Technology

I cannot upvote a paywalled source

yes, blurring the article if you don't disable ad blocking is a paywall

They have no money, and they're going to have to live with the result of choices made long ago by wealthy people who are dead now.

I wouldn't be doing a damn thing if I was them, except maybe riot.

I am honestly surprised, paid video on demand even survived the post-Netflix fragmentation. YouTube is free. uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock make it usable. Illegal streaming sites exist and are trivial to use without any risk.

Why even consider paid video on demand services?

Good. Cancel your streaming services. All of them. Just pirate shit.

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.

Given how often games go on sale, often at a big discount, why would I pay full price?

~~Gen Z~~ people who aren’t paid enough to live

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.

Someone should teach them how to pirate.

Guys, learn to pirate. If you stick to media and familiarize yourself with filetypes (also enable file extensions, windows users. Chaps my ass that they're hidden by default) then you'll be fine. Nicotine+ for music, qbittorrent+jackett for movies/tv, or the *arr stack if you're fancy, or Usenet if you're paying for it.

Edit: Also use a VPN. I know "but that's a thing to pay for," my dude you should be using one anyway. I recommend Mullvad, maybe Proton.

People are still buying full price games?

!patientgamers@sh.itjust.works

Arrrr matey

I'm over 50 and I sail the high seas. I can afford all the streaming services and even used to pay for them... until the price hikes and now the ads, so fuck them. I also never pay full price for my games.

All that money now goes to paying artists on BandCamp and a few Patreon accounts that make me happy.

Am I supposed to be mad about this? The only jobs available to most of them basically constitute slavery.

Won’t Purchase Full-Price Video Games, New Study Finds

The only game I've ever seen sold at full price on a consistent basis was Factorio. Every other publisher seems sold on putting $60-80 on the label and then floating 10-30% discounts as the sales cycle permits.

It's the Macy's model for sales. "You're getting a $20 discount on a $60 game" sells more titles than "Here's a game for $40".

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.

Proud subscriber of dropout tv and they 100% deserve it. Everything else I mooch off someone else lol. But tbh the majority of stuff I watch are on dropout or Apple TV tbh.

I mean, with the video games point, they're like... always on sale these days. The only time they're not on sale is when they first come out.

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

Things get too expensive and people who don't have the extra cash will find a way to spend less, or not at all. Remember this, all of you shareholders, if you price the customers out of buying your product then you've only screwed yourselves and your greed is to blame. What is wrong with a standard, healthy 10% profit?

100%

And good for them. They should be withholding their money given the enshittification. If anyone's interested, I've made a recent series of YT videos on this topic, and I use chapters, so if you're TLDW, I've got you there too.

I'm 38. I never pay full price for a game lol.

I'm calling it now. Streaming services are going to continue to double-down on artificial scarcity for flagship shows until we 100% converge on cable. They're going to reinvent broadcast schedules after slow-drip weekly episode rollouts and half-seasons (you are here) don't get the results they want.

I'm 52, I don't pay full price for games.

Shit, I'm 52 and fairly well off but I do this. There are so many overpriced things around these days. A lot of tech is really overestimating what it's worth.