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Comment by alistairSH | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, this isn't surprising at all. I've run into it. Typical lazy weekend evening... - turn on AppleTV - search for [year old hit movie or TV show] - brief happiness because it's available - followed by annoyance because it's available on one of the services to which I don't subscribe (or it's on Amazon, but isn't Prime)

I have Prime, Netflix, and HBO and still run into this regularly. It's really annoying. As soon as GOT is done, I'll likely cancel HBO - it doesn't add much value. Netflix is hanging on, barely - every time I go to cancel, I find something interesting to watch, and that keeps me for another month or two. But, it feels user-hostile and with the price going up again, I'm that much more likely to just cancel and be done with them. And I hate the idea of relying on Amazon even more than I already do.

Le Sigh

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>As soon as GOT is done, I'll likely cancel HBO - it doesn't add much value.

This is basically my philosophy with streaming services. I keep Prime because it's useful all-around, and Netflix (for now) still has enough variety to keep me as a subscriber (though I wouldn't be surprised if I jumped ship to Disney later this year).

But beyond that, why not choose a la carte? I'm signing up for HBO when GoT airs, and I'll binge True Detective in between, but beyond that I don't care much about it. Hulu I signed up for a month and then immediately canceled; watched all I cared to in that time. I binged Star Trek within the one-week CBS trial period.

It would be nice to have a Mint-like streaming services dashboard I could use to selectively toggle on and off various streaming accounts when I decide they've built up enough content I haven't seen to warrant activating for a month. There's a product idea for ya.

> It would be nice to have a Mint-like streaming services dashboard I could use to selectively toggle on and off various streaming accounts when I decide they've built up enough content I haven't seen to warrant activating for a month. There's a product idea for ya.

I recommend JustWatch - https://www.justwatch.com

Note: I am not affiliated with them.

> I wouldn't be surprised if I jumped ship to Disney later this year

Oh, man, if Disney really makes their entire catalog available for a reasonable price, I'm definitely going to pay for that. All of Star Wars, all of MCU, all of Pixar, not to mention Disney's own stuff and apparently 21st Centry Fox movies. That's enormous.

But most streamers are just too fragmented to care.

What they should do is have one universal streaming service on which content owners can offer their own content on their own terms, rather than those of Netflix.

Same... i have Netflix and HBO (and my local countries tv service) but recently i get so annoyed by searching for "where i can find a movie" and then not finding it, that i don't even look anymore, i just go straight to torrenting which is a 99% success rate.

Also the Netflix auto-play-previews thing annoys me, trying to constantly force me to keep consuming.

I'll probably cancel both soon.

> Netflix is hanging on, barely

My problem with Netflix is that it's being more and more user-hostile. It only displays shows it thinks I like, and not everything. And the top band does a horrid autoplay banner. I've still yet to figure out what elements I need to watch to disable that in HTML.

Hulu is also pretty hostile with lots of adverts, but a recent uBlock update fixed that. Now the advert timer goes from 30->15->0 but does black screen for a few seconds. But this service was for $1/mo for a year. After that, we'll cancel unless offered a similar deal.

But I certainly get the piracy angle. I don't want or need 6 streaming services. I wanted 1 or really cheap ala-carte. Instead, it's "Subscribe to Cable, and pay for streaming extra" for a lot of shows. And no.

The autoplay previews don't bother me. But, the recommendation engine and navigation/search could use some tweaks. I also hate that the "My List" row seems to move around a bit (though the AppleTV app does have a menu on the left now). I also hate that it removes series from "My List" after I've watched the last (current) episode, when there's a new season in the works, so have to go an re-find the series and add it again.

What bothers me is you can't remove content you've already seen from the list. So you end up having to track what you've seen and it reduces the signal/noise of the netflix interface in exactly the areas you are most interested in. They obviously track what you've seen, they just don't bother to hide it.

I am curious when providers like HBO realize that there are many of us who subscribe for one show only and drop and another group who goes so far as to wait till a series is done to sub one month and binge it. Should not be long before they try to throttle how many episodes of a series you can fit in per month.

It only takes three services to reach my prior cable bill and maybe four or five to hit the bigger bills when you roll it all up. so some kind of change will need to happen to keep it sustainable, either these networks are going to need to drop prices of group up. the smaller players will end up together sooner or later or just go bust. It is like when PTEN; Warners Brothers; tried to launch their channel. The had a few shows but fluttered out within five years

I suspect they will balance the annual and monthly charge. So the monthly will jump to $65, but the annual will stay at $180.

Or maybe people are just too lazy and they won't have to bother. I have to say I'm shocked and amazed at how many families of modest means, generally pretty frugal, have cars that need repairs, and try to fix things themselves whenever possible, but happily pays $150 a month for cable.

You describe my experience almost exactly.

One difference here in the UK is that I'm unable to even pay for HBO.

I wanted to watch Generation Kill the other day, it seemed like it was available on amazon prime but in fact isn't available in my region. My only option is to buy it for £2.50 per episode, which seems like a bad deal to me.

"here in the UK ... I'm unable to even pay for HBO."

Sure you can. Sky (a.k.a. Now TV) carries most (all?) current HBO content in the UK.

Though I guess that doesn't apply to historic stuff like Generation Kill, which predates their exclusivity agreement.

But then you have to subscribe to Now TV. There is no equivalent of HBO Now, HBO's standalone subscription offering.

Huh? Now TV is a "standalone subscription offering".

> As soon as GOT is done, I'll likely cancel HBO

Is GoT currently running?

For years, I got HBO during the months GoT was on, and cancelled afterward. During season 7, they stopped offering in Netherland except on one cable provider (not mine), so I had to resort to alternative means. No idea why they decided they didn't want my money anymore.

No, the last season should be up later this year. I could cancel now, save a few bucks, re-subscribe when GOT actually does come back, then cancel again. But, I'm lazy.

Happened to me about a month ago when I tried to watch Miracle Mile ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097889/reviews ). I live in Mexico and pay for: Amazon Prime, Google Play, Netflix, CinepolisKlick and Claro Video (really, I am subscribed in one way or another to all of them). None of them had this movie in their Mexico version... I ended up having to watch it in PopCorn Time.

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