Won't, or can't afford to?
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Millenial here, I have zero subscriptions, the only thing close to that is that I manually pay for a gift card for Geoguessr once a year.
I do it this way so I don't forget the cost of the service and should I come onto bad times, it is not something that will automatically renew and keep charging.
I am considering getting a lifetime subscription to Nebula, it is very expensive, but just a single payment that can be budgeted for, and once paid I'll keep access even through bad times.
Fellow millennial here. I'm in the same boat. Zero subscriptions except for Curiosity Stream, which is like Netflix for educational documentaries, and it's dirt cheap.
I bought the lifetime subscription to Nebula. It's been worth it; I have a few channels I follow and I appreciate the extra content and freedom of video producers to say/do whatever they want without platform censorship. YouTube has so many restrictions, no one can post content without bowing to Google censorship.
Parody laws should allow people to actually review or poke fun at other media, but Google will demonetize or block any content that they arbitrarily decide is copyright infringement. Most film review channels I follow have to be extremely creative in how they show clips of movies. Most of them mute music scenes, and some will insert their own public domain (or homemade) music over scenes to avoid a ban. It's ridiculous how far the MPAA and RIAA have gone in locking down media from public consumption.
Also millennial. The only thing I pay for is Tidal. Music streams, at least for now, are operating as they should. You pay one a month, get all the content and no ads. I'm using it everyday and it costs almost nothing.
I wouldn't be so sure about that lifetime subscription. Companies already started changing the terms of use while subscribed. Sony's has been removing movies that have been purchased from people's librarys.
So you're saying people without money don't act like they have disposable income? Fucking science!
Is this because they don’t know how to torrent? Or did the “you wouldn’t download a car” ads get into the water supply?
99% of internet users don't know what a torrent is.
Which is probably a good thing for torrent users
torrent is useless, who wants to connect to a million people who are only sharing the arch iso?

I'm doing that and I'm not even short of money.
Just sick of nothing being available when I want it, on another app, and having to scan several services to confirm that.
With Jellyfin it's just there. There's no ads. There's no "oh hey you looked away from the credits for five seconds I'll just play something else".
I used to renew and binge for a single show.
Now I've got effectively 0 services. I'm subscribed to like 8 patreons. But I'm just straight downloading what I feel like. I dgaf.
We are all victims of asymmetrical class warfare. Download what you want without guilt, everyone (safely). It's one very small clapback to the constant attacks and damage done to us and the planet.
I'll pay you to create content, like its always been. I'm not gonna pay a third party to put up barriers. If you don't want an idea or information to be shared freely, keep it to yourself.
Turns out saddling a generation with debt, and then telling them the AI is gonna take all the jobs doesn't do a lot for moral, or our finances.
Nevermind that there's a middle East forever war 2.0 going on that's jacking up the cost of everything right now.
Funny way of saying "half of Gen Z are not falling for the typical consumer spend spend spend trap". And as a millennial I say good for them. About time large chunks of people see the consumption driven economy game for what it is.
Millennial here.
I grew up with sneakernet through irc-napster-kazaa-limewire-directconnect-bittorrent-oneswarm. I gave all that up when netflix and spotify.
Those subscriptions have been ended a couple of years back and the eye patch is back on.
Netflix' catalogue has just diminished, as everyone who owns rights to the good stuff want to do their own streaming service.
I wasn't really listening that much ro spotify, but when they started injecting ads into podcasts I bid adieu. (Yes, injected - I'd listen to an English podcast and get very local ads between segments).
Streaming? Purchasing? Gen Z needs some PC literacy, lol.
If media companies want a consistent user base, media companies can politically lobby for their users to receive wages high enough to include disposable income. If media companies won't go to bat for their subscribers, why should their subscribers give them anything more than short shrift? (there's your phrase for the day)

"People acting in their own financial interests frustrates money-hungry company"
FTFY
tf you expected we're all broke. you're lucky some of us haven't heard of piracy yet (somehow)
I do this now.
There’s too much crap to throw money at it all.
My tastes are different than most gamers. I see creating and feel the game is doing to be a grind. Base building doesn’t particularly interest me as a mechanic. So I don’t know of an overweening overwhelmingly positive game is one I’ll actually enjoy.
Pfft. I'm in my 40s with an established engineering career and a small home that I've owned for 18 years now.
I am also not paying for any streaming services I can avoid, not buying many games, sailing the high seas, and our cars are like 13/14 years old.
Because shit is crazy, especially being in the US. I am keeping my world small and focusing on my family and my community.
I cannot upvote a paywalled source
yes, blurring the article if you don't disable ad blocking is a paywall
I am honestly surprised, paid video on demand even survived the post-Netflix fragmentation. YouTube is free. uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock make it usable. Illegal streaming sites exist and are trivial to use without any risk.
Why even consider paid video on demand services?
You need to bring your expectations of general society down dude. The majority ain't capable nor willing to actually learn with alot due to the deeply rooted "piracy bad" mentality capitalism has instilled in people.
Also all of that interfaces really suck it's like they don't actually want you to use their platforms.
Apple TV is the buggiest piece of crap I've ever used, Amazon prime TVs interface is confusing as hell, even Disney can't pull it off with their categories of Marvel, Star Wars, kids movies, and other, where other contains literally everything else.
There are streaming services that only contain four seasons of a show with 16 seasons, then there is a different streaming services that contain everything but those first four seasons.
Is it any wonder people pirate, they raise the price diminish the catalogue split everything up into 60 different services and all of them have terrible UX. It's like they don't even want my money.
Good. Cancel your streaming services. All of them. Just pirate shit.
Given how often games go on sale, often at a big discount, why would I pay full price?
They have no money, and they're going to have to live with the result of choices made long ago by wealthy people who are dead now.
I wouldn't be doing a damn thing if I was them, except maybe riot.
Because everything they want to watch isn’t on ONE single service so I can’t say I blame them.
Also, streaming companies boast this as a feature, so they can’t really complain.
~~Gen Z~~ people who aren’t paid enough to live
Guys, learn to pirate. If you stick to media and familiarize yourself with filetypes (also enable file extensions, windows users. Chaps my ass that they're hidden by default) then you'll be fine. Nicotine+ for music, qbittorrent+jackett for movies/tv, or the *arr stack if you're fancy, or Usenet if you're paying for it.
Edit: Also use a VPN. I know "but that's a thing to pay for," my dude you should be using one anyway. I recommend Mullvad, maybe Proton.
People are still buying full price games?
Buy the game after a few years of bug fixes on sale with all the DLC for basically the same price as a sandwich... or pay $80 for a buggy broken incomplete experience with no real guarantee any promised content will ever materialize.
Although I guess I need SOME people to keep buying them at launch to subsidize my frugality.
I'm over 50 and I sail the high seas. I can afford all the streaming services and even used to pay for them... until the price hikes and now the ads, so fuck them. I also never pay full price for my games.
All that money now goes to paying artists on BandCamp and a few Patreon accounts that make me happy.
Arrrr matey
Somehow, nobody takes issue with the cancel and renew instead of purchasing part. So they were successfully indoctrinated into the you will own nothing part, except the and you will be happy didn't work out.
Won’t Purchase Full-Price Video Games, New Study Finds
The only game I've ever seen sold at full price on a consistent basis was Factorio. Every other publisher seems sold on putting $60-80 on the label and then floating 10-30% discounts as the sales cycle permits.
It's the Macy's model for sales. "You're getting a $20 discount on a $60 game" sells more titles than "Here's a game for $40".
Am I supposed to be mad about this? The only jobs available to most of them basically constitute slavery.


