Impy

The thing that drove me away from cable and towards streaming was this: I hated ads. Ads ruined my viewing experience so much that I was no longer willing to pay for it. The thing that will drive me away from specific streaming services is this: I don't want to have to pay more for less.

And when that happens, they will not have enough new stuff on offer to keep my subscription. I'll switch to buying physical media, or downloads that damn well STAY downloaded and viewable in any player.

The thing that drove me away from cable and towards streaming was this: I hated ads. Ads ruined my viewing experience so much that I was no longer willing to pay for it. The thing that will drive me away from specific streaming services is this: I don't want to have to pay more for less.

It also tells me that I consider a reasonable price point for an ads-free streaming service to be about 25¢ per hour of new content, or less. Because each of those services, EXCEPT NETFLIX, is providing my disabled homebody life with a minimum of 20~25 hours a month of engaging new stuff to watch.

The thing that drove me away from cable and towards streaming was this: I hated ads. Ads ruined my viewing experience so much that I was no longer willing to pay for it. The thing that will drive me away from specific streaming services is this: I don't want to have to pay more for less.

The exceptions are iQiyi, which while not independently producing content certainly offers a lot of good stuff for the fee, and Netflix, which I consider getting rid of every two months as quality and variety continue to decline. I still have it for now because I value access to English programming.

The thing that drove me away from cable and towards streaming was this: I hated ads. Ads ruined my viewing experience so much that I was no longer willing to pay for it. The thing that will drive me away from specific streaming services is this: I don't want to have to pay more for less.

Yeah, shows that last for 30-40 episodes are just plain better than this 8 episodes 2 years apart model that Netflix is doing. Surely, SURELY, it must be possible to finance and produce real, juicy seasons of shows? Give the writers room to maneuver, they can do so much with it!

And in terms of publishing, well... Viewers can marathon 8 episodes in a day. Many do! They only need one month of subscription to do that. But publish 24 episodes at 2 a week for 12 weeks, and you've got three months of subscription fees out of it. That seems like it'd be better, right?

Yeah, shows that last for 30-40 episodes are just plain better than this 8 episodes 2 years apart model that Netflix is doing. Surely, SURELY, it must be possible to finance and produce real, juicy seasons of shows? Give the writers room to maneuver, they can do so much with it!

It's not that you can't tell a brilliant, concentrated story in a short season. It's that you can't do anything OTHER than a concentrated story in one. So you end up with stories that NEED to be multiple short seasons, and audiences too frustrated to put up with waiting. Just make longer shows!

Yeah, shows that last for 30-40 episodes are just plain better than this 8 episodes 2 years apart model that Netflix is doing. Surely, SURELY, it must be possible to finance and produce real, juicy seasons of shows? Give the writers room to maneuver, they can do so much with it!

Please talk to your parents about their estates. I know it sucks. I know it's a deeply uncomfortable discussion to have, and feels like maybe they'd think you care more about their money than about them if you bring it up. But this sort of thing can ruin you, and your parents DON'T want that.

Protests and public condemnation are not enough, because you cannot shame the shameless into good behavior. Voting might not be enough, either, since much of the opposition is just as shameless and unwilling to impose consequences (but we should absolutely still vote).

If we can't even get our neighbors to pull together and decide what kind of people we want to be and what kind of abuses of power we will NOT allow, then as a country we are quite simply fucked.

Protests and public condemnation are not enough, because you cannot shame the shameless into good behavior. Voting might not be enough, either, since much of the opposition is just as shameless and unwilling to impose consequences (but we should absolutely still vote).

Today I learned that when my 74 year old mother updated her phone, the people at TMobile never disconnected or factory reset the old one. Also, the new phone has unavoidable AI features that will send notifications every fucking minute until you log in and agree to the TOS just to turn them off.

I have decided, I think, to name the little cat shaped spoon rest that lives beside my coffee maker so that I always have somewhere to set my stirring spoon, and the bright side of living alone is that absolutely nobody can stop me. Henceforth his name shall be Purrcalator.