Just Curious - What streaming service(s) do you pay for and why?

[Libertarian01]

I've had this discussion with a friend of mine and we both agreed that IF we were willing to pay for everything we wanted to watch, well, we'd go broke. So it came down to a series of choices of what to pay for and what not to.

We both pay for Amazon, for multiple reasons. So with that we get all of what is on Amazon for free. Jack Ryan and Reacher ROCK!

I also pay for BBC and Starz. I love a lot of the British police shows, especially Silent Witness. I think I've absorbed a bit of a significant cultural deviation between American law enforcement and British law enforcement cultures. I like learning through observation.

I started paying for Starz because there were two (2) series years ago that I had started but never finished. The first was Black Sails and the second was Spartacus. Now I'm enjoying Outlander, especially it's take on the American Revolution.

Once Outlander ends after next year I may well drop Starz if I don't find anything else and subscribe to another service. As of now, beyond Amazon, I'm limiting myself to two (2). Any more and where do I stop? I'd love to watch all the new and olde Star Trek stuff but NOPE! Not paying for Paramount. Not happening until I drop BBC or Starz.

She has a subscription to Amazon, Netflix, and something else. We get together now and watch The Recruit on her subscription to Netflix.

So I'm just curious as to peoples thoughts in general. Do you have a limit and if so what? And why? Or no subscriptions at all?

Regards,

Doug

 

[Brandon]

Amazon (prime) hardly watch it though.
Paramont for a few shows
Peacock for OPL.

Tubi and youtube are others we watch.

Use to have discovery but parted ways.

 

[Combat_turtle]

I split things out between me and my parents. I pay for netflix, peacock, hulu package (with disney, hulu, and espn) they pay for amazon, discovery, hbo. i think there might be another in there somewhere. but I refuse to pay $100 a month for cable so between us were probably close to 100 but have thousands of movies and shows.

 

[Peacekeeper3073]

Biggest change for me was dropping all Spectrum services and going to YouTube TV. Have a couple of the usuals, Netflix, Hulu, etc. All together combined are still cheaper than what my Spectrum bill was and more choices and better quality.

 

[chezuki]

Too many.

Hulu/Disney + (bundle)
Netflix
Prime
Paramount

 

[wcd]

Dropped both Hulu, an Netflix because we did not want to patronize them..

lots of good free things on YouTube, and we have Philo. Really good variety, and if you watch things on demand you can ff through commercials.

 

[Creedmoor]

We do Prime, she watches whatevers on Prime and I order stuff off Prime.

 

[dieselrealtor]

We have Prime, dropped Netflix in the past month for a variety of reasons.
May get Paramount or something else when things slow down, too busy to watch things we are interested in on Prime at the moment.

 

[Nugget]

Gotta wait til Black Friday to sign up for streaming services. They all run specials. Each year for the past several years my wife and I alternate signing up under new name/email/card to count as "new subscribers".

This past year we got 12 months of Hulu + Disney bundle for $4/mo, 12mos of Peacock for $1/mo, and 12mos of Paramount + Showtime bundle for $5/mo. So for a grand total of $10/mo we have Hulu, Disney, Paramount, and Showtime right now.

We also got a few others on 1, 2, or 3-month trials at the same time. Apple was free for 3 months, and we got trials of AMC, Starz, HBO, and maybe one or two others for a buck or two per month. We watched the trial ones for a few months, then cancelled them all and started watching stuff on the full-year subs.

It's been great. Hope they keep doing it, though I worry with all the consolidation and price hikes, those deals will probably start getting harder to come by. If so, we'll probably just switch to one or two per month, on a rotating basis. We have a bunch of shows we like on Netflix, but its too expensive so we only subscribe a month at a time, once or twice a year.

 

[Libertarian01]

Gotta wait til Black Friday to sign up for streaming services. They all run specials. Each year for the past several years my wife and I alternate signing up under new name/email/card to count as "new subscribers".

This past year we got 12 months of Hulu + Disney bundle for $4/mo, 12mos of Peacock for $1/mo, and 12mos of Paramount + Showtime bundle for $5/mo. So for a grand total of $10/mo we have Hulu, Disney, Paramount, and Showtime right now.

