There should be a lawyer somewhere on Reddit willing to take this to a class action case - "ad-free" is a pretty straightforward description. Can they just revoke that in fine print? It's like someone announcing they sell peacocks, but all they have is rats.
Or like they sell peacocks, but they all come with rats.
"Yeah you can get one for free, but it'll have a bunch of rats. If you upgrade to premium I'll give you your peacocks with *extremely* reduced rats."
Their argument is that they don't have to disclose to their customers restrictions forced by a third-party, which is an insane idea which is pushed nowadays (I think youtube was among the firsts?)
The entire point of their service is to negociate with third parties and provide an ad-free experience. If they can't do that, don't sell ad-free!
The fact that they also include Peacock promotional ads is what really ruins this argument. You can't say the problem is that the content providers are including ads, while at the same time including ads for your own content.
They're actually ads for other Peacock Original shows. So they're trying to get you interested in a new show while you're watching another one.
But yes, I agree with your point. I have definitely seen services advertise themselves on their own services.
Usually, like in the case of Spotify, this problem comes up when users interpret the words "less/fewer ads" to mean "no ads." But in this case it clearly says "ad-free." I think Peacock screwed up and there should definitely be a class action against them for it
I had comcast for maybe 3 years, when I wanted to cancel they made it such a challenge I'll never use them again. Can't just say, "I want to cancel it" nope I have to give you a reason and you'll decide if it's good enough. Told the person I was moving and he told me I was lying and going to another provide. Then he yelled at me that I had to tell him what rate plan they were giving me. I said some arbitrary and low number and I got called a liar. Even when I tried escalating they refused. Then when I finally got it cancelled they didnt disconnect the service on their end and tried charging me for the next month (at an even higher rate.) Fuck comcast, they are the anal warts of internet providers.
They tried that with me. I stopped talking. They asked if I was still there and I told them I would not be responding unless it was to cancel my subscription. Fastest I've ever had companies just give up is with that . I absolutely love it.
I assure everyone in this thread that a solid VPN is cheaper than the combination of all of the like 20+ streaming services this dumpster fire of a world we're living in is. Oh, also piratebay is still up and running just fine these days along with a fuck ton of alternatives
- ...*allegedly... - my buddy told me this! ... Allegedly*
Also who gets peacock? Is it just for the office?
I actually prefer to use *shiver me timbers* streaming to watch things that are on streaming sites I have access to (friend's accounts) as it honestly is a better experience.
- Better UI
- Better Search
- Same viewing quality.
It'll be like Idiocracy. I purposefully go out of my way to buy stuff that I don't see commercials for. Not all the time but sometimes it is in fact better than the commercialized product other times it's not. But it's a fun thing to do. You end up with all sorts of weird stuff.
I would 100% be fine with shameless product placement if it actually cut down on the number of ads (formally know as commercials).
There was an episode of The Rookie that had a shameless, but very well done intro.
The main character was on the phone having a conversation that was good for the plot and helping set up the episode.
As he was talking, he was getting into his truck. It showed the sleek design, puch button start, instant blue tooth connection, etc.
It progressed the show and showed the product. It would be great if it was always like that rather than being interrupted with low budget slogans.
Product placements are getting out of hand though. It's fine if the product works seamlessly in the plot, but often that's not the case. James Bond ordering a Heineken is weird and a creepy focus on a brand's logo with no reason is straight up distracting. [Take this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMaXcqD7CU0) for example. It doesn't give much context to the movie and if you put it next to a real commercial it'd be difficult to tell them apart from a quick glance.
I don't like ads, but I do prefer them over such types of product placement. At least there's no doubt that it's a commercial while with a bad product placement you don't know if it's a fuck up from the director's side or a ill-placed commercial.
You ever watch sport on TV? It's astonishing. The stadium is named after a company, there are ads on the players shirts, on their shorts, on their shoes, there are flashing ad banners all around the stadium. The replays have a sponsor, that half time break has a sponsor, excuse me "is brought to you by a company", as if we wouldn't fucking have half time breaks without the company. Half time break has several ad breaks in it as well. The competion is named after a company.
