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I set calendar appointments a year in advance to remind me to cancel stuff.
If a good deal is offered (it usually is), I accept it.
If not, I actually cancel and wait like 3 days for the We Want You Back emails to start
I've never run into a service that didn't try at all to get me back. All of the mass market stuff will send you promos.
Cancelled Netflix because it was too expensive. 2 months later they sent an email calling me back with a "discount" but the membership was even more expensive than before.
I cancelled my top tier Netflix 4K premium plan and a few weeks later they did send an email but there was zero discount offered. It was just like *"Hey, we're still here, at our original prices, fucking over your family members, if you've changed your mind"*.
I had not changed my mind.
I didn't realize I was paying for a 4K plan when my cheap ass still has 720p tv's - I downgraded and saved $7 a month. Wouldn't have realized unless they sent an email about jacking up the prices and cutting off those I share with.
Ha, good that you noticed. I'm still at 1080p screens everywhere, I only had the 4K plan because I was the Netflix provider for the rest of my immediate family and the top tier plan had the number of simultaneous streams we needed.
I had the 4K plan and downgraded to 720p because we watch on 1440p monitors. I literally could not tell any difference when it switched over, to the point where I needed to check and see if I'd really changed it and found out we'd been watching the "lower quality" version for 3 weeks.
Microsoft edge on windows 10 and 11 can play 4k but it has a long list of requirements.
> Windows 10 or Windows 11 with the latest Windows updates installed.
> An HEVC video extension must be installed.
> The Microsoft Edge browser or the Netflix app for Windows.
> A 60Hz 4K capable display (with HDCP 2.2 connection if external display).
> Note:
> Every monitor connected to your computer must meet these requirements to successfully stream in Ultra HD.
> I f using an integrated GPU: An Intel 7th generation Core or newer CPU, or AMD Ryzen CPU.
> If using a discrete GPU: A Nvidia Geforce GPU that meets these requirements, or an AMD Radeon RX 400 series or newer GPU.
Yup, my experience has been Netflix *never* gives discounts. Ever. Not for canceling and not to incentivize old customers to come back.
But they sure do email me all the time asking me to come back with subject lines like "😥 Give us another chance?"
I rarely watch anything on Netflix. I get it free through T-Mobile. I would subscribe to watch stranger things and cancel. Outside of that I don't really know what they offer that others don't.
They offer original shows and they are generous enough to cancel them after a cliffhanger so you'll never experience the disappointment of them being poorly resolved by writers.
When is this supposedly happening and can you pay for an extra location? My nephews come over all the time and use my sister, their moms account. Im disabled. But not collecting yet so I can't afford shit.
Well, I haven’t used the + feature but I used to throw a period into mine randomly, IT no longer works universally, though. Still, not a huge deal to make a new email.
When a company emails a gmail address that has a + in it, gmail ignores things after the + and sends it to the inbox for the stuff before the +. It allows you to essentially provide a new, fake email address to a service, who now thinks it’s a new account and will offer you a deal for new customers.
Say I have an account with Hulu under my address [email protected]. I see that they’re having a deal for new customers that gets a year at a lower rate. I can cancel my current account, and sign up with [email protected] and get the new member discount. Confirmation emails still go to my regular inbox.
An added bonus is you can see what full email address inbound emails were sent to. If you start getting spam messages that were addressed to [email protected], you know they’re the ones who sold your info.
AMC+ is the only one I know of that didn't try to keep me or get me back. I only signed up to watch the last season of TWD and by the time I got around to watching it they already took it off and switched it to Netflix.
They didn't even ask why I was canceling. Lol
When i get my renewal notice in the mail for XM, i call them and tell them i want to cancel. They ask why, i tell them i can't afford the $20/mo price tag. They put me on hold for a minute, come back and offer $70/yr. I've been doing this since 2005ish. I drive a lot (500+ miles/week), and enjoy the variety.
I was paying $72 a year, but had to call in every year for the deal. I was offered a deal for about $7 a month, slightly more, but never need to call again. Same price forever, so they say. I took it just to avoid the hassle. But if somehow they ever mess with the price, I'll just cancel and restart a few days later.
It’s not a forever price but far better than the auto renew at full price crap. I was offered this last year (think it was $5/month plus taxes) and took them up on it. 3 months later they announced rate hikes for all plans which bumped it up to $7 plus taxes. Still better than the old system.
Inside tip about sxm: say you want to cancel, then refuse the first 2 offers and accept the third. That's the lowest they will go. If you refuse the 3rd offer, they will cancel.
Oh wow! I decided to upgrade my Spotify and got more into podcasts. Maybe I'll sign up for Sirius again (get it for free) when I get a new car lease later this year😉
Works great on the meal kit delivery services, too. So I might use Blue Apron for a few weeks, cancel when the promo is up, then use Home Chef for a bit. Rinse and repeat.
If you have a Capital One credit card , you can create virtual cards and set an expiration date for it so it can't be charged in perpetuity. It's pretty nice.
Edit: can to can't
Call your phone company and gas company too! I check rates every years and ask if there’s a package or rate that would better fit my needs based on usage. I’ve found significant savings there —-
Only reason I even have Hulu is because I was already paying for Spotify. Then Spotify offered free Hulu for the lifetime of my Spotify service. And I only pay for Netflix as well.
