Max users grandfathered into $15.99 ad-free plan lose 4K, HDR next month
Max users grandfathered into $15.99 ad-free plan lose 4K, HDR next month
cross-posted from: https://feddit.ch/post/2075926
This was my only slight reservation when I cancelled my HBO Max subscription in the wake of all the merger fuckery and cancelations, that I'd lose my grandfathered in perks. I had HBO in some form for decades prior.
Thanks for vindicating me, assholes. If you ever make anything else worth watching, I don't respect you enough not to sail the 7 seas🏴☠️
The only financial barrier to entry for 4K video sharing is to afford an internet connection and a big enough drive.
“This deal keeps getting worse all the time.”
I’ve been quitting streaming providers left and right. I lost count of how many services I had, but it was probably up to $150 per month or more. Because I like the ability to just watch whatever I want, I’d sign up for a service to get a particular show or movie, then just not cancel. I’d forget I had a service, then find some movie in a search, and suddenly remember I had showtime or shudder.
Once they started banning family sharing of accounts and increasing prices, I was done. I could have gone on for years like that - I love movies and I binge television shows, but one of my main uses is watching in remote sessions with isolated family members.
The worst thing a subscription service can do is remind you you're paying for it.
On an unrelated note, how's your gym membership going?
That's exactly what happened here. HBO sent me a message saying they were getting rid of 4k streaming and I was like, "wait, I'm still paying these guys $16 a month? Wtf I signed up for Game of Thrones and that shit ended like half a decade ago.”
Edit: I just did the math and I've paid these guys like $864 since GoT ended. I've watched one other show (The Wire) plus maybe a dozen movies since then. No way was that worth that much money. These dumb fuckers could have kept collecting that money indefinitely.
This is an extremely valuable comment.
“One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue,” explained Newell during his time on stage at the Washington Technology Industry Association's (WTIA) Tech NW conference. “The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”
I'm done with streaming for reasons like the one in the article but damn, the arr suite, a Synology NAS, and Plex on my Apple TV are a fantastic combo. Any show, movie, book, or music I want, at the highest quality, and no getting fucked around by greedy media corporations.
I still spend money on media but now I try and make sure as much as possible goes straight into the pockets of the people who make it.
I don't think there should be a 4k tier. They should be tiered on ads and number of users. Why should quality be a tier?
If they separate all the features and charge for each of them, then money!
So as with all the other races to oblivion in our economy, sanctioned encouraged private shareholder mandated insatiable greed did it. Same with microtransactions in videogames, "upgrades" to check luggage and reasonably sized seats in airlines, shrinking portions in food service, etc.
Higher cost, lower quality, always. Murica 🤑
Why should quality be a tier?
The cost of storing and serving 4k content is much, much higher than 1080p.
The cost of storing and serving 1080p is much, much higher than not storing or serving any content yet they still do that. It's what we're paying them for. Furthermore 'streaming 4k' is pretty compressed already and comes nowhere near the level of bitrate of a 4k bluray.
I would say that was a valid argument a decade ago when 4k came out. I'm completely baffled that we STILL market 1080 as high quality. Furthermore, I would say that was a valid argument if these fucks weren't taking in record profits over and over and over again. It's not a cost issue. It's a greed issue.
Not really. I mean there is, but both bandwidth and storage get cheaper by the day. Delivering 4k content today is probably an order of magnitude cheaper per bit than delivering HD content was a decade ago.
Storing is done once by simply offering a 4k option*.
Bandwidth is an ongoing cost per view, but no where near the increased plan cost to cover it.
*technically more than once because of distributed CDNs which would need to scale to demand. But negligible.
Why should quality be a tier?
Because it costs more to stream 4k content than lower quality content?
Not agreeing with it, but the justification is easy to make.
It’s the smartest thing ever people should read about marketing tactics and schemes to get people to pay more money.
I strongly agree with this. In fact, just seek out a college level textbook. Here's a free one. Its like having a secret decoder ring to a huge chunk of society you interact with daily. You'll be able to quickly identify an advertising pitch, and identify why its appealing to you and if it is deceptive. You'll also see the gaps as in "okay product A exists and product C exist, so product B probably does too. Now why am I not seeing that one?". It also lets you see that you are sorted into a specific bucket because of your age, race, level of education, income, and geography. There are huge parts of marketing that you don't see because those are for other market segments which you aren't in.
Its like have a cheat code to society.
Takes some cojones to remove such vital features from an already expensive subscription.
Yarr harr for me.
We get Max free through our cell phone plan; I don’t think the merger changed that (we still get it for free), but I’m honestly not sure how this will affect it, if at all. If it ever stops being free, there will be a few shows I’ll miss having instant access to, but nothing that cleaning the sails for a voyage on the high seas can’t fix.
"We will get your money one way or the other."
Take away common features (4K and HDR) from an already existing plan to squeeze out $4 from users at the cost of good-will and subscribers, which is the inverse of increases in subscriber count, which is what matters most to a streaming service along with content.
That's some smooth brain Exec MBA product strategy right there.
It is really grandfathered if you only get to keep the price and not the features?
They're making it like one of those grandfathers who recently found Infowars and is slowly becoming unhinged.