Cancel All Your Streaming Services: You'll Save $75 a Month and Watch More Maybe it's time to cut out streaming. For television enthusiasts who severed ties with traditional cable long ago, the time has come to reassess our viewing habits. It's unclear what exactly we're abandoning this time around, but one thing is certain: it's time to bid farewell to all your streaming services. To borrow industry jargon, opt out every month, and only resubscribe if a particular platform offers something truly unmissable. In other words, take the drastic step: cancel them all. After all, how many of these escalating monthly fees are you willing to tolerate? The average user reportedly subscribes to four, which, depending on whether you opt for ad-free options, could set you back a staggering $75 per month. And four services hardly provide comprehensive coverage of the latest buzzworthy TV shows. If you only pay for the most popular ones — say, Netflix, Max, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ — you'll miss out on award-winning hits like Shōgun on Hulu (the ad-free version of which now costs a whopping $18.99 per month). And how have you managed to survive 2024 without the Olympics on Peacock? Moreover, you're on track to miss out on Severance season 2 if you're not an Apple TV+ subscriber. The insidious price creep continues unabated, until you're paying more than the cost of traditional cable — a scenario that's all too likely. Then again, you probably don't just stick to your favorite shows. If you're like many viewers, you often launch a streaming service app, browse to whatever's trending online, and give it a try. And what's your reward for such open-mindedness? Perhaps you've witnessed streaming services unceremoniously dump beloved characters into narrative quagmires, as seen in Secret Invasion or Velma. Maybe you tuned into The Circle season 6, which featured the cringe-worthy plot twist of an “AI” contestant. Maybe you checked out The Idol or Deep Fake Love, which you'd heard were so bad they're good, but they turned out to be so bad that you just want those precious hours of your life back. Millions of Americans are already jumping ship in 2024. In response to the clampdown on password sharing, soaring costs, and the proliferation of ads on popular streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime — which made the controversial decision to enable ads by default — consumers are cancelling their streaming subscriptions in record numbers. For more information, visit https://computerstechnicians.com.
Don't simply make a mental note to cancel when the offerings on one service or another feel remarkably underwhelming; take immediate action. The most significant advantage of streaming à la carte instead of paying a flat fee is the newfound liberty you'll experience, allowing you to opt out of watching the next big thing if you're not genuinely invested. You'll soon discover that other, more affordable and superior ways of consuming TV and movies have become strangely alluring.
The swift ascent and decline of streaming's halcyon days
The initial cord-cutting movement was a straightforward decision, as it seemed everyone concurred that traditional cable was a nuisance. Watching TV in the '90s often involved scrolling through the upper channels of your cable package, waiting for something – anything remotely captivating – to return from an epic commercial break. It certainly wasn't the experience you desired as a paying consumer, but it was obviously the experience the pay TV industry intended for you to have.
For millions of cord cutters (not to mention "cord nevers") that experience is gone forever, but the feeling of time and money squandered, supposedly in the name of "entertainment," has returned with a vengeance.
A decade ago, it felt like the Silicon Valley innovators had arrived to revolutionize the entertainment industry. House of Cards premiered on Netflix in 2013 like a precision-guided missile of politically charged drama straight to the cerebral cortexes of "discerning" viewers like myself. (It turned out we weren't all that discerning; we were just TV gluttons at our first all-you-can-eat buffet). Netflix's addictive grand slam during its first at-bat was astonishing. The networks could never. HBO could sometimes, but who can recall what HBO's first-ever drama even was? (Answer: Philip Marlowe, Private Eye. Yeah, me neither).
Netflix was defying the very laws of entertainment industry physics. The stream-and-binge TV era had begun, and it felt like nothing would ever be the same. The Big Data guru Rick Smolan told the New York Times' David Carr in 2013, "Programmers have been wandering out and shooting a shotgun into the night sky and hoping they hit something, and I end up paying $150 for channels full of nothing I want to watch. These guys know what they are aiming at."
The TV industry has reverted to its outdated practices over the past decade, since the groundbreaking moment of House of Cards. The business has once again become centered around convincing people to pay a premium for an abundance of mediocre content saturated with advertisements. Dan Goman, CEO of the video software company Ateliere Creative Solutions, noted in Forbes earlier this year that, "For many years, streaming services offered subscriptions at rates that were enticingly low," but that, "We're now witnessing the industry gravitate toward familiar models – ads and bundles."