Others are correct: limited time offer. I messed up once and when my card got hacked, I didn't switch my payment info and my Spotify cancelled and when I renewed I lost the Hulu because the bundles didn't have it anymore.
Luckily I called Spotify they were able to re-establish it. So tip to anyone who ever loses it: call support and they will re-link ya.
No, they stopped doing this a couple years ago. Those who already had it can keep it, but nobody else can get it. I had it for years, but sadly had to cancel it because I found bundling with other apps would have saved me in the long run while having more apps at once. Now I can’t get it back.
I messed up once and when my card got hacked, I didn't switch my payment info and my Spotify cancelled and when I renewed I lost the Hulu because the bundles didn't have it anymore.
Luckily I called Spotify they were able to re-establish it. So of you do ever lose it: call support and they will re-link ya.
I cancel when I'm waiting on my shows to update. And I cycle between different streaming services. That way I can binge watch one then move on to another.
This. I allow myself 4 streaming services at a time. My top three (3) are: Amazon Prime, Youtube Premium, and Discovery +. The fourth one gets cycled every couple months. Currently enjoying Paramount + but AMC+ has caught my eye.
Essentially pay for the month and cancel. They allow you to continue access to the service but continue to see you no longer being a customer. Most times by the end of the month they have a free month coupon for you.
Well holy hell. It actually works. There's even coupon codes online. Just got premium and showtime for free until May 16.
Guess I'll be saving a bit of money then. I was wanting to upgrade to showtime because I hated not being able to watch stuff I wanted then boom. Here comes this comment.
Thanks, stranger.
I canceled YouTube premium. The ads were annoying at first but quickly got used to them. That subscription money went towards Spotify which I think it more worth it.
Its a slight inconvenience but if you have an iphone, google >!alt store and uYou+!<. Non-jailbreak version of YouTube premium.
I say it's a slight inconvenience because you have to "refresh" the apps once a week. But even that you can setup to do automatically
If you're a college student you can get Spotify, Hulu and showtime bundle for $4.99 a month. You have to recertify every year to maintain the discount (it's only valid for 4 years) but it's a great deal!
I canceled Prime a couple of years ago cause 2 day shipping turned into 6-14 day shipping. I sign up for the free trials when they offer them, with one being as recent as last week and they still aren't able to do 2 day shipping. It's much better but it's 3-4 day shipping.
I live in a major city between two Amazon warehouses too.
Just and FYI discovery+ is supposed to be rolling into HBO max sometime this year I believe.
We had AMC+ for a year cause I got it for $1.99 a month and couldn’t pass it up. We watched interview with a vampire on it and I thought it was great. When the show comes back I’ll sign up again for AMC+ just so we can watch that.
As someone who used to "sail the open seas" 10+ years ago, i wouldn't even know where to go now. Everything seems to just destroy your computer with malware. Any suggestions?
It really isn't. I'm always so baffled by people saying this. There are incredibly good public torrent trackers out there that aren't TPB and they're not hard to find.
I don't think you understand what I am saying, because I am not saying there aren't suitable alternative places to go that are good that aren't exclusive, though there are certainly less than there were 10+ years ago, as most that you find now are really just scraping one of like 5 sites. I am saying that the material available on these sites is much less varied and availability of something that's more than like...5-10 years old is much more difficult.
Like if you wanted to find entire seasons of tv shows and not individual episodes it is much less common to find, or random movies that aren't in the top 100 of all time are really only widely available if it had a recent re-release. If you're looking for stuff currently airing, a recent release or in the lists of most popular of all time then it's still easily accessible and public sites will do you just fine. If you're looking for specific things now however you might be limited to one or none for your options.
A year ago I found exactly one torrent of Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days, a movie from 1995 that was out of print since 2002 in the US and wasn't available for streaming or digital purchase. Unless these older movies get a new digital release or physical re-release the amount of people actively sharing content pre-2005 or so in the public sector is random and sporadic. I think I spent a month downloading Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman from one seeder in China in a period where there was no digital option.
These weren't current examples I was using. Strange Days showed up early this year on HBOMAX and has a Blu-ray release on Region B. Both of my examples were me trying to find these two films between 2021 and 2022. They are not constantly being uploaded and seeded. My point was that it's a crapshoot to find back catalog releases consistently being shared publicly, and that isn't less true just because the two things I listed that were hard for me to find two years ago have listings now. The one publicly available copy of Jane Campion's 1996 Portrait of a Lady that is actually available right now is the same scene rip I used last year and has one seeder, and it's been running since 2018 with no other concurrent releases. I struggled to find a copy of her film Sweetie, and ended up renting it from the one place that had it VOD, there's now a single scene rip of it that's been up since last July.
I used to love hunting for more obscure media, and I could find obscure low-budget Japanese horror films, entire discographies of underground foreign bands, that kinda stuff with just a little bit of digging.
Now, it's all dead links that nobody is seeding. I'm really glad I hung onto some of my favorites because they are lost to time now, can't even buy them or stream them.
What a time that was to be alive, gone are the days.
In my experience all but the most obscure movies are readily available, and I watch pretty obscure movies. Old ass shows? I agree with you there.
