What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Subscription fatigue and changing habits

  • Many describe auditing subscriptions and cutting back heavily, sometimes to just one or two (often YouTube; Netflix on “shaky ground”).
  • Common strategy: subscribe to a service for 1–2 months, watch what you want, then cancel and rotate to another.
  • Others have abandoned streaming entirely for home media servers (Jellyfin, Plex, Stremio) fed by DVDs/Blu-rays or other sources, citing better quality, permanence, and control.

Piracy, self‑hosting, and “value”

  • Several argue piracy plus direct support (merch, vinyl, tickets) is more ethical and practical than paying streamers that underpay artists.
  • Others push back: streaming is cheap, convenient, and legal; piracy risk and friction still matter to many.
  • Tools like Real-Debrid, seedboxes, and self‑hosted media are praised, with caveats about providers enforcing anti‑torrent policies.

Music streaming and artist compensation

  • Strong criticism of Spotify’s payout model and label deals; belief that most user fees flow to top artists regardless of listening habits.
  • Some are switching back to buying albums or using vinyl to encourage “thoughtful listening,” especially for kids.
  • YouTube Music and services like Qobuz get mentions as alternatives, but there’s broad agreement that streaming generally pays artists poorly.

Netflix: from savior to fragmented mess

  • Older users recall DVD‑by‑mail and early streaming as a golden age with near‑universal catalogs. Now they see a fragmented landscape requiring multiple subscriptions, often still missing desired titles.
  • Netflix is still valued by some as a foreign‑language learning platform, especially combined with tools like Language Reactor (dual subtitles, hover translations, quick rewind).
  • Others keep Netflix mainly for foreign content; losing big US studio catalogs accidentally exposed them to more international films and series.

Industry structure, regulation, and copyright

  • Long debate on whether studios owning both content and platforms caused today’s fragmentation and “enshittification.”
  • Proposed fixes: compulsory/mechanical licensing, FRAND‑style terms, separating production from distribution, and drastically shorter copyrights.
  • Counter‑arguments stress creators’ rights to monopolize new works and dismiss the idea that anyone “needs” Disney‑owned culture.

Enshittified UX and pricing

  • Widespread complaints: rising prices, ads on paid tiers, hidden or broken watchlists, and search that intentionally downplays what users actually want.
  • YouTube is simultaneously praised as the best UI/content mix and criticized for algorithmic bloat (shorts, clickbait, social‑feed behavior).

Kagi and paying for search

  • Tangent on Kagi: some love its ad‑free, “old Google” feel and are happy to pay; others found results weaker than Google or Bing and canceled.
  • Consensus: try it yourself; whether it’s worth a “Netflix’s worth” of money depends heavily on individual search habits.