I canceled my Prime subscription precisely because they continued to keep mixing ad supported content with my ad free content. There were multiple shows where I unknowingly started watching something with ads where I immediately noped out at the first ad break and never watched that show again. I doubt they'll look at it, but it would be interesting to know how many users do the same thing.

I've already been pausing subscriptions left and right as my trends have been focusing on one platform's content that I'm not even using the others that I'm paying for that month. After dumping Prime, I eventually dumped Disney+/Hulu bundle for being the most expensive. I then got yet another notice from Netflix for increase rates which was already paused so I just went ahead and canceled it as well.

I wonder how much physical media I could acquire if I was to spend the same money that is not being spent on streaming platforms. I bet within a year, I could build up a pretty decent back catalog from used and $5 bins.

I'll go ahead and duck now from the tomatoes but there is a middle path as well...

Using CheapCharts and buying Movies and TV on iTunes. Yes you don't "own it" and yes there are the rare occasional license revocations but it's not often enough for me to care about that--They still remain in your library anyways.

I have been diligently collecting quality, fun, and beloved movies over the past 2 years when they go on sale. That or buying bundles when they go on sale. I've amassed a solid collection of quality media, a lot of which is not on any streaming platform. I even have a lot of Disney titles as well!

I can watch it wherever, whenever and I can download it to devices.

Eat your heart out Disney, Netflix, etc...

> Assuming you even care about legality, of course.

If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing.

> From this point on, every year "physical media & a Jellyfin install" is going to be more sensible.

Which of course is why physical media will increasingly rarely be offered as an option going forward

Just a reminder to folks, check your libraries, they likely have a ton of movies you can check out for free.

I did the physical media & Jellyfin install earlier this year. It was not that hard. From the moment I searched “create bootable Linux usb drive” to streaming my first movie on the flat screen TV from a Jellyfin server running on an Ubuntu box took a whole 90 minutes.

The hardest part was figuring out the folder where to save the media on the Ubuntu and give Jeyyfin read permissions on that folder via some Linux commands. It was not that hard because Jellyfin tips and tricks are all over the internet (Reddit for example.)

I have a feeling the next step will be media megacorps pressuring nations to create legislation to clamp down on software/hardware enabling anonymous Linux ISO downloads and the viewing of said Linux ISOs via Plex/Jellyfin.

>But you can get a lot of "harder" things done in the amount of time you otherwise spend watching ads

I suppose at some point you will have to have your device's camera on to confirm you really are interacting with the ads, but currently I can get stuff done during the ads by being in another window.

I actually think just buying the digital copies is pretty great. I have a big library of movies, and I have muse check for digital discounts, so most movies i have gotten were <$10, often <$5. For kids, this includes basically every animated disney/pixar/illumination movie ever. You can get recurring hits like Gilmore Girls or friends on sale sometimes for like $29, the whole series.

I did cancel Disney+, For the cost of 4 movie purchases or a series a month basically.

I thought about Jellyfin, but it was worth the convenience cost to get them easily viewable.

Movies Anywhere helps because i just buy them wherever they are on sale and watch in 1 place.

I have a multi platform jellyfin emby plex silo app I'm working on and looking for feedback.

www.hanaplay.tv

I feel like if Disney board members were a little more committed to making content people want to watch and a little less committed to subsidizing money-losing boondoggles for purely social engineering purposes, then maybe there would not be a need to do this sort of thing?

My "honest" solution here is to simply pay the subscription fee and refuse to use the app, opting instead to pirate the same media if have access to through my subscription. I get to decide how I consume and I don't have to feel bad for stealing.

A customer segment that can afford to buy out ads is the customer segment advertisers want most.

Also, if you're willing to buy them out, they're going to rais the coat until you're no longer willing.

You can only win by unsubscribing.

The cost of hardware may be what kills my local Jellyfin install.

Physical media is being done away with, both discs and players.

Seems like streaming is the future we are going to be fed.

It's still straightforward.

1. Buy a Mac Mini (actually the hardest part given shortages).

2. Download Jellyfin. Drag and drop it into your applications dir.

3. Point it at your downloads dir.

4. Install Jellyfin on your Android TV/whatever.

Yeah, I've done more to it than that (I'm on HN after all), but for people used to torrenting there's nothing here that would present much of a challenge.

I just loaded up the torrents for American Horror Story's latest episodes, some Avatar spinoff, and Dark Matter's latest. Considered grabbing "Yaga", but after looking at it on Wikipedia it seems like one of those dumb quirky millennial shows that I dislike. The first torrent finished downloading before I'd managed to click on the last.

I haven't seen a television ad since before 2001 or so, unless you count the muted ones at the Mexican restaurant out of the corner of my eye. I'm not sure why anyone ever watches those. Subscription services are inferior to self-hosted streaming.

Steps to enlightenment:

1. Rent/stream your MSM

2. Buy hard copies of your MSM and digitize

3. Pirate MSM

4. Realize that MSM is hot garbage and stop ingesting it

>"physical media & a Jellyfin install" is going to be more sensible.

Physical media is only cheaper if the user is ok with re-watching the same videos repeatedly. The higher cost of the DVD/Blu-ray discs can be amortized over multiple repeat viewings. (Good example is a 5-year old kid wanting to re-watch Frozen or Shrek cartoons again for the 100th time. A DVD player is cheaper than a Disney+ subscription in that scenario.)

Digital streaming subscriptions are cheaper if the user almost always prefers watching new shows instead of re-runs. That's the viewing habit of the vast majority of subscribers. Trying to only buy physical media to get a constant diet of new shows -- even buying the cheaper used discs from thrift stores -- will cost more than a subscription. Also, the physical discs are not immediately playable on an iPad/smartphone so requires extra hassle of ripping/transcoding that most normies don't want to do. Also, buying harddrives for the NAS server to store the rips isn't cheap either.

I'm all too aware of people preferring brand new shows because I've ripped several hundred DVDs to a stack of terabyte harddrives that nobody ever watches. Instead, they'd rather see what's new on Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ ...

EDIT to add an update of a previous comment about my friend's defiance against ads added to Amazon Prime Videos by borrowing DVDs from the public library. She lost that battle because she finished all the DVDs she wanted to watch so had to go back to Amazon Videos for new content. She now endures the Amazon's ads. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42388626

She really tried to fight ads by avoiding the platform but couldn't sustain it because she ran out of free DVDs to checkout from the library. This means buying DVDs to get something new to watch if trying to stick with physical media and unfortunately, that costs more than streaming platforms. She deals with the ad interruptions by multitasking on an iPad when they come on.

We can just move on as a society from Disney. It didn't exist in 1900, no reason for it to exist now. It doesn't deserve a permanent place in western culture.

> every year "physical media & a Jellyfin install" is going to be more sensible.

Unless you just, you know, don't watch. Which is what I do. I ask myself, is it even worth all this hassle to watch this stuff? Is it that good? And for me, the answer is, no, it isn't. I can find better things to do with my time. So I do.

You're technically right, but, as always, convenience and passivity will prevail, Disney's move will be successful, and ads will keep spreading like a contagious disease. I can see the day coming where ads play on our retinal implants and even closing our eyes won't help against them anymore. Yes, in theory the masses could do what's necessary to stop enshittification, but in practice I would be very surprised if they actually did.

With an LLM setting this up is nearly a one shot prompt now too.

How are ads "stealing dollars" from you lol? It's entirely within Disney's rights to put ads on their streaming service. Maybe you don't like ads, but that's pretty far from them stealing money from you.