Netflix axes its $10 ‘Basic’ plan in the US and UK
Netflix axes its $10 ‘Basic’ plan in the US and UK
www.engadget.com
Netflix axes its $10 ‘Basic’ plan in the US and UK | Engadget
108 comments
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Generally it's agreed the best way to stop piracy is by offering a more convenient alternative. I generally for example don't pirate video games available on Steam. With streaming services being so disjoint and expensive now I've gone back to pirating, at least with cable you can bundle channels.
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I buy steam games, even ones I've already pirated, for a few reasons.
- Quick and easy downloads
- Seamless updates
- Almost all my other purchased games in one place.
- Cloud saves
- Durability, just knowing my games will be available to download on my next PC for the foreseeable future.
And I pirate just about everything I watch mainly because I'm not willing to play musical subscriptions to watch the shows I want to see at the end of a long day.
If the film industry had a service that offered a similar experience to a Plex share, I'd pay quite a bit for it. But instead they have this system designed to extract maximum value from every viewer, and I'm tired of it.
Gabe Newell was right on the money when he said piracy is a service issue, not a price issue.
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To add onto this, when someone who can't afford something pirates something, there is no lost sale because there never was a sale there to begin with. It didn't take any money away from the company since they were never going to see any money from that person.
With that said, the only piracy I partake in is for archival purposes, and like you I buy Steam games regardless because it's too convenient like you said.
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And if you really like a game, why not supporting their devs
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I don't think Netflix could get any more convenient than it already is though.
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Yep, and when netflix took off piracy took a dive because of how good it was. Then every studio decided they wanted their piece of the streaming pie so pulled all their content off netflix and released their own streaming service, so now we're basically back to having to pay $100 a month to get access to everything, just like we were with cable before netflix changed the game. Shockingly, piracy has shot up again.
These companies are so stupid and greedy.
The only games I'll pirate are ones that are no longer available to buy, because what else am I supposed to do?
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It's morally positive to pirate games that are no longer available for sale. Piracy is stealing, but in this case, you're stealing from the void so there's no harm done, and preserving the game is a morally good thing to do.
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at least with cable you can bundle channels
For about the same price as it currently costs to bundle all the major streaming platforms. Plus, cable never had anything near the amount of content we have now on streaming.
I think people who compare cable to streaming don't remember what it was like before streaming
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I think a much better comparison than Steam would be Spotify.
I use Plex for all my movies and TV shows for the same reasons you mentioned. All my stuff can be in one place instead of having to pay for Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, Disney+, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, and whatever other fucking shit is out there.
Plex also supports music libraries, but I don't use that feature. Why? Because Spotify has literally 99.9% of all the music I want to listen to, and aside from maybe like Garth Brooks, the other 0.1% is on Youtube. Spotify did it right by just having a basic service that you can pay for and get everything you want. If I had to subscribe to Spotify, Tidal, Napster (Still a thing I guess?), and 4 other services just to access all the music I listen to, I'd go back to piracy.
With Spotify slowly starting to reach a limit in subscribers, it's unfortunately only a matter of time until they start pulling what Netflix is doing and finding new ways to get money from customers.
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Spotify is already making people pay for sound quality that's akin to a TDK C90
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Plex also supports music libraries, but I don’t use that feature. Why? Because Spotify has literally 99.9% of all the music I want to listen to, and aside from maybe like Garth Brooks, the other 0.1% is on Youtube. Spotify did it right by just having a basic service that you can pay for and get everything you want. If I had to subscribe to Spotify, Tidal, Napster (Still a thing I guess?), and 4 other services just to access all the music I listen to, I’d go back to piracy.
Spotify also has a free ad-supported service, which while it does have ads, isn't as bad as radio, or needs you to go to the effort of pirating the music you want.
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best way to stop piracy is by offering a more convenient alternative. I generally for example don’t pirate video games available on Steam
I have towed this line for years. Recently Battlefield 2042 was available on steam for a great price so I snapped it up. I'd played it at release via a 1 month trial of EA play and it was absolute trash.
The game is totally fixed! The problem I have, is that I bought it on steam...and it forces me to install and keep myself logged in to the EA app anyway. It fails to launch the game every single time. I have to reboot my computer, manually log out of EA and log back in. It is an absolute shitfight, because EA gargle balls all day.
