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.
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
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.
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.