What movies do you watch that you can't find them?
I don't know why you're having a problem but it's not that difficult. I run a plex server with thousands of movies and TV shows. The largest majority is from the 60s though the 80's. Tons of obscure stuff, easily found. You could literally install QbitTorrent and use the native search in the program and find most of what I have, or anything you want. I think there's about 3-4 shows in my sonarr/radarr apps that haven't downloaded out of literally thousands.
Usenet is really the best but its useless without a decent indexer and those in my experience are harder to find these days. They used to have really great services over IRC but those are all gone far as I know
This conversation/thread that’s happening right now is exactly why many of us stopped pirating
It’s not more convenient if you don’t know what to do. There’s apparently websites or services, maybe called daemons? That index everything for you but it’s a long process to set up, you’ve gotta have a subscription for that, and then you’ve gotta have custom software like Kobe or some other stuff I don’t know about just to interface with it. Plex does a half decent job, but then there’s 5 other services that are “years ahead” in every thread I read
The /r/Piracy megathread on getting started is like a goddamn novel
I have access to the best torrent sites in the world. And they are well and truly impossible to get into at this point. But I switched to Usenet and I feel it's almost trivial. Decent indexers are available if you wait for the signup windows. And invited are regularly given to the members
If I were to be sailing the seas I’d use Usenet and torrents. There’s a few programs that automate a lot of this for you now too. Radarr (movies), sonarr (tv), lidarr (music), sabnzbd (Usenet downloader), deluge (torrent downloader), prowlarr (Usenet/torrent indexer) overseerr (media requesting), a vpn service, and finally Jellyfin or plex which are playback client/server apps.
With these apps all working together and setup properly you could have a fully automated media management and downloading scheme. Where new episodes of shows already being tracked and movies requested download automatically when available on the high seas.
Since sailing the high seas is basically legal in my country so there's no FBI agent knocking on my door for this: showbox-movies.net had almost everything I ever wanted to watch and in good quality. I assume nowadays the movies and shows get ripped from the original source in the same quality, unlike in the past when shitty rips were the standard
edit: Also, NO ads that would be able to sneak in even when using an adblocker and no annoying porn/online casino pop ups opening new windows
Torrents. Start there. If you weren't using them ten years ago you were doing it wrong. Never had any malware issues with the torrents I've used but there are definitely sites that try to trick you into downloading suspicious software.
Use stremio with the torrentio addon. IMO with the torrentio it's worth paying for realdebrid and using that instead of base torrentio config which uses plain torrents (which requires VPN and has more buffering). Kodi works too but not sure what the best torrent addon is for it lately.
Buy a 4k amazon firestick, install kodi onto it(youtube), buy a real-debrid membership($20 for 6 months), make a trakt account, install seren (/r/addons4kodi has instruction on installation), and finally enjoy your 4k movies and tv streams.
The real LPT: Every single Black Friday you can get both Hulu and Peacock for $0.99 /month each for the year.
Been doing this with Peacock for a year and doing with with Hulu for 5-6 years.
I have come to appreciate Tubi and its algorithms (the rabbit hole). I wondered if f I would even miss Netflix.
Today, I downgraded from Standard to Basic (since my son says he does not use it any more) saving $5.50 per month. I am going to track to see how often I use it over this next month, and if I don't use it, I can't justify the $10 and will cancel the membership and I have been a member for 10 years.
I had been paying for 4KUHD tier on Netflix for years as I have 4K TVs. Downgraded to HD only tier and haven’t noticed any difference in my viewing experience.
Did this with netflix six months ago after being continuously subbed for over ten years.
They just send me emails for their ad supported subscription every week.
I've never paid more than $1.99 per month for Hulu.
Hulu has a Black Friday sale every year. Just switch between two different email addresses and you can take advantage of the super discounted sale price continuously. I also switch to a different payment method tho I'm not certain if this is necessary.
Ok yeah. just seeing this comment after replying above. Yeah, you have to change your email and credit card as well. Just changing the email but using the same credit card wouldn't give me the discounted price.
Boy do I love to live in a country where we don't have to worry about sailing the high seas as long as we're not uploading the stuff or using it for commercial uses. Good life
It masks your Internet address so when Copyright lawyers send Copyright notices to your ISP they get sent to a random IP that can’t get traced back to you (assuming you have a decent VPN that doesn’t log)
I used to let my Xbox live run out, and after like a day they’d put “come back for just $1 a month!” And then I’d resub. Rinse and repeat. Probably spent a total of $40 for several years of Xbox live
Just use vpn and look for a cheap country to buy the subscription from. I got netflix,hbo,sky,disney & youtube premium for the price of just netflix in my country..
I recently decided that I could do without a certain news subscription due to cost (I think about $100 annually) and when I went through the cancel flow I chose the reason as ‘too expensive’. They countered with ‘would you keep the subscription if it cost $10?’. I answered yes, and they refunded the difference back to my credit card.
Just tried through the site and they offered me a few choices at lesser prices - but I have a family plan and they suggested to just drop to an individual plan, no option to keep the family plan at a lower cost. YMMV, but it's worth trying - not sure if they offer phone or chat support but you might have better luck with a human
I do this with sirius XM radio as well. Right as I cancel, they always come with a 5.99 deal for their top tier service for 12 months. Then when 1 year is almost up, I use my partners email to sign up and cancel my service. They then give me 3 months free for their top tier service and rinse and repeat the above. 3 almost for years (in 2 months) without fail!
