Verified blue tick, with the text above its head reading “It’s less than a cup of coffee bro…come on”. To the right of the Twitter Verified harp darp is one with the Nintendo Switch Online logo. To the upper right of the Nintendo Switch Online harp darp is the text “It’s just a small monthly payment dude”, and to the bottom right of the same harp darp is the text “You use it all the time Anyway bro”. Behind and to the left of the Twitter Verified harp darp is one wearing an Amazon Prime logo, standing outside the door.
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜 We have a community! If you wish for us to transcribe something, want to help improve ease of use here on Lemmy, or just want to hang out with us, join us at [email protected]!]
Good human.
No, fantastic human!
Thank you, fellow human 🤖
Is this AI on steroids?🤔
I wish I were an AI 🙁
This isn’t a shitpost, this is truth brilliantly represented 🙏
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Good thing from the current situation is it being the end of times for these services. Constant need for income increase to appease share holders means infinite growth, which is impossible. But individual doesn’t see that, they just want more. So progress of any software towards service model is pretty straight forward.
First they start splitting software into smaller versions and selling both for slightly higher price combined than when they were single piece. Then they start releasing more frequent versions but that has limited impact. So they start introducing forward incompatibilities. Only new software will support both old and new versions of the document, forcing buyers to buy latest. When that reaches its optimal maximum they decide to switch to yearly subscription and force everyone to use those by same ways as they forced them to use newer versions.
Subscription based model is limited. It has no progression other than increase in price and it’s only a matter of testing how much people are willing to pay. Sometimes even go above reasonable price but then go with “exclusive” content as if to justify higher price. This of course works for a while, but exclusive content costs money and is harder to produce consistently at high quality…
And after that, there’s no progression. It’s a battle royale among service provides but they can’t back out because of share holders and can’t revert to other business models. So some of them will stretch themselves thin and burst others will keep on living from that vapor until a new contender comes.
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…but capitalism is so good, things only get better!!! The market is too regulated, is the problem
It is very regulated. Remove copyright protections and things will change instantly.
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/j?
You know, what you can not find on EBay you can find on PBay. Or whatever warez site you prefer.
Yes. Fucking yes. I’m so tired of it all. I just want to own things again.
