I remember when I got into listening to Podcasts, Kevin Smith was one of the early podcasters. He got this great idea to have a bundle of podcasts from him and his colleagues, and he called it the Smodcastle (Smith + Podcast = Smodcast). A subscription was going to be $140/mo. WTF!!! Yeah, I don’t think that ever took off, but somewhere in his head he thought people would pay that. I don’t know, maybe he did some calculation based off of video games or comic books per month his fans would buy.
I’m not a big subscription service fan, mainly because those bills tend to add up. I always took the monthly bill and multiplied it by 12 to decide if it was worth it. That’s how I determined $120/year for Serius XM wasn’t going to happen. I also dumped cable 16 years ago.
Currently I pay for:
Netflix/Paramount +/Amazon Prime/HBOMax/Hulu (some of these are bundled)
$15/month for Zoom
$4/month for Board Game Arena
Additionally I do a podcast and we use Streamyard. I throw in about $100 a year to keep that going.
Note: A bunch are now bundled and others are rebated each month by a credit card.
Hulu+LiveTV
Netflix
Amazon Prime
Max/HBO
Disney+
Peacock
Apple Music
A couple of people’s Substack
Duolingo Super
Apple TV+
Zwift (which I need to start using again)
I do similar to EVERYTHING. I annualize the cost. Then I add 33% for the income taxes I pay. Then I determine whether that is worth the value I receive.
I used to refuse to rent any streaming videos because there was so much that was already available. Then I realized that the cost of rental was the same I used to pay for Blockbuster rentals, except:
Inflation means it’s cheaper
I make like 10X what I made back then
I don’t have to drive to the video store twice
So now if I really want to watch something, I just pay the $4.
We only dropped cable about a year ago. Partly inertia, partly the combined cost of various streaming services to make up the gap came close to the bundled internet/cable bill. But I finally prevailed on mrs wimsey to cut the cable.
Netflix
Prime video (comes as part of Prime, which is useful/financially justifiable for the free shipping)
AppleTV (last time we got an iPad, we got a free year of AppleTV, which we’re still riding)
HBO when we want to watch something. We’ve subscribed, watched, then cut multiple times over the years.
Disney+ for the kid.
Biggest expense is Fubo, for access to sports. I’d give it up, but wife and kid love to stream Boston sports.
Too many? And some are high falutin
No cable TV, no antenna.
Trainer Road. If only to keep the grandfathered in cheap.
And if TR counts, YMCA
Dis+/hulu/espn bundle
Criterion Channel
Met Opera
Netflix
Prime for all the reasons
Crunchyroll
Paramount+
peacock
appletv (free year just expired last week)
HBO has expired and haven’t renewed it. Should, but maybe I don’t miss it as much as I thought.
Board Game Arena is one of the best deals out there. It also makes games go so much faster. It’s funny when you play a game for the first time on it and realize you’ve been playing the real version wrong for years.
This is an interesting thread to me as I’m a recent streaming customer. I really wanted to watch the 4 Nations hockey final so I finally signed up after being on antenna TV for years.
I asked my boss for a recommendation, and he liked Sling TV. So far so good. I was pleasantly surprised that USA network covers the EPL.
My only subscription is the local newspaper’s digital edition. That way I can see what’s going on while we’re traveling in our motorhome.
I absolutely will not pay to watch TV. No cable, satellite or streaming. We do have access to Tubi as part of our internet service, but I would not pay extra for it. We have an LG smart TV and it provides at least 500 channels for free. Almost all utter garbage.