You're probably well-acquainted with the prevailing trends: One by one, streaming services are incrementally raising their prices, in a series of strategic moves aimed at nudging consumers toward more affordable, ad-supported tiers, which yield higher revenue than their premium counterparts. Meanwhile, these services are systematically pruning programming users have come to expect, in an effort to curb their expenditure on library content, while simultaneously devaluing beloved brands, sacrificing quality for quantity, and — perhaps most perplexing and infuriating of all — cutting corners on audio, making it challenging to literally hear the content we're paying for.
The term "enshittification" may be overused, but this phenomenon is precisely what its coiner, Cory Doctorow, had in mind when he coined it. As Doctorow wrote last year:
Why is Netflix exploiting its customers? It's part of the enshittification cycle, where platform companies initially allocate surpluses to their customers, luring them in and using them as bait for business customers. Once they're on board, the companies reallocate surpluses to businesses, lavishing them with low commissions and numerous revenue opportunities. And once they're locked in, the company starts to reclaim the surpluses for itself.
Do streaming services merit your monthly devotion?
Despite your misgivings about the deteriorating streaming experience, you might still appreciate the convenience of having your favorite content at your fingertips. However, the reality is that you've frequently found yourself searching for a show or movie on a streaming platform, only to discover it's vanished into thin air. It's not just your imagination playing tricks on you. The truth is, Streamland has become a chaotic landscape where it's increasingly difficult to find what you're looking for, and what's available today might be gone tomorrow.
Do you assume that the guilty pleasure reality show that brings your friend group together will always have a home on Peacock? Or that your Disney+ subscription is a must-have for parents due to its extensive library of Disney and Marvel animated content? Perhaps you think the highly anticipated streaming service Venu (if it's ever allowed to launch) will provide a stable haven for sports programming that fans have been craving?
Think again. When you log in to any streaming service, you're met with the confusing outcome of behind-the-scenes negotiations, with little regard for user convenience or reliability.
Rethinking the Streaming Conundrum
To exemplify the paradox of convenience in the realm of streaming, let's consider the case of Sex and the City. Logically, one would expect to find all SATC content on Max, formerly known as HBO Max. However, the show's availability on Max is precarious, to say the least. Although it's currently safe on Max, it briefly became available on Netflix in April, adding to the confusion. As soon as the financials made sense, Max's parent company relinquished exclusivity, allowing Netflix to join the fray. If you can keep track of these developments, that's commendable, but it gets even more complicated: Max might soon stop streaming Sex and the City altogether. If that sounds far-fetched, it shouldn't. You can already no longer stream the movie Sex and the City 2 on Max.
Max, like all streaming services, will ruthlessly drop its most prized content if it deems it necessary. I can no longer watch my favorite COVID-era movie, An American Pickle, on Max – or on any streaming service, for that matter – despite it being an HBO Max exclusive at launch. And who can forget HBO's hit show Westworld? You can no longer stream it on Max, despite its Emmy wins and being, by some measures, HBO's biggest hit of all time. Want to stream Westworld on a monthly service? As far as I can tell, the only option is DIRECTTV's "Premier" streaming package, which comes with a hefty price tag of $149.99 per month.
This brand of chaos reigns supreme in the streaming universe, defying all logic. Not even bundling Hulu and Disney+ together can guarantee access to the entire Marvel repertoire. Case in point: Marvel's Runaways, a Hulu original, has now migrated to Apple TV+ as an exclusive offering. The Office, a beloved NBC hit that reached cultural phenomenon status only after becoming a Netflix staple, has vanished from Netflix. To catch it, you'll need to head to Peacock, NBCUniversal's streaming service, which is rapidly becoming a go-to destination by snatching up the likes of Yellowstone, the Paramount Network's biggest hit, despite not being available on Paramount+. You might assume that Peacock is the only place to stream another NBC mega-hit, Friends, but think again. For reasons unknown (perhaps monetary), Friends is only accessible on Max. Netflix is no longer the haven for legendary NBC shows. Well, except for Seinfeld, which will remain on Netflix for the next two years. And after that, who knows?