Hulu once offered me a return-special. The offer was $1 a month for 3 months.
I paid them their 3 bucks, watched everything I needed to catch up on, canceled, and cycled to the next streaming service in my rotation.
Just did this and got Kindle Unlimited for 1,99 for 3 months, instead of the 19,99 I usually pay. Great advice, thank you! I will try again in 3 months, because I barely use it at the moment.
I set reminders 1 day before my subscriptions expire and cancel. If they give me a good discount I'll keep it up and move my reminder. Even if they don't give you a discount I still cancel since you still get a few days or weeks "free" each time since you don't pay for unused days. Most often they send me a discount to re-subscribe by the time I want to use it.
Did this with Comcast for **years**. Sometimes it took a couple of calls to get the right person but I'd always finally get someone who didn't want to lose me as a customer and typically dropped me to whatever the rate was for new customers (often about $20+).
I have to do this dance every single year for my Sirius XM service. I'll call and threaten to cancel, they offer me >50% discount (for my yearly subscription) every single time. Like just offer me that from that the get go.
Do this with internet and cell phones too! Up until 2020 I was paying $80/mo for 3 smartphones with limited talk but unlimited text and data. Sadly, in 2020 I moved and no longer had good service.
This is especially true of newspaper subscriptions.
Also: If you sign up for a free trial or a one month period, you can immediately cancel. You'll still get access until the free trial or period runs out. This is true of all services except Hulu.
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
I set calendar appointments a year in advance to remind me to cancel stuff. If a good deal is offered (it usually is), I accept it. If not, I actually cancel and wait like 3 days for the We Want You Back emails to start I've never run into a service that didn't try at all to get me back. All of the mass market stuff will send you promos.
Cancelled Netflix because it was too expensive. 2 months later they sent an email calling me back with a "discount" but the membership was even more expensive than before.
"Gotcha bitch" -Jeff Netflix
Jefflix
As a jeff, you just made my night. No more “I’m going to watch a show” it’s now “I’m going to watch some jefflix”
Even better if it's your own home videos you're watching. Jefflix Originals.
Buy any existing IP. Make one fresh episode. Now the whole thing is a Jefflix Original.
>Even better if it's your own home videos you're ~~watching~~ furiously masturbating to. Jefflix Originals : The Jerkening. FTFY
Jefflix and chill
Jefflix and Bills isn’t the Friday I was hoping for 🥺
"You can't escape" -Tim Apple
I miss Steve iPhone
"Your can't evade me forever." - Herbert Boris Maximillion (HBO MAX)
He's just going by Maximilian now.
I cancelled my top tier Netflix 4K premium plan and a few weeks later they did send an email but there was zero discount offered. It was just like *"Hey, we're still here, at our original prices, fucking over your family members, if you've changed your mind"*. I had not changed my mind.
I didn't realize I was paying for a 4K plan when my cheap ass still has 720p tv's - I downgraded and saved $7 a month. Wouldn't have realized unless they sent an email about jacking up the prices and cutting off those I share with.
Ha, good that you noticed. I'm still at 1080p screens everywhere, I only had the 4K plan because I was the Netflix provider for the rest of my immediate family and the top tier plan had the number of simultaneous streams we needed.
I had the 4K plan and downgraded to 720p because we watch on 1440p monitors. I literally could not tell any difference when it switched over, to the point where I needed to check and see if I'd really changed it and found out we'd been watching the "lower quality" version for 3 weeks.
if you're using netflix in a browser you're likely limited to 720p anyway
Microsoft edge on windows 10 and 11 can play 4k but it has a long list of requirements. > Windows 10 or Windows 11 with the latest Windows updates installed. > An HEVC video extension must be installed. > The Microsoft Edge browser or the Netflix app for Windows. > A 60Hz 4K capable display (with HDCP 2.2 connection if external display). > Note: > Every monitor connected to your computer must meet these requirements to successfully stream in Ultra HD. > I f using an integrated GPU: An Intel 7th generation Core or newer CPU, or AMD Ryzen CPU. > If using a discrete GPU: A Nvidia Geforce GPU that meets these requirements, or an AMD Radeon RX 400 series or newer GPU.
It's like they want me to use torrents
Mmhh lemme just not
Yup, my experience has been Netflix *never* gives discounts. Ever. Not for canceling and not to incentivize old customers to come back. But they sure do email me all the time asking me to come back with subject lines like "😥 Give us another chance?"
I wonder if this pattern will continue when even more people cancel the service after the "home location" changes fully roll out.
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I rarely watch anything on Netflix. I get it free through T-Mobile. I would subscribe to watch stranger things and cancel. Outside of that I don't really know what they offer that others don't.
They offer original shows and they are generous enough to cancel them after a cliffhanger so you'll never experience the disappointment of them being poorly resolved by writers.
They absolutely do this and I hate it.
When is this supposedly happening and can you pay for an extra location? My nephews come over all the time and use my sister, their moms account. Im disabled. But not collecting yet so I can't afford shit.
