Shrinkflation isn’t just for meatspace products.
Heh, meatspace
I’d give them a call: “i don’t mind these changes for 65% of the previous fee, unless you want me to cancel right here right now”.
See if they are willing to compensate, if not just cancel and yarr matey.
It’s just entertainment in the end, nothing we can’t live without or have loads of replacements available.
You clearly haven’t met my parents, if they couldn’t get youtube or fox news they would go comatose on the spot
They sound really dramatic and difficult to deal with (an assumption based on what i usually hear about people that are similar in preferences etc).
If this is right, take care.
I love the wording of “some features will change” and even “new features” when the only change is that features will be removed.
HBO MIN
HBO MID at most
Lpt: of you have At&t service you get free HBO max… Atleast you used to and mine still works so I assume that’s still a thing.
It blows my mind that people actually pay for these services other than the release groups that rip them for me.
I still can’t believe these release groups do their services for free. Godbless.
Do you send the actors and production staff a few cents each for every rip? I understand big studios evil, etc, etc, but piracy is not without cost.
Don’t they currently get $0 for streaming
I can only speak for myself, but I started buying blu-rays a lot more once I dropped streaming services in favor of piracy. I’ll happily throw some cash toward the creators of things I like, and that’s a more direct way to do so.
When it comes to indie stuff or blockbusters that were huge risks for the studios like Dune, you should pay for it if you have the ability. Pirating doesn’t directly hurt most of the people who worked on the film, as they usually get payment upfront. It does hurt them in the future, as studios won’t finance similar future projects or projects with those creators. This is why you should pay for risky movies that are of higher quality.
If Dune didn’t make the money it did, the franchise would have ended there. I was surprised it did as well as it did, as while I never doubted that it would be a good movie considering the people that made it, I was convinced it wasn’t something most people would appreciate. The director’s last film, Blade Runner 2049, was better than the first movie, but not enough people saw it in theaters. I was blindsided by Dune even getting made, let alone being a financial success.
Bottom line, pay for movies you want people to make more of if possible. Pirate shit you don’t care about. If you can’t pay for media because of financial hardship, pirate away. Investors have made streaming services suck for consumers while squeezing workers into having little disposable income or time. They deserve piracy, as it’s the harvest they have sown. Property is a social contract, and by not letting workers see the benefits of ownership, they have every right to not respect it.
When the studio heads at the top stop making exponentially more than the crew that actually created the content then I may consider paying for it.
Yes
“Thank you for being a loyal Max customer”
“Now roll over like a good customer…”
As a Max, I do not endorse this. Also, yarr.
and then all corporations go suprise pikachu face when piracy is on the rise :O
“Piracy is growing back!? How?? We had prattically killed it with our optimal services haven’t we??”
Yar har, fiddle de dee
Holy shit, shrinkflation on a streaming service
Urge to kill rising…
So right after I signed up at the beginning of this year, they switched from HBOMax to “Max.” I paid for a year in advance, and of course when I signed up there was nothing about them switching to a new brand. All of a sudden it was full of trash reality shows and ID Discovery true crime. I have no idea what possessed them to do that.
Then once it switched over I stopped being able to stream any new HBO shows on mobile and customer service won’t refund me any amount. Not that I can even communicate with them effectively. It’s all “chat” with AI or people who have no idea what I’m saying. Half the shows still won’t play on mobile for me.
TL;DR I paid for a year of HBO. They changed their selection a few months in. I lost mobile access to a bunch of their shows. And now I’m losing even more features before the year is up. That’s quite literally not what I paid for.
How exactly is any of that legal? Genuine question. What about the Federal Trade Commission? Isn’t there fucking anybody regulating these corporations in the US?
The only way this becomes less likely in the future is if you sue them. Given you’re locked into a year contract, a lawsuit is the only kind of consequences they might face.
If you paid for a service you were not rendered, presumably with a credit card, and attempted remediation with the company, hopefully in writing or recorded in some form, you can do a charge back with your credit card.
Netflix did the same, but prices went up 1-2 times a year regardless. I’m no longer paying for Netflix. 🤗
I cancelled back on the first price hike they did. Just wasn’t enough for the handful of times I used it per year. They had me at the point where I kinda didn’t care I was paying, but the price hike gave me a wake up call. Since then they’ve continued to up the prices and I’ve continued to not give a shit. Netflix originally won me back from bothering to pirate stuff cause it was so good and easy, now the opposite is true in the streaming space.
Shrinkflation, hitting online world too.
That’s why I pirate. Jellyfin FTW.
I was a long time pirate back in the day, and thinking of sailing once again. However all my old booty spots are gone. What is Jellyfin?
A great UI to stream your movie files from your TV. A bit like Plex, but open source.