Saving money now-a-days is a necessity for most people. Sadly this has resulted in my losing some entertainment options I used to enjoy, but I have much better use for the money. To add insult to injury, it can be tough to decide what you're going to cut.
Fortunately, some businesses are making my tough decisions for me. Like Netflix!
Right now I am on an ad-free "Basic" plan with Netflix. It's highly limited... just 720p quality and can only stream on one device at a time... but I hang onto it because I fucking detest ads... plus I like a lot of what Netflix has available. No, I don't think that I am getting $11.99 worth of value from it, but I don't cancel because there's no way to ever get "Basic" back again...
But, alas, Netflix is saying that the "Basic" plan is going to be killed off once and for all sometime soon. At which point I'll have a choice to make...
So let's do the math. Currently Netflix gets $144 a year out of me. Far more than I want to pay, but it is what it is. But after "Basic" is removed? They will get $32 a year at most. I'll buy a month once or twice a year and call it good. Which is to say that Netflix is going to lose $112 a year. Stupid as fuck of them. But ads are so profitable, right?
I guess I should be thanking Netflix, because I could use that extra $112 annually.
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Australia still only has a few streaming services, and I don’t think ad options have even come up here. I do wonder/worry that these streaming services are going to catch onto people just doing a few months a year and force people into yearly subscriptions. That’d suck quite a bit.
I’ve contemplated cancelling my Netflix several times over the last 4 years, and got close recently, knowing that I have 5 months to come back and all of my profile is intact, but I keep giving them $15.49 a month. I have thought about dropping down to the $6.99 ad-based plan, but like you, I hate the ads that these streaming services have and it’s nice to have at least one of them that doesn’t have ads.
Each time I read a post like this I’m reminded that I really really should look long and hard at the streaming services we pay for and if they’re worth it.
Apple TV+
Netflix
Disney+
Amazon Prime Video
Peacock
Apple TV+ has a lot of decent content on it. They seem to have hit a sweet spot in which a new show comes out on the regular to keep me engaged.
Netflix I don’t really watch much, but my wife does. I don’t want to sleep outside so we’ll be keeping this one.
Disney+ is the one I really think is on the chopping block. I’m over all things Marvel, so really we keep paying for it for in case the kiddo wants to watch a Pixar movie. And the elephant in the room: Star Wars.
Prime Video: we do use Amazon Prime quite a bit for deliveries of things we’ve bought and it’s super handy. And if we’re already paying for that then we get the video for free.
Peacock: I gotta watch my Premier League football. And NBC have the TV rights here in the US so this one is a keeper.
The only one I can’t live without… the ONLY one… is YouTube Premium. Which is essentially YouTube videos without the ads. I watch more YouTube than any other service. Probably more than all of the others combined. And having no ads is cream.