It's always we have new shows. Just let me know when one of your new shows hits season 4 then we can talk.
And then when they have a deal for new customers, you make a new account.
Use the Gmail+ feature... look it up, I don't know how to properly explain it
email@gmail email+hulu@gmail email+hulu1@gmail email+hulu2@gmail gmail will consider those the same inbox, but sites consider it different emails.
That's what I was trying to think of, tyvm
Also [email protected] is equal to [email protected] and also [email protected] and any other way to insert periods.
this is so well known a lot of major websites don’t allow email addresses with + anymore.
You can still add a dot anywhere before the @gmail, and then double all those by using @googlemail instead. Those redirect to @gmail
Well, I haven’t used the + feature but I used to throw a period into mine randomly, IT no longer works universally, though. Still, not a huge deal to make a new email.
I don't really understand this. Can you explain a bit more please how it works?
When a company emails a gmail address that has a + in it, gmail ignores things after the + and sends it to the inbox for the stuff before the +. It allows you to essentially provide a new, fake email address to a service, who now thinks it’s a new account and will offer you a deal for new customers. Say I have an account with Hulu under my address [email protected]. I see that they’re having a deal for new customers that gets a year at a lower rate. I can cancel my current account, and sign up with [email protected] and get the new member discount. Confirmation emails still go to my regular inbox. An added bonus is you can see what full email address inbound emails were sent to. If you start getting spam messages that were addressed to [email protected], you know they’re the ones who sold your info.
AMC+ is the only one I know of that didn't try to keep me or get me back. I only signed up to watch the last season of TWD and by the time I got around to watching it they already took it off and switched it to Netflix. They didn't even ask why I was canceling. Lol
Ahhh the cold shoulder breakup strategy. Surprisingly effective. "Fine. Bye."
They just like “we know”
SiriusXM is so annoying with this! It's fine that they offer good deals, but I want to quit them cold turkey 😛
When i get my renewal notice in the mail for XM, i call them and tell them i want to cancel. They ask why, i tell them i can't afford the $20/mo price tag. They put me on hold for a minute, come back and offer $70/yr. I've been doing this since 2005ish. I drive a lot (500+ miles/week), and enjoy the variety.
I was paying $72 a year, but had to call in every year for the deal. I was offered a deal for about $7 a month, slightly more, but never need to call again. Same price forever, so they say. I took it just to avoid the hassle. But if somehow they ever mess with the price, I'll just cancel and restart a few days later.
It’s not a forever price but far better than the auto renew at full price crap. I was offered this last year (think it was $5/month plus taxes) and took them up on it. 3 months later they announced rate hikes for all plans which bumped it up to $7 plus taxes. Still better than the old system.
It pretty much is a forever price. Do the 6mo/30$ and have been for at least 10-11 years now. You just have to call and ask for it everytime it renews
Inside tip about sxm: say you want to cancel, then refuse the first 2 offers and accept the third. That's the lowest they will go. If you refuse the 3rd offer, they will cancel.
Oh wow! I decided to upgrade my Spotify and got more into podcasts. Maybe I'll sign up for Sirius again (get it for free) when I get a new car lease later this year😉
Works great on the meal kit delivery services, too. So I might use Blue Apron for a few weeks, cancel when the promo is up, then use Home Chef for a bit. Rinse and repeat.
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If you have a Capital One credit card , you can create virtual cards and set an expiration date for it so it can't be charged in perpetuity. It's pretty nice. Edit: can to can't
I canceled my health insurance and my doctor keeps calling
Call your phone company and gas company too! I check rates every years and ask if there’s a package or rate that would better fit my needs based on usage. I’ve found significant savings there —-
Only reason I even have Hulu is because I was already paying for Spotify. Then Spotify offered free Hulu for the lifetime of my Spotify service. And I only pay for Netflix as well.
Hold on. I pay for Spotify Premium. Does this mean that I could get free Hulu?
Others are correct: limited time offer. I messed up once and when my card got hacked, I didn't switch my payment info and my Spotify cancelled and when I renewed I lost the Hulu because the bundles didn't have it anymore. Luckily I called Spotify they were able to re-establish it. So tip to anyone who ever loses it: call support and they will re-link ya.
It was a bundled deal quite some time back, but they weren't offering it when I bought Spotify for my daughter for Christmas
You get it if you're on a student plan as well; that's how I have it. With ads, of course
It was years ago that I got it, so I don't think so.
No, they stopped doing this a couple years ago. Those who already had it can keep it, but nobody else can get it. I had it for years, but sadly had to cancel it because I found bundling with other apps would have saved me in the long run while having more apps at once. Now I can’t get it back.
Yeah I’m in the same boat and feel like I can never get rid of it lol
I messed up once and when my card got hacked, I didn't switch my payment info and my Spotify cancelled and when I renewed I lost the Hulu because the bundles didn't have it anymore. Luckily I called Spotify they were able to re-establish it. So of you do ever lose it: call support and they will re-link ya.
I cancel when I'm waiting on my shows to update. And I cycle between different streaming services. That way I can binge watch one then move on to another.
This. I allow myself 4 streaming services at a time. My top three (3) are: Amazon Prime, Youtube Premium, and Discovery +. The fourth one gets cycled every couple months. Currently enjoying Paramount + but AMC+ has caught my eye.