We also got a few others on 1, 2, or 3-month trials at the same time. Apple was free for 3 months, and we got trials of AMC, Starz, HBO, and maybe one or two others for a buck or two per month. We watched the trial ones for a few months, then cancelled them all and started watching stuff on the full-year subs.

It's been great. Hope they keep doing it, though I worry with all the consolidation and price hikes, those deals will probably start getting harder to come by. If so, we'll probably just switch to one or two per month, on a rotating basis. We have a bunch of shows we like on Netflix, but its too expensive so we only subscribe a month at a time, once or twice a year.

This covers a lot of what we've discussed in person, and a bit what has been said on here.

I've thought about the specials but I'm too darn lazy to jump through the hoops of cancelling once the special ends.

I may try this with one (1) service though. It might be nice to get a deal without pushing too many times.

In some ways this IS a good problem. It means a lot of services are producing good shows that we want to watch, but it also means you could literally spend hundreds of dollars signing up for several dozen services to watch whatever you want to.

Of course, I remember when we had 3.5 choices: ABC, CBS, NBC and lousy PBS. All free - with commercials. Free wasn't free though. I do remember having to climb up on the roof after a windstorm and twist the antenna until my dad yelled, "THERE! STOP!"

Regards,

Doug

 

[Gabriel]

I have Prime, Netflix, and Disney+ all the time. I then rotate between Paramount+, HULU and whatever else. When one of them gets enough things on it I want to watch, I'll get it for a few months and cancel it when I've seen what I want to see.

 

[Nugget]

I've thought about the specials but I'm too darn lazy to jump through the hoops of cancelling once the special ends.

I'm not gonna lie, I made an excel spreadsheet to keep track of each service, username, pwd, email, sign-up date, cost, trial period expiration, etc. I also use it to keep track of shows we like/d, to help us decide if a service is worth renewing in the future. That said, I'm a banker at heart, and I love spreadsheets.

 

[qwerty]

We use Philo. Has Hallmark, Home and Garden, and others for the ladies; MeTV, COZI, H&I for me, and nick for the kids. Works with roku, PC, and Phone. They don't seem bothered by multiple simultaneous users. Users have their own profiles.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Amazon Prime - membership is free with NFCU flagship credit card

Disney+ - Free with Verizon offer, but my 6 months expires next month so I'll be cancelling for a bit. Nothing I'm super interested in, TBH, but free is free.

Paramount + - I like all the various Star Trek shows, got it for something like $60/yr last Black Friday

Then just rotate through Hulu/Netflix/HBO Max one at a time to catch up on whatever we're interested in. My wife burns through things way faster than me, so once she's caught up we just switch to the next.

 

[Super Bee]

Hulu Live/Disney

Philo- I spend the few bucks a month for Philo for OP Live. Hulu does not carry Reelz.

Netflix

Prime

 

[d.kaufman]

Hulu Live (Need it for hockey and CFB)

Paramount (Get free will cell service)

Amazon Prime (with our membership)

Netflix (Piggyback on a friend's account)

There's a bunch of free ones too, just can't remember them all

 

[Dean C.]

We don't have cable so streaming only

Netflix - Glass Onion, Love Death and Robots
HBO - Anthony Bourdain , Succession and everything else in their huge catalog
Disney+ - My wife is a Disney fan and I love Star Wars
Amazon Prime - there are usually an actually pretty good amount of content on there and it comes with prime.

Total for everything including 300mbps Internet is sub $100 a month

 

[Ingomike]

We do Prime, she watches whatevers on Prime and I order stuff off Prime.

Also many streaming services can be purchased through Amazon without setting up separate accounts and easily unsubscribed. We get what we want that way and cut it off when done.

 

[Ingomike]

I've thought about the specials but I'm too darn lazy to jump through the hoops of cancelling once the special ends.

Canceling is easy if you subscribe through Amazon and I usually get whatever specials they offer on their direct subscriptions…

 

[Mark-DuCo]

SlingTV for channels I used to watch on cable like History, A&E, FS1, etc.
Amazon prime, mainly for shipping but there is a lot of good stuff on there to watch
Peacock to follow motocross, Indycar and Nascar