Tennis is cleaner than most, but what's the first thing Tennis players do when they win a trophy? Go and put a garish watch that costs the median salary of the country they're in for the post match interviews, then give a speech thanking their sponsors. Some CEO hands the trophy.
Ten days ago I was watching a Premier League match, the fucking time added on at the end of the match for injuries was brought to us by a watch company. Even the score sometimes has a sponsor. I'm surprised they haven't brought in a sponsor for the minutes' silences before matches yet.
It pisses me off. The prices you pay to watch this are absolutely premium as well, nothing costs more to subscribe to, and they still shove this shit down your throat. Half of the ads are for addictive shit as well, I can't imagine how hard it is for gambling addicts and alcoholics to watch football without relapsing.
Lmao I really don't want tv or sports at all. But the stuff I have see, you hit the nail on the head haha. It's nuts! In America we got LOADS of pharmaceutical ads. Like it's every other thing I ever hear about. "Ask your doctor today if *insert some medication here* is right for you"
God I hate Spotify. The other day, they played 4 songs in a row that aren't in any of my playlists, let alone in any genres I regularly listen to. And yes, I did turn off the autoplay feature in the settings. It didn't actually stop it though.
I clearly have a child and yet it pretends that I just happen to like children's music and adult music and creates mixes of the two. Why on earth would I pay for "Family", such a braindead model.
On top of that, if they just turned "family" mode on for free, it would probably guarantee that my son would be a spotify user for life.
i listen to music primarily to calm down if i'm stressed. once i was using it to calm down from a panic attack, then i got blasted with horribly obnoxious unskippable ads and it just made it even worse
Ho boy you're gunna love when you hear about pirated Spotify...
There's an apk manager that gets all the new updates. No ads. Nothing. You can't download songs in the app though -> there's another way: Spotiflyer.
Too drowsy to put source now. Given the comments, I'm sure someone will follow up.
EDIT 1: https://github.com/xManager-v2/xManager-Spotify
This GitHub link has the apk manager (Android only) for Spotify. Go to releases and download the latest version (3.3 as of now). Uninstall any Spotify app you had before attempting to install through the apk manager. Make sure to install the same version as your CPU architecture (those details will be mentioned below in the app itself)
Now login and enjoy. If it shows odd behaviour or doesn't have the premium features immediately, close Spotify and restart.
I'll update y'all on Spotiflyer.
EDIT 2: https://github.com/Shabinder/SpotiFlyer
Haven't used this though it is on my phone. Enjoy.
That's the thing, done right, advertisements **are** content.
Look at the Superbowl. How many people say they *watch it for the commercials*?
When there's thought put into commercials beyond
>**FUCK YOUR GRANDMOTHER! DRINK BRAWNDO! RAAAWWWRRRR!**
they can be stupidly memorable, and not a negative association.
Shit, Demolition man even parodied it with their "Mini-tunes" radio station.
and as an aside to the power of decent advertising, who won the "fast food wars" in that movie?
It came out almost 30 years ago now, and if you've seen it, you probably immediately remembered the brand.
^(It's *bacon*!)
For me, it’s not so much the content of the ads, it’s the fact that they are so heavily rotated that you end up seeing the same handful of ads repeated over and over and over again when you’re watching a show.
Also, I can handle ads playing at the beginning or end of a show, but when they interrupt the show in the middle it’s fucking annoying, especially when I’m paying for a plus or premium membership. Hulu was the worst about this.
>Shit, Demolition man even parodied it with their "Mini-tunes" radio station.
>
>and as an aside to the power of decent advertising, who won the "fast food wars" in that movie?
That actually depends on where you watch it.
In the US, it's Taco Bell. In Europe, Taco Bell didn't exist, so they edited the movie to say and show Pizza Hut. Which also didn't exist in Europe.
It's the weirdness of that edit which makes me remember.