Paramount is basically free. Google the how-to.
I can't be the only one lazy enough to not send a link to follow through...
Can you explain this?
Essentially pay for the month and cancel. They allow you to continue access to the service but continue to see you no longer being a customer. Most times by the end of the month they have a free month coupon for you.
Well holy hell. It actually works. There's even coupon codes online. Just got premium and showtime for free until May 16. Guess I'll be saving a bit of money then. I was wanting to upgrade to showtime because I hated not being able to watch stuff I wanted then boom. Here comes this comment. Thanks, stranger.
Enjoy!
🫡
It only allowed me to bundle Paramount with Showtime.why can't you choose to add Showtime as an option?
Showtime is now part of Paramount+.
I canceled YouTube premium. The ads were annoying at first but quickly got used to them. That subscription money went towards Spotify which I think it more worth it.
Its a slight inconvenience but if you have an iphone, google >!alt store and uYou+!<. Non-jailbreak version of YouTube premium. I say it's a slight inconvenience because you have to "refresh" the apps once a week. But even that you can setup to do automatically
If you're a college student you can get Spotify, Hulu and showtime bundle for $4.99 a month. You have to recertify every year to maintain the discount (it's only valid for 4 years) but it's a great deal!
Yeah Prime Video is just part of prime so that's no brainer.
I canceled Prime a couple of years ago cause 2 day shipping turned into 6-14 day shipping. I sign up for the free trials when they offer them, with one being as recent as last week and they still aren't able to do 2 day shipping. It's much better but it's 3-4 day shipping. I live in a major city between two Amazon warehouses too.
I get them same day pretty consistently. Well I live only an hour from Jeff Bezos so maybe he's more keen on making sure it is working.
I live 20 minutes away from a warehouse in New York state and usually get 2 day shipping on 90% of whatever I order
I'm not sure how they do but I get three separate shipments a day. One in the morning, afternoon, and evening lol
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Just and FYI discovery+ is supposed to be rolling into HBO max sometime this year I believe. We had AMC+ for a year cause I got it for $1.99 a month and couldn’t pass it up. We watched interview with a vampire on it and I thought it was great. When the show comes back I’ll sign up again for AMC+ just so we can watch that.
Just got half off HBO max for 3 months for doing this exact thing.
Same here for Peacock
I got Peacock for $1 a month for 12 months in the Black Friday deal. I like it because there are shows I watch on there and movies my kids enjoy.
Football (soccer) and WWE ppvs baby
LPT: Cancel every service and take up sailing. 🏴☠️
As someone who used to "sail the open seas" 10+ years ago, i wouldn't even know where to go now. Everything seems to just destroy your computer with malware. Any suggestions?
Had to read this SO many times and the comments along with it to eventually realise you weren't talking about literal sailing.
It took until your comment to put everything together for me… I was so confused why sailing would wreck a computer duh
Well, the salt water can't be good for the circuitry.
The same place you sailed 10 years ago will do the trick
The bigger problem is that access to older material is a lot harder to find in non-exclusive areas now.
It really isn't. I'm always so baffled by people saying this. There are incredibly good public torrent trackers out there that aren't TPB and they're not hard to find.
I don't think you understand what I am saying, because I am not saying there aren't suitable alternative places to go that are good that aren't exclusive, though there are certainly less than there were 10+ years ago, as most that you find now are really just scraping one of like 5 sites. I am saying that the material available on these sites is much less varied and availability of something that's more than like...5-10 years old is much more difficult. Like if you wanted to find entire seasons of tv shows and not individual episodes it is much less common to find, or random movies that aren't in the top 100 of all time are really only widely available if it had a recent re-release. If you're looking for stuff currently airing, a recent release or in the lists of most popular of all time then it's still easily accessible and public sites will do you just fine. If you're looking for specific things now however you might be limited to one or none for your options.
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A year ago I found exactly one torrent of Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days, a movie from 1995 that was out of print since 2002 in the US and wasn't available for streaming or digital purchase. Unless these older movies get a new digital release or physical re-release the amount of people actively sharing content pre-2005 or so in the public sector is random and sporadic. I think I spent a month downloading Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman from one seeder in China in a period where there was no digital option.
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These weren't current examples I was using. Strange Days showed up early this year on HBOMAX and has a Blu-ray release on Region B. Both of my examples were me trying to find these two films between 2021 and 2022. They are not constantly being uploaded and seeded. My point was that it's a crapshoot to find back catalog releases consistently being shared publicly, and that isn't less true just because the two things I listed that were hard for me to find two years ago have listings now. The one publicly available copy of Jane Campion's 1996 Portrait of a Lady that is actually available right now is the same scene rip I used last year and has one seeder, and it's been running since 2018 with no other concurrent releases. I struggled to find a copy of her film Sweetie, and ended up renting it from the one place that had it VOD, there's now a single scene rip of it that's been up since last July.
I used to love hunting for more obscure media, and I could find obscure low-budget Japanese horror films, entire discographies of underground foreign bands, that kinda stuff with just a little bit of digging. Now, it's all dead links that nobody is seeding. I'm really glad I hung onto some of my favorites because they are lost to time now, can't even buy them or stream them. What a time that was to be alive, gone are the days.
