1y ago

And now Bezos is trying to insert ads everywhere

You're viewing a single thread.

292 comments

You are under no obligation to consume media. Even if you want to the library is free. Vote with your dollar; feel like a service is ripping you off, cancel it.
- I don't think this level of snark is exactly called for in his instance --- it's not some fundamental right to consume Netflix content. If I want to, I pay their price, simple as that.
  People often talk about media consumption the way the left (rightfully so!) talk about housing or healthcare --- as a fundamental human right.
  
  I don't know if that's quite the right way to frame the complaints. I don't think that having things to entertain you for free is necessarily a human right (even if paywalling all media is a bleak alternative), but I do think people have a right to be charged a reasonable amount for entertainment. There was a long time where you paid 8$ a month and got access to just about every single movie and tv show that had ever been made in the US.
  It was wildly profitable for Netflix, who in turn paid licensing fees to all the owners of their content, and customers were happy, it was great. Then all the cable companies started their own streaming services, licensed media was reclaimed as the garden walls went up, and suddenly comprehensive access to media ballooned from 10$ a month to hundreds . The services themselves got worse, ads started getting inserted into paid accounts, and subscription prices steadily rose across the board.
  I don't think people are declaring that media should be free, but after Netflix almost killed piracy because most people are willing to pay a reasonable amount for reasonable access, a lot of people are understandably unhappy with the streaming industry going from an affordable revolution to cable 2.0 in a single decade.
  
  Is consuming endless entertainment “participation is society”? No, its a distraction from society.
  
  "People shouldn't consume media" is a hot new take I didn't expect. A call to return to sitting on the porch and aimlessly staring at the neighborhood for hours while sipping on sweet tea and smoking a pipe.
  
  There is a plethora of activities besides watching TV. Have we been so spoiled by endless entertainment that we forgot that? Our local communities are nonexistent, maybe sitting on your porch you could meet some neighbors, have a real conversation; build back what was lost.
  
  There are, but they're all entertainment media. Books, television, games, every avenue of entertainment is being steadily hypercapitalized and compartmentalized. Communities aren't failing because people have entertainment, they've fallen apart because the outside world has almost no places left where people can freely gather. You don't meet your neighbors because there aren't any sidewalks, because the parks need to be driven to, because downtown has strip malls instead of boardwalks where people can gather.
  I grew up hanging out in the Walmart parking lot because that's the only place we wouldn't be shooed away. Entertainment is what fills the absence of community, not the cause of it.
  
  ...they've fallen apart because the outside world has almost no places left where people can freely gather.
  I'm sorry that has been your experience; it has not been mine. I can walk to several wonderful parks, I can bike (or take a $3 bus) to the beach, and I have world-class cycling destinations out my door.
  Alternately, I have three or four libraries within about a 20m walking distance.
  That said, yes, I do live in a high CoL area, so perhaps that was the point you were making.
  
  I mean, that genuinely sounds amazing. Though I'll note that paying to go places is still an issue for the youth and the poor. When I was in college, and when I lived in California, there was a similar variety of options, though, driving was a necessity in San Diego.
  If you've ever heard of suburban hell though, that's pretty much what I was referring to. There's a small library about a forty minute walk from me, across at least one highway and partially without sidewalks. A ten minute walk to a park that can seat fifteen, there is a scenic bike route, and no buses. And yet it's a vast improvement over what I saw in Texas.
  The loss of unregulated, uncapitalized public spaces is a well recognized phenomenon (also termed 'third spaces'), one that grew even more pronounced during Covid.
  
  I don’t know where you live, sounds awful. I certainly have sidewalks, walkable trails to public houses and parks. Multiple libraries with groups, activities, classes, community action groups. Two large commercial areas, one a vibrant downtown area, the other admittedly is a dead mall. Natural areas, concert venues, small shops. I could go on. Have you really tried to meet your neighbors? I can’t avoid mine just walking the damn dog. Maybe im privileged, but I would rather stare out my windows than pay for multiple streaming services.
  
  I think it's pretty apparent you don't live in the suburbs or outside of a large city lol. Even then, when I lived in Texas the urban sprawl meant walking anywhere was completely off the table, and biking meant sharing 55 MPH roads. Other states have been better, but the issue of vanishing public spaces has been an issue raised since the 80's (third spaces, if you're interested).
  All that said, even being active in community and spending time with friends, should people not be allowed to watch tv in their downtime? Should we ban the mindless internet browsing, Lemmy?
  
  Honestly its the perfect representation of the apathy that is allowing the greedy to take more and more. No need to get off your ass unless your fighting for free tv.
  
  It’s more of competing
  If I buy 10k seats of Netflix then I should be able to sell them individually for less than the person buying 1 seat directly for instance and still turn a profit
  If I funnel that content through my own app then that should be allowed
  There are anti-competitive practices in place where you have to sign onto a platform in order to access their content
  And the amount on content which a given company holds is too high
  You get this in every industry; if you go a state over and the companies all look the same then it means they have gotten too big to compete with and need to be broken up
  
  I don’t agree that free circus is “improving society”, but i guess my priorities are not everyones.
  
  I think the bigger gripe is less that there are subscriptions and more that they have gotten out of hand. In general the fragmentation of services as businesses try to get a piece of the pie. Monopolies aren't great, but regulated monopolies have some benefits.
  Some examples: Netflix used to have a wide variety of backlog material, they had a cheap subscription and replaced the video rental stores. As streaming and subscriptions became more of a thing businesses stopped allowing that content on Netflix because they wanted to do it themselves. Now you need 2-3 subscriptions for the same benefit that old Netflix had. I dropped all mine except for Amazon, I don't want 3 streaming subscriptions.
  Ubisoft and many other game companies decided to take their content off of Steam because they felt they weren't getting enough from Valve. They split off and made their own equivalents, but the benefit of Steam is not having multiple launchers. I'd rather not play a game than have to have their brand specific launcher & account.
  I don't have a "right" to free content, but i still feel that the direction of the market has made the content and consumption of said content worse.
  
  Stop giving them money then. Vote with your dollar its your only real vote anyway. Don’t like the way a service is treating you, cancel it.
  
  Well yes... that's what I have done, the problem is the other 99% of the customer base who continues to be stupid. It's like when people say "stop preordering games" before the release of the next AAA game, but then it has record preorder sales and hundreds of complaints about it being an unfinished piece of crap. The customer base at large is too stupid to stop feeding the problem.
  
  Still doesn’t mean you have to pay for a subscription that pisses you off. There are no victims here, just suckers.

292 comments