My point is, I bought the game on steam and I got absolutely duped. I'm all for a bigger library, but not if it means I have to install and use the other crappy apps anyway. Such a disappointment, I won't be so quick to buy on steam anymore unless they implement a great big flashing red warning that the game is not actually on steam at all.
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They do put the warning when a game needs a 3rd party launcher tho?
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Yeah, I get that stuff like that sucks. Funnily enough, I think it's a little better on Linux because the EA games app is incapable of running on Linux so Proton boots it just long enough to get the game working, and then it fades back into the background. While Linux gaming is still not perfect, that kind of thing is one of the reasons I prefer it over gaming on Windows.
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I swore off buying games from companies like EA, and Ubisoft years ago. I'm still bitter about getting duped with Far Cry 3.
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Gabe Newall said himself that piracy is never a price problem, but a service problem.
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That's such a simple yet legendary quote.... moreso with each passing decade
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Go Gaben!
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Never have wise words rang more true...
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You still can...
I think Hulu has a decent bundle with Disney, and Paramount with Showtime isn't bad.
That's like 4 for 20 bucks. And lots of cell plans come with one free. So it wouldn't be hard to get a lot of options for 20-40, which is still way cheaper than cable.
Netflix is just starting to get real expensive. If they'd have kept some of their originals from the last couple years I wouldn't think of canceling, but since they cancel those shows a week after a season drops, I'll probably drop Netflix soon.
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Also stopped pirating games when steam came around. And I stopped pirating shows and movies with the rise of streaming services. Now though, I'm looking into standing up a media server.
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I respect that. I'm not setting up a media server because I would expose myself to legal liability, but the people brave enough to actually distribute the content I'm consuming have my full respect.
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i have crappy internet and there's no way to preload a movie with netflix so the service is useless to me. i have to torrent
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That's unfortunate but understandable.
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I think with gaming that is a factor, but personally I think the larger deterrent for pirating games is at least for multiplayer games you can't really pirate them while still being able to play online most of the time.
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I cancelled Netflix last month and had only kept it that long for family members.
After cancelling, I got a welcome back email because they’re apparently happy to let anyone logged in reactivate the subscription…
So I contacted them again to cancel, get a refund and ask what happened.
Then I decided I wanted to remove my card details from the account, but apparently you can only do that by contacting support…
So they think it’s okay to let anyone restart the subscription from a TV without entering a password, but they’ll make you contact support to remove card details…
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Change the password before you deactivate again?
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Probably a good reason why you shouldn't share your sub but netflix should have an easier setting to disable it so it is on them.
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I mean, the sub is designed to be shared within a household, that’s why they have profiles…
The problem is Netflix letting a sub profile reactivate the subscription without providing a password.
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I was a Netflix DVD subscriber before they released a Wii streaming disc then started streaming Netflix back when it was glorious with all your favorite shows. Eventually I downgraded to the cheap $8 plan for a single user at 1080p resolution which was fine - my old television is still 1080p native resolution.
Then they quietly raised the price.... and dropped the resolution to 720p without telling me. Finally I had enough - after more than a decade I finally cancelled my Netflix account last year and haven't looked back.
I don't miss their "netflix originals" which only last for one or two seasons before getting canned because netflix needs more viewership to justify the investments.
Truth be told, I don't watch must television (or even youtube) in general - I have better things to do with my time than vegetating on a couch watching a tv screen.
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Can I offer you a free tier in these trying times?
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You are a saint.
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When asked for comment a Senior Executive, who asked not to be named, responded, "At that price point we're rather have them pirate the shows than have to deal with the customer service and billing headaches."
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We axed Netflix two years ago.
108 comments
And I axed Netflix. So we're even.
Yea I tried signing up to Netflix again since they had added the new plans and ads. Didn't last more than the first/initial month/payment. What hot garbage that experience was. The 90s experience of having a cable person come over and install something would have been more user friendly. They lost a lot of good will from me as a customer that day, I'm not sure I'll ever go back.
What do you mean by the experience was hot garbage? Signing up for a netflix account? It's about as straight forward as it can possibly get.
I'm keeping them for my kids until that password thing actually happens, then I am gone.
And my bow
Why would you be even? They got rid of it because for whatever reason people complained about offering a more economical option. Use whatever streaming services you want though. At this point it's just about content.
Or we could sail the high seas again.