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The TV streaming apps broke their promises, and now they’re jacking up prices (arstechnica.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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cross-posted from: https://yiffit.net/post/1072752

For a moment, it seemed like the streaming apps were the things that could save us from the hegemony of cable TV—a system where you had to pay for a ton of stuff you didn't want to watch so you could see the handful of things you were actually interested in.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/K4EIh

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[–] 27 points 3 years ago (3 children)

Even Spotify though continues to Jack their prices with no extra benefit. I’ve hoped for lossless audio from them for so long, but instead they just charge more for a bad UI driven by engagement instead of user experience

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  • [–] 21 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I don't mind Spotify increasing.

    Inflation is real. And nobody wants to see the service turn into a Little Caesars "$5 Hot N Ready" pizza that erodes in quality, rather than gradually price increase with inflation.

    The advantage we have with music streamers is that nearly ALL the content is on ALL the services. So, if one service goes bananas with pricing, we can jump ship to a cheaper one.

    But TV is siloed into mini monopolies. The only source of capitalism competition they face is use choosing to do without. And frankly, if I'm gonna be forced-fed ads, I choose to do it on YouTube which costs me $0 and not $7.99 a month.

    Netflix is gone. And as someone who leaves The Simpsons running 24/7 on Disney+, I'm frankly getting thiiiiiiiiiis close to dumping their asses, too!

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Spotify increased the price of everybody's subscription by £1/$1. They have some 200 million subscribers. That's at a minimum an extra $200m a month. Is that really necessary?

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    The thing is, I would totally pay more for lossless audio on Spotify, but they didn’t give me that option. They just increased their price without any benefit to their service. And their CarPlay integration is horrid. I can pick a song on tidal and it plays instantly without issue. With Spotify I have to open the app and play it from my phone and even then it only works like half the time. I’ve been a Spotify customer since they first launched in the US but there’s now no reason to keep my subscription

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Try switching to apple music. It is cheaper and the quality is way better. UI is also waaaaay better than spotify's. Also, I learned that if you dont have any money on your card connected to google play store apple music will be just fine for extra month. So you can use apple music 2 months for price of one month.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Thanks for the recco! Though I’ve actually been using Tidal for the last few months because they’re one of the few lossless audio services, just annoyed because I was a Spotify customer for years waiting for lossless and instead they bumped prices without improving their services

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