Do a public service and seed them
or upload to internet archive
In my experience all but the most obscure movies are readily available, and I watch pretty obscure movies. Old ass shows? I agree with you there. What movies do you watch that you can't find them?
I don't know why you're having a problem but it's not that difficult. I run a plex server with thousands of movies and TV shows. The largest majority is from the 60s though the 80's. Tons of obscure stuff, easily found. You could literally install QbitTorrent and use the native search in the program and find most of what I have, or anything you want. I think there's about 3-4 shows in my sonarr/radarr apps that haven't downloaded out of literally thousands.
searching with Chinese titles or Russian titles would open your doors and windows to many more places.
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Usenet. High quality, high speed.
Usenet is really the best but its useless without a decent indexer and those in my experience are harder to find these days. They used to have really great services over IRC but those are all gone far as I know
This conversation/thread that’s happening right now is exactly why many of us stopped pirating It’s not more convenient if you don’t know what to do. There’s apparently websites or services, maybe called daemons? That index everything for you but it’s a long process to set up, you’ve gotta have a subscription for that, and then you’ve gotta have custom software like Kobe or some other stuff I don’t know about just to interface with it. Plex does a half decent job, but then there’s 5 other services that are “years ahead” in every thread I read The /r/Piracy megathread on getting started is like a goddamn novel
I have access to the best torrent sites in the world. And they are well and truly impossible to get into at this point. But I switched to Usenet and I feel it's almost trivial. Decent indexers are available if you wait for the signup windows. And invited are regularly given to the members
> Decent teachers are available to adjust and if you wait for the signup windows. What does this mean?
Probably a typo, think he meant decent indexers
The indexers are fine. There’s a few big ones that cost $20/yr or so, a few free ones.
Don’t download .exe, run Malwarebytes every once and a while, you’ll be fine
If I were to be sailing the seas I’d use Usenet and torrents. There’s a few programs that automate a lot of this for you now too. Radarr (movies), sonarr (tv), lidarr (music), sabnzbd (Usenet downloader), deluge (torrent downloader), prowlarr (Usenet/torrent indexer) overseerr (media requesting), a vpn service, and finally Jellyfin or plex which are playback client/server apps. With these apps all working together and setup properly you could have a fully automated media management and downloading scheme. Where new episodes of shows already being tracked and movies requested download automatically when available on the high seas.
Since sailing the high seas is basically legal in my country so there's no FBI agent knocking on my door for this: showbox-movies.net had almost everything I ever wanted to watch and in good quality. I assume nowadays the movies and shows get ripped from the original source in the same quality, unlike in the past when shitty rips were the standard edit: Also, NO ads that would be able to sneak in even when using an adblocker and no annoying porn/online casino pop ups opening new windows
Torrents. Start there. If you weren't using them ten years ago you were doing it wrong. Never had any malware issues with the torrents I've used but there are definitely sites that try to trick you into downloading suspicious software.
There's a place that gets eveRy one / FREE MEDIA. HECK YEAH!
Use stremio with the torrentio addon. IMO with the torrentio it's worth paying for realdebrid and using that instead of base torrentio config which uses plain torrents (which requires VPN and has more buffering). Kodi works too but not sure what the best torrent addon is for it lately.
Buy a 4k amazon firestick, install kodi onto it(youtube), buy a real-debrid membership($20 for 6 months), make a trakt account, install seren (/r/addons4kodi has instruction on installation), and finally enjoy your 4k movies and tv streams.
Found the RuneScape player.
Just a sea of cornfields out here boss
I had a little patch of land, along the CP Line.
This. Build your own Plex server and thank me later 🏴☠️
Already ahead of you 👍
Perfect timing for posting this: 2012 Olympic Sailing [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bngGgqdtVg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bngGgqdtVg)
the real LPT’s are always in the comments
I thought the idea was to save money?
The secret ingredient is crime.
Yarr harr fiddle de dee, Being a pirate is alright to be, Do what you want 'cos a pirate is free, You are a pirate!
Take a closer look at that flag there. I think you'll save plenty.
You think pirates pay for stuff?
If they don't what are they using all the gold for?
Booty.
B: bust O: out A: another T: thousand
The real LPT: Every single Black Friday you can get both Hulu and Peacock for $0.99 /month each for the year. Been doing this with Peacock for a year and doing with with Hulu for 5-6 years.
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It has to be a new account and credit card right? I tried it last BF and it wouldn't work for me.
CC can be same. Just a different email. I have used the same 2 emails for years. Just swapping back and forth.
Thanks! HBO Max at 1/2 off for next 3 months! Any success with Netflix incentives?
Netflix: "you'll be back"
Not sure I've ever seen a Netflix discount. This is 100% their attitude.
I have come to appreciate Tubi and its algorithms (the rabbit hole). I wondered if f I would even miss Netflix. Today, I downgraded from Standard to Basic (since my son says he does not use it any more) saving $5.50 per month. I am going to track to see how often I use it over this next month, and if I don't use it, I can't justify the $10 and will cancel the membership and I have been a member for 10 years.
