Streaming services, which do you have or are you getting rid of?


log in or register to remove this ad

I generally wait for shows to "stack up" before resubscribing to a channel for a month or two to watch them.

I used to have Prime pretty much always subbed because it had decent stuff, even if not very much of it, but Bezos is being more of a wanker lately, and more to the point, the way they've implemented ads is just really obnoxious, more obnoxious than other ad-supported channels, and frankly Prime is overpriced for a service that offers only a moderate amount when it has ads, and paying the blackmail fee to not have ads pushes it into seriously overpriced.

So that's back on to me waiting for it to get some good shows them resubscribing for a month or two so we can watch them. Will resub for Fallout and maybe for the 40K show (and watch stuff like Invincible whilst re-sub'd for them).

Apple TV is in the same boat, but more because you quickly get through everything worth watching - they are guaranteed like three months of sub every year they put out a season of For All Mankind though!

Netflix is currently doing a good job just barely avoiding the same fate by suddenly putting shows I actually kinda want to see on. However, if they really price-hike it again, I'll probably do the same. It's really the generally lowest-quality service in terms of content (and been getting worse year-on-year), but it does have a lot of content.

Disney+ I might have cancelled but I got a year of it in some kind of weird package deal with another, unrelated service, I forget what (my phone maybe?), so that's always on and in the UK (in fact everywhere outside the US) it has basically everything that's on Hulu as well, just sometimes delayed a week or three. So there's usually something to watch there.

The UK equivalent of HBO, NowTV, I will not subscribe to for more than a single month unless it's for House of the Dragon, which isn't on this year. They have easily the worst price/service/quality ratio of any non-specialist UK-available streaming service I'm aware of it. I can probably skip them entirely until 2026.

I have to really get better about the cycling through services when there's something I actually wanna watch versus paying money for services I'm not using and waiting for something I want to drop.
It's pretty easy once you get used to it - but yeah it's a good habit to get into.
 

I currently only have Disney+ and that’s on the cheaper annual subscription so there’s no point in me canceling / resubscribing month-by-month.

I used the free trial of Prime to watch Fallout, but I try to avoid giving Bezos any of my money as much as possible so won’t pay for that service.

I did briefly pay for the local streaming service Neon so I could watch House of the Dragon S1. Haven’t bothered to resub to watch S2 yet.

I am sometimes tempted to get Netflix but they don’t offer an annual subscription option, and I think the monthly fee is too much. My oldest daughter has her own Netflix account, though, which she has logged into on the TV.

TVNZ On Demand has a decent selection, including all the new Star Trek content. It’s all free. You just have to put up with some ads.

Netflix here isn't worth paying for. We have it via isp bundle.

Dumping Disney+ only 2 decent shows last year.

Amazon was the best but Bezos bleach.

TVNZ varies. App sucks but it's free. Sometimes has good stuff.
 

Thanks to a large household and range of ages, we have:

Disney Plus (primarily for young kids and
Hulu).
Amazon prime For adults plus Twitch subscription.
Netflix for all.
Crunchy roll for older kids
Youtube premium for all
Spotify for all
 

I personally think Apple has the best original shows so far (Ted Lasso, The Afterparty, Slow Horses, Severance) but it really depends on your tastes, of course.

Netflix has the best selection of Korean dramas (Crash Landing on You, Vincenzo, Sky Castle, Queenmaker, Crash Course in Romance, Squid Game, Little Women), arguably even better than Viki, and isn’t bad at anime either (Spy X Hunter, Dungeon Meshi, One Piece, My Hero Academia) though of course if you’re serious about that you should head over to Crunchyroll.

Disney Plus has all the Disney, Star Wars, and Marvel stuff. There’s also Only Murders in the Building (from Hulu). Golden Spoon is a good K-drama there.

Amazon honestly doesn’t have a whole lot and can be weirdly bad at subtitles, most people seem to get it with Prime delivery.

Here in Canada we can’t get BBC iPlayer (boo) and get offered Crave, which seems ridiculously overpriced for what it is.
 

I have Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN at a discounted rate through my phone provider (it's just folded into my monthly phone bill).
 


We currently have:
  • Dropout (about $6/month -- have it for Dimension 20, Make Some Noise, Game Changers and Um, Actually)
  • Netflix (paying full freight for two streams at a time)
  • Apple TV+ (free three months after upgrading our oldest kid's phone)
  • Prime (spouse had a student subscription while in grad school -- it's running out soon)
Once Severence is over, we're turning Apple TV+ off and once something compelling comes to Max or Disney+ (I think both have good stuff coming in the next year), we will switch off Netflix in favor of those. We'll probably turn Prime back on in the fall for Critical Role, Rings of Power and Invincible and then turn it back off after we're done with those.

Over the past two years, we've rotated through Netflix, Disney+, Max and Hulu. And this was a great system, because it let each service refresh with good stuff while we weren't paying for it. I have been binging all of the Apple TV+ stuff over the past few weeks and I can already see I'm going to be running out of compelling content pretty soon, so turning it back off until Severence, season three, comes along some day won't be difficult.
 

TVNZ varies. App sucks but it's free. Sometimes has good stuff.
I don't have any problem with the app. There's lots of good stuff on there, like all the recent Star Trek shows, plus classics like Parks & Recreation. The Office (US) was on there, but it seems to have disappeared mysteriously.
 

I don't have any problem with the app. There's lots of good stuff on there, like all the recent Star Trek shows, plus classics like Parks & Recreation. The Office (US) was on there, but it seems to have disappeared mysteriously.

It's the random crashing, difficulty in navigating or of you pause a show.

Might be the ps4 or ps5 as well.

I used it for Trek, Halo, Red Dwarf, few other shows.
 

Remove ads

Top