The initial promise of streaming was instant gratification, but subscribing to a multitude of streaming services doesn't guarantee any satisfaction whatsoever. What's a content enthusiast to do?
Unshackle Your Viewing Experience. You’re in Control.
By cutting ties with subscription services, you'll discover that you have more freedom to access the content you desire, not less.
In the bygone era of content consumption, everyone tolerated the outdated practice of “video rental.” Before Netflix revolutionized the game by mailing discs in paper sleeves (yes, that was once the entire Netflix business model), this way of consuming movies and TV involved the very real hassle of physically visiting a store. It also meant an even worse hassle that seems totally alien now: late fees. But in terms of content-for-money, this terrible system was vastly superior to what we have today. The viewing possibilities felt truly limitless. If your local chain video store didn’t have what you were looking for, you could hunt for it elsewhere in town, or — if it was really obscure — fork over the extra money and buy it, even if that meant importing a disc from another country.
That feeling of boundless possibility is partly why some people — mostly nostalgic film buffs — are still video store aficionados. But you don’t have to adopt any such affectation to reap the benefits of the pre-streaming lifestyle (and none of the drawbacks) thanks to this one simple trick: just watch TV and movies on demand. On-demand video rental is admittedly a form of streaming, but without the subscription. And it couldn’t be easier to get started: You can simply search for the exact movie or TV show you want to watch, find a site that lets you rent or “buy” that piece of content for viewing on your preferred device or smart TV, and indulge in your truly personalized entertainment experience.
Parting with these modest sums can feel like an indulgence or even a setback if you’re already shelling out the standard American $75 per month to access “unlimited” streaming content on a multitude of streaming services. However, if you sever ties with those monthly fees, you’ll instantly have a generous on-demand budget at your disposal. Most movies will set you back somewhere between $2 and $5 (fresh-from-theaters new releases like Blink Twice can cost a hefty $19.99, but that sort of extravagance isn’t really part of the on-demand equation), and watching a single TV show episode can look like a $0.99 rental or a rather steep $2.99 “purchase” with no option to rent.
And on-demand is, in fact, essentially the only way to watch some of those favorites I mentioned earlier, like Westworld and An American Pickle. The freedom of being a streaming service cord cutter, then, means you’re in a privileged position where you can simply not worry about the dwindling archives at the streaming services at all.
Breaking Free from Streaming Services: A New Era of Entertainment
Ditching your streaming subscriptions and embracing à la carte streaming is just the beginning of a journey to optimize your entertainment budget. Savvy investments in an antenna and a blu-ray/DVD player will quickly pay for themselves. Moreover, your local library offers a treasure trove of free discs, and let's be honest, you likely have a stash of unwatched movies and box sets gathering dust at home, waiting to be rediscovered.
With the shackles of streaming services broken, you can now curate a personalized bucket list of movies and TV shows you've always wanted to watch, and methodically work your way through it.
As for me, my perspective on TV has undergone a significant shift, but I don't feel disconnected from the world of entertainment. I recently subscribed to Max to catch the final season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and during that time, I managed to cross a few movies off my watchlist before canceling. When White Lotus season 3 arrives, I'll repeat this cycle.
Sports presented a challenge even when I had streaming services, and it remains a hurdle now. However, with an antenna for in-market games and watching baseball in bars with fellow fans, I've found a solution.
My revised TV viewing philosophy can be distilled into my stance on the Star Wars franchise. I've deliberately avoided all Star Wars series, and I harbor no regrets. Yet, I'm toying with the idea of giving Andor a chance. I may, or I may not. As a streaming enthusiast who's cut the cord, I still relish taking calculated risks on novel streaming shows from time to time, such as White Lotus and The Curse, but I predominantly favor timeless classics or shows that offer a certain level of predictability, like Law & Order: Organized Crime (which I can access for free courtesy of my trusty antenna). In essence, I rarely invest myself in shows with captivating inaugural episodes that might prove to be masterpieces, but let's be realistic, often devolve into the TV equivalent of shallow clickbait.
So, if the second and final season of Andor falters, I'll have sidestepped a potential disappointment. If it garners the same widespread acclaim as the first season, then I'll know it's a safe bet. I'll subscribe to ad-free Disney+ for a single month, and I'll devour the entire series at my leisure.
