Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

sarimkx

Another great example of people returning to analog/physical tech!

tonyponydong

plex is still cool, right?

WCSTombs

Public libraries can also be a great source for DVDs and Blu-Rays!

j3th9n

I installed Transmission again.

satvikpendem

*DVD/BluRay player. If it were just DVD, I'd have asked "why not pirate at that point?" since it'll be better quality than 480p, but BluRays have a superior bitrate to most rips online.

sergiotapia

How do you get around the terrible fbi screens? :( That's the only thing preventing me from starting a collection.

bowmessage

Nice - if you can find a Redbox in your area, they seem to allow _very_ long rental periods these days :)

expedition32

Netflix has a lot of non US content which still puts them far above HBO and Disney. I am trying to cut down on my daily dose of American cultural subjugation.

gfody

720x480 4:2:0 YCbCr doesn't look great on modern screens

atum47

I gave up on Netflix years ago, never looked back. Went back to my old reliable external HD which I can plug directly to my TV.

an0malous

There’s nothing to watch anyway since movies and shows have been enshittified as well

bko

I was wondering if there is a DVD service similar to Netflix when it first came out. And of course there is, but pricing seems high! DVD Inbox and Cafe DVD is $20/mo for 2 discs at a time, with unlimited discs and a 5 day guarantee. 5 days to get your DVD doesn't seem great. They have cheaper plans but limit the number of DVDs you can take out. Netflix was revolutionary because they shipped very eagerly and they charge $15/mo for 2 DVDs unlimited. And I think their shipping took 2 days. They shipped as soon as you shipped yours back so if you were diligent you could prob have close to a movie every night. Incredible service. I guess the economics just isn't there.

donohoe

Not a lawyer but... if you have the DVD its legal to make a backup digital copy. I am thinking the same thing. Most recent movies are available for under $20 per DVD - and there are tons of deals. You can get the 4 lego movies for $5 on DVD on Amazon right now. A "Tom Cruise 10-Movie Collection" is $12. You get the idea. Get the DVD. Make a legal backup. Keep the physical DVD in storage. You now "own" the movie (or TV show), not a "license". In my neighborhood you will often see people selling DVD collections where you get 10-20 discs for $10 or less - varies. I'm sure that is the case elsewhere. NAS + Apple TV with Infuse app installed = Better than Netflix (and others) imho. (Note: I do recommend the one-time lifetime license for Infuse app = $99.99) Reference: - "Backup DVD Copies Legal Says Electronic Frontier Foundation" https://www.eff.org/effector/16/7#I - "2026 DVD Digital Copyright Laws in US, UK, Japan, Australia..." https://www.winxdvd.com/resource/dvd-copyright-infringement-...

commandlinefan

My father passed away last year from complications due to Alzheimer's, but for years before he died, he struggled to work streaming services and modern "smart" TVs. We got him one of the few models of DVD players that we could actually still find and a lot of used DVDs because he _could_ use those. OP here might be misremembering DVDs, here: the physical media skipped or froze intermittently and the players themselves were finicky; we ended up replacing it about three times in just as many years. Streaming services are overpriced, but they do _work_ consistently.

craftkiller

At this point, I'm surprised the streaming services aren't grandfathering people into their current plan+rate like the cellular networks do. It would encourage people to keep their subscription active to keep their rate rather than cancelling it and signing up again when there is a specific show they want to watch, while also avoiding the price increase frustrations. PS: Thanks for the reminder about the price increase, just cancelled my netflix.

stratts

Beyond the pricing part of it, just having media that isn't dependent on an external device is so nice. But for TV series in particular, watching on disc is quite clunky after a decade+ of streaming services, and DVR boxes prior to that. I'll buy them in principle, but ultimately they end up ripped and viewed via Jellyfin.

randomNumber7

I just open ymovies.cc

Unbeliever69

Netlfix raises its prices for the second time in years. Prime Video ads are so invasive that I honestly can't watch any video without turning it off immediately (I refuse to pay for the ad free tier), and now I'm seeing very long ads in the middle of YouTube videos. Two months ago I just stopped watching streaming services all together. The friction of enshitification reached such a boiling point that I lost all joy in watching anything. I cancelled those services I personally paid for and stopped watching those that I don't. My life improved in clear ways. I began reading for pleasure again. Each night at 10pm I sit down in my reading chair, get comfy and read 2 chapters of: one book for enjoyment and one book for learning. It didn't hurt that the first book I read was Atomic Habits! I noticed that my sleep schedule and quality of sleep improved. I've also been more dedicated to my passion projects as well. You don't really realize how invasive these things are until you remove them from your life. I had already given up all social media except Reddit a couple of years ago. Even now I stay away from hot bed subreddits (typically news oriented ones) to preserve my mental health. From 2010-2018 I actually did a test to give up a smart phone in favor of a flip phone, but that became untenable. So thank you to all the enshitified streaming services for helping me restore balance in my life.

joshfraser

Just cancel your subscription. Resubscribe for a month if there's something you really want to watch. You won't miss it.

jmyeet

Back when Netflix was $8/month I just had it forever without thinking about it. It was at first a great way to catch up on TV shows. Netflix was after all originally a place for studios to monetize old content, particularly TV. Even at $10/month, it was fine. But it kept going up. I think I finally cancelled it at $14-15 but I go back for 1-2 months a year to catch up on stuff I want. I basically cycle streaming services. I've searched for data on how often people do this. I'm 99% sure it's a small minority but I bet it's growing. There is an inertia with subscriptions of every type. People are lazy to cancel things they don't use. It's the entire basis for the gym model. So somebody is doing the math in the background of working out how much they can raise prices and lose people to subscription cycling vs lazily not cancelling and it still favors raising prices. I suspect at some point that'll change and, when it does, it'll be too late to do anything abou tit. My suspicion is that this kind of analysis will be a textbook example of a company making short-term optimizations all the way into extinction. The only research I've found is on comparing to move to cable to streaming and how many streaming services people have. I haven't found anything about streaming churn. If anyone knows of any, please let me know.