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To Subscribe Or Not To Subscribe, That Is The Question: Paid Streaming Services


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29 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

On the really outside chance that you didn't know and might want to:
You can create and Apple account without purchasing anything from Apple. 

Thanks for the tip.  I'm trying to stay out of as many ecosystems as I can.  As I said, I should have known that they wouldn't just let it show up on my TV like in the olden days.

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Just wanted to share that you can stream the entire first season of Severance for free on the Roku Channel right now. Got a message for it on the Roku home screen when I turned on my TV this evening. I've been meaning to watch that show after hearing how excellent it is, so I thought it might help anyone else who either wants to watch or re-watch before season two. Says the free episodes will be available until 1/19, so that gives a lot more time to stream it than what Apple TV+ offered last weekend. :)

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On 1/6/2025 at 7:54 PM, atomic said:

Just wanted to share that you can stream the entire first season of Severance for free on the Roku Channel right now.

Thank you for posting this.  My Roku screen didn't say anything about it, but when I went to search in Roku, when I put in "S" the first thing over on the right was Severance. 

I have a standalone DVR and recorded the episodes in succession overnight.  Not unlike the olden days with my DirecTV when a free preview of HBO would have all of a season of some show, one episode after another.

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7 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

Thank you for posting this.  My Roku screen didn't say anything about it, but when I went to search in Roku, when I put in "S" the first thing over on the right was Severance. 

I have a standalone DVR and recorded the episodes in succession overnight.  Not unlike the olden days with my DirecTV when a free preview of HBO would have all of a season of some show, one episode after another.

Wait. What? Can I record from Roku to my standalone DVR?
Now where did I put that cable splitter?

7 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Mine does both and even records from the tape side to DVD. It's about 20 years old.

The recording will be decidedly not HD, but especially for regular TV shows, I don't care.  Being able to watch it on my schedule and without commercials outweighs the quality.

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8 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

The recording will be decidedly not HD, but especially for regular TV shows, I don't care.  Being able to watch it on my schedule and without commercials outweighs the quality.

Yes. Low-res, for sure. It's just that I only have it hooked up to catch my antenna feed, not the Roku. I suppose I should poke around back there after I get my latest personal old-lady drama under control.😉

Edited by shapeshifter
On 1/9/2025 at 10:28 PM, StatisticalOutlier said:

My Roku screen didn't say anything about it, but when I went to search in Roku, when I put in "S" the first thing over on the right was Severance. 

Hey!  My Roku screen just now gave me the message about season 1 of Severance being available.  Of course I already streamed the whole thing a couple of days ago thanks to the message here.  And they know that, obviously. 

Oh well.  Better late than never?

 

Update:  I got the Roku tv.  Will set it up soon.

I discovered a feature in profiles that allows you to view your watch history with both Netflix and Prime.  Problem is the series I was watching most have been on another app.  I can’t locate it.  Ugh….lol.  
 

So, the Roku supposedly has 3 free months of Apple Tv.  So, will that be available on any tv in the house or just the Roku tv?

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5 hours ago, SunnyBeBe said:

So, the Roku supposedly has 3 free months of Apple Tv.  So, will that be available on any tv in the house or just the Roku tv?

Any AppleTV promos I've used or heard of have been connected to my Apple ID, not to a particular device.  But I'm not familiar with Roku devices so maybe they somehow do things differently?  If nobody can give you a better answer, I guess you'll know when you activate the promo.

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It may also be connected to the email you use for Roku purchases in which case the same applies & it should be any screen as long as you use the same email address. 

What app can't you locate? I've only ever had one app they don't have & that was for a British football team & was their own that they wouldn't bother converting for U.S. tv just for me, I also can't cast it to any tv from iphone/ipad which is how I know it's the formatting. 

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54 minutes ago, caitmcg said:

(Gift link)

Appreciated, but WaPo requires giving them an email address in order to use that gift.

Here's an NPR article.

I access Netflix via my parents' account (working around the "no password sharing" thing), and use it far more than they do.  I wonder how many more price hikes before I get the "We're done with this" email.  It's the only streaming service I'd consider paying to keep, as I have by far the longest watch list on there, but they're really pushing it with this stuff.

Netflix had a "basic" ad-free plan for $11.99/mo, but got rid of that last summer.  People who'd been on that plan could switch to the "standard" ad-free plan (which I think is what they have, and may be what they already had, I'm not sure) for $15.49/mo, splurge on the "premium" ad-free plan at $22.99/mo, or downgrade to the ad-supported plan at $6.99/mo.

Just six months later, they're increasing the cost of all those plans?!

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6 minutes ago, Bastet said:

Just six months later, they're increasing the cost of all those plans?!

Apparently, they're riding high on profits thanks to all those new subscribers and are bargaining on people eating the higher price so they can keep going. It's a bit of an ouroboros, given that not so long ago, they shed a lot of subscribers and had to make a bunch of cutbacks.

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I had the cheap ad-free plan for 11.99 til they increased the price and bumped me down to the 6.99 with ads. But I really don't use it very much these days, and I hate the ads. So I might just drop it when it goes up.

Maybe I'll start being someone who subs for a month, binges stuff, then cancels, and rotates through different streamers that way, instead of sticking with long term subs of just a few. 

 

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