A study has found that more than half of Gen Z cancels and renews streaming subscriptions based on the availability of one TV series or film.
  • mPony@kbin.earth
    20 minutes

    If media companies want a consistent user base, media companies can politically lobby for their users to receive wages high enough to include disposable income. If media companies won’t go to bat for their subscribers, why should their subscribers give them anything more than short shrift? (there’s your phrase for the day)

  • anon_8675309@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9 minutes

    Because everything they want to watch isn’t on ONE single service so I can’t say I blame them.

    Also, streaming companies boast this as a feature, so they can’t really complain.

  • wampus@lemmy.caEnglish
    2 hours

    So… they’re taking advantage of one of the selling-features of streaming services, that being the ability to scale your spend pending your own personal preferences. In the early days of streaming services, they had enough content to justify paying a monthly subscription each month – it’s not the customer’s fault that streaming got enshitified. Hell, a bunch of them switching to ‘weekly episodes’ was just a very poorly disguised attempt to drag out how many months they thought their one flagship show could capture audiences. The old practice of dumping a whole season all at once in one month, because you knew you’d have another season of some other good show the next month, is practically gone – with streaming reverting back to the old network practices they’d usurped.

    Same with games. Tons of titles are just shitty early access things, things that get abandoned mid-development, things that rely on a live-service platform that companies’ll shut down a month or two later, and so on. And some titles are askin like $80+ for their shitty offerings. Yeah, that’s not the customers fault in the slightest. They’re right to look for discounted offers, what sane person wouldn’t?

    • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      12 minutes

      In my experience the only games I get at full price anymore are the ones which are heavily discounted from their original price or were cheap from the beginning. For example something like Rimworld when I first got it.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zipEnglish
    2 hours

    Somehow, nobody takes issue with the cancel and renew instead of purchasing part. So they were successfully indoctrinated into the you will own nothing part, except the and you will be happy didn’t work out.

  • Squidious@lemmy.zipEnglish
    2 hours

    DVDs at thrift stores for a buck. My collection is massive and still growing. My Steam backlog will outlive me.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
    3 hours

    Also all of that interfaces really suck it’s like they don’t actually want you to use their platforms.

    Apple TV is the buggiest piece of crap I’ve ever used, Amazon prime TVs interface is confusing as hell, even Disney can’t pull it off with their categories of Marvel, Star Wars, kids movies, and other, where other contains literally everything else.

    There are streaming services that only contain four seasons of a show with 16 seasons, then there is a different streaming services that contain everything but those first four seasons.

    Is it any wonder people pirate, they raise the price diminish the catalogue split everything up into 60 different services and all of them have terrible UX. It’s like they don’t even want my money.

    • W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2 minutes

      Apple TV is the buggiest piece of crap I’ve ever used…

      Wait, the streaming service or the device? Because the device is the best out there. The streaming service? No idea; I use these:

    • CosmicTurtle0 [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2 hours

      Meanwhile, the folks over at FMHY had to revise their star system because streaming services have become incredibly competitive and to find more ways to differentiate them all.

    • FireWire400@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2 hours

      Apple TV+ isn’t too bad IMO… IF you use it on an Apple device, everywhere else it’s shit

  • PetteriPano@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4 hours

    Millennial here.

    I grew up with sneakernet through irc-napster-kazaa-limewire-directconnect-bittorrent-oneswarm. I gave all that up when netflix and spotify.

    Those subscriptions have been ended a couple of years back and the eye patch is back on.

    Netflix’ catalogue has just diminished, as everyone who owns rights to the good stuff want to do their own streaming service.

    I wasn’t really listening that much ro spotify, but when they started injecting ads into podcasts I bid adieu. (Yes, injected - I’d listen to an English podcast and get very local ads between segments).

    • kif@lemmy.nzEnglish
      3 hours

      Injected ads in RSS podcasts are common too - they’ll look at the IP address and serve a location-specific episode.

    • SpaceScotsman@startrek.websiteEnglish
      3 hours

      I don’t mind injected podcast ads so much, especially for smaller podcasts that need some financial support. What I tend to do is use a VPN, that way the podcast is in my local language, but the ads are in another that I don’t understand. I get my podcast, podcasters get paid, and I avoid tracking and brainwashing. win-win-win

      • PetteriPano@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2 hours

        I wouldn’t it mind it if I was on a free tier. I’d think some of my subscription moneys would go to the creators.

    • encelado748@feddit.orgEnglish
      2 hours

      Still paying for Spotify. At least Spotify is not shit from consumer prospective. Stremio/Kodi + a debrid service are better then any subscription and cheaper.

  • rizzothesmall@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    5 hours

    So you’re saying people without money don’t act like they have disposable income? Fucking science!

  • FireWire400@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1 hour

    I’m not subscribed to any video streaming sites, too pricey for just watching one thing once in a while. As for audio, I have Tidal and so far it has been quite good actually; but if that ever changes I’ll just revert back to physical media/piracy.

    Steam sales tend to be pretty good, what’s even better is that keysites tend to drop the price accordingly.

  • scathliath@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    3 hours

    Ha; finally realizing we’re a bunch of cheap bastards too? Took em long enough, they will not see the connection to the job market yet.

  • sturlabragason@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6 hours

    Is this because they don’t know how to torrent? Or did the “you wouldn’t download a car” ads get into the water supply?

    • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
      3 hours

      Torrenting isn’t difficult but it’s also not very user friendly.

      I don’t really know what a magnet link is, I just know it’s what I want. There’s also a bunch of stats and settings in my torrenting app that I don’t understand but apparently it’s ok to just ignore them. I’m fine with that, but that level of confusion is very off-putting to most people.

      • inari@piefed.zipEnglish
        3 hours

        Which is probably a good thing for torrent users

        • bryndos@fedia.io
          3 hours

          torrent is useless, who wants to connect to a million people who are only sharing the arch iso?

      • dustyData@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3 minutes

        Typically, people stay on the torrents because they are free, while all usenet costs money. Which is the point. Maybe genz can’t even afford Usenet access.