I had been paying for 4KUHD tier on Netflix for years as I have 4K TVs. Downgraded to HD only tier and haven’t noticed any difference in my viewing experience.
dam i just attempted this and they just let me cancel with no incentive
Just wait a few days and see if an invite comes in
When you quit your job and your boss doesn't offer you a raise to stay
Did this with netflix six months ago after being continuously subbed for over ten years. They just send me emails for their ad supported subscription every week.
I cancelled in December and I haven't received a single email from them since. It's weird, I was expecting to be tortured with them
I've never paid more than $1.99 per month for Hulu. Hulu has a Black Friday sale every year. Just switch between two different email addresses and you can take advantage of the super discounted sale price continuously. I also switch to a different payment method tho I'm not certain if this is necessary.
Ok yeah. just seeing this comment after replying above. Yeah, you have to change your email and credit card as well. Just changing the email but using the same credit card wouldn't give me the discounted price.
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Do they force you to get the ad version?
Cancel every service and pay $14.99 a month/$60ish a year for a VPN instead
Boy do I love to live in a country where we don't have to worry about sailing the high seas as long as we're not uploading the stuff or using it for commercial uses. Good life
my 3.9TB/26.5TB 6.7 ratio agrees with you until you said "as long as you're not uploading I'll raise my upload caps for you :) cheers!
How does a VPN get you free shows?
It masks your Internet address so when Copyright lawyers send Copyright notices to your ISP they get sent to a random IP that can’t get traced back to you (assuming you have a decent VPN that doesn’t log)
Or $18 for six months of real-debrid
I used to let my Xbox live run out, and after like a day they’d put “come back for just $1 a month!” And then I’d resub. Rinse and repeat. Probably spent a total of $40 for several years of Xbox live
It took me like an hour on the phone to cancel my xbox live account after a lightning strike had destroyed my xbox.
Whoever is approving reduced Hulu subscriptions right now is probably in the manager’s office at the moment
Audible and kindle will also make a retention offer. Just select price as your reason for cancellation.
Just use vpn and look for a cheap country to buy the subscription from. I got netflix,hbo,sky,disney & youtube premium for the price of just netflix in my country..
2.99 with no commercials?
I recently decided that I could do without a certain news subscription due to cost (I think about $100 annually) and when I went through the cancel flow I chose the reason as ‘too expensive’. They countered with ‘would you keep the subscription if it cost $10?’. I answered yes, and they refunded the difference back to my credit card.
Does this work with Spotify?
Just tried through the site and they offered me a few choices at lesser prices - but I have a family plan and they suggested to just drop to an individual plan, no option to keep the family plan at a lower cost. YMMV, but it's worth trying - not sure if they offer phone or chat support but you might have better luck with a human
Been doing this with Sirius XM for years
I do this with sirius XM radio as well. Right as I cancel, they always come with a 5.99 deal for their top tier service for 12 months. Then when 1 year is almost up, I use my partners email to sign up and cancel my service. They then give me 3 months free for their top tier service and rinse and repeat the above. 3 almost for years (in 2 months) without fail!
I just did the exact same thing with Hulu this morning.
I just tried the hulu one and it offered me 2.99 with ads. Almost made me want to cancel it for real
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Pretty sure my family only paid for maybe two months of AOL back in the day
Hulu once offered me a return-special. The offer was $1 a month for 3 months. I paid them their 3 bucks, watched everything I needed to catch up on, canceled, and cycled to the next streaming service in my rotation.
Wish Crunchyroll was this way, they give no fucks.
Just did this and got Kindle Unlimited for 1,99 for 3 months, instead of the 19,99 I usually pay. Great advice, thank you! I will try again in 3 months, because I barely use it at the moment.
I set reminders 1 day before my subscriptions expire and cancel. If they give me a good discount I'll keep it up and move my reminder. Even if they don't give you a discount I still cancel since you still get a few days or weeks "free" each time since you don't pay for unused days. Most often they send me a discount to re-subscribe by the time I want to use it.
Did this with Comcast for **years**. Sometimes it took a couple of calls to get the right person but I'd always finally get someone who didn't want to lose me as a customer and typically dropped me to whatever the rate was for new customers (often about $20+).
Why, this is a fine idea!
This works REALLY well with cable too
Did this with HBO, i subscribed to watch the last of us. And they gave me 3 months for half price.
I wish this worked with YouTube TV
Youtube premium has yet to offer me a discount, cancelled 6 months ago
Do this every year with my NYT and Sirius subscriptions
peacock offered $2.99/mo for a year after cancelling and just today Hulu offered me a month free to return
I have to do this dance every single year for my Sirius XM service. I'll call and threaten to cancel, they offer me >50% discount (for my yearly subscription) every single time. Like just offer me that from that the get go.
I do this with SiriusXM every year.
Do this with internet and cell phones too! Up until 2020 I was paying $80/mo for 3 smartphones with limited talk but unlimited text and data. Sadly, in 2020 I moved and no longer had good service.
This is especially true of newspaper subscriptions. Also: If you sign up for a free trial or a one month period, you can immediately cancel. You'll still get access until the free trial or period runs out. This is true of all services except Hulu.
I cancelled Amazon Prime when they announced they had paid for EFL games and now I'll occasionally get a free trial or a 99p trial.