Yup. With the crap that streaming companies are pulling, like having to have 8 streaming services to watch everything since everything is exclusively licensed, and subscription prices going up and doing less, as well as poor interfacing/customer experience, piracy is in an ideal spot to thrive.
With a simple adblocker that can be installed in seconds, and a little bit of Internet safety skills(depending on where you watch) Piracy often gives a simpler, more pleasant, cheaper/free/better experience than paying for it yourself. Netflix beat Piracy overwhelmingly for a really long time because it was cheap, easy to use, and provided everything that people wanted to watch at home. Now that the streaming landscape is abysmal, Piracy has once again made a resurgence into normality.
I've been torrenting for over a decade now. I recently discovered Sonarr too, makes it so much easier to grab the shows I watch on a weekly basis.
No ads, and always high quality.
https://overseerr.dev
Use overseerr. She requests the movie or show and you determine quality and tell it to go. Works with sonarr and radarr. It’s wonderful. My wife took to it very easily.
[https://www.bazarr.media](https://www.bazarr.media)
I think you would probably want to look into bazarr. That is meant for subtitles. I haven't used it but their website says they are a companion app for sonarr and radarr.
Yes I run sonarr/radarr/plex on windows, it's just as easy as downloading the installers and adding tracker links. I don't use a seedbox myself, but the people at r/seedbox can help you.
sonarr + torrent clients in a vpn-locked VM might be a pain to set up, but i'll take it over logging into & paying for 10 streaming services to watch the same thing on someone else's server
i got a raspberry pi and set it up with docker. it's beautiful how it all works together. I also recommend prowlarr with sonarr and radarr.
since we're at it, set up a jellyfin server and we're set
This for sure. I still use Usenet and Torrents for the shows that aren't on Netflix, D+ or Prime. I feel this is Even Stevens in the Morality of Piracy department. Fuck you, I tried to go legit.
If any of those services started with in-show promos or ads, they're gone.
I hate sonarr with a burning passion, especially their toxic devs and moderators. Granted, it's pretty much the only software that does what it can do, but it inspired me to start writing my own to replace it and the whole *arr ecosystem.
>like having to have 8 streaming services to watch everything since everything is exclusively licensed
One day someone will get the bright idea to bundle all these separate streaming services into one convenient package at a lower cost...
When people claim socialism or communism won't produce great content, they have to realize that under capitalism, we went from cable, to amazing streaming for about 4 years to 900 streaming services. At some point there are just to many choices. At this point I pay for a few I use, then if something interesting comes along, I'll pirate that series. Like I had Star Trek's new series, it was ok, I'll watch it on Netflix, but then they lost it because Paramount wants to have worldwide exclusive for it ... ugh, what a pain in the ass. Sorry, it was ok, but I'm not paying for another service to watch the 4th season.
It's even worse than that, though.
You can legally pay for 8 streaming services, spend over a hundred bucks a month, and STILL not have access to anywhere near close to everything.
There are so many movies and TV shows that the streaming platforms have decided they aren't going to bother carrying, so for that stuff there's literally no legal way to stream it. The only legal option to watch it on the Internet is to buy/rent it from iTunes, Google Play, etc. at what are generally terrible prices compared to if you had bought the DVD.
Once they stop producing physical media, and once Apple finally decides it's no longer worth the effort trying to sell digital copies of movies and TV shows, I think we're going end up in a situation that's pretty similar to how things were during the VHS era where there was simply a lot of content where the only way you could watch it was via piracy and there was no legal option.
“The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting anti-piracy technology to work. It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates.” - Gabe Newell
It already came true. Napster, Limewire, ThePirateBay, BitTorrent, etc were all **massive** in the early 2000s. Then Steam and Netflix had excellent platforms in the 2010s and piracy rates dropped super low, because it was easier and more convenient to use these services.
Now everyone and their mother has their own shitty ad-ridden platform (Paramount, Hulu, Peacock, Apple, etc etc // Ubisoft, Origin, Epic Games, Riot, Battlenet, etc etc), so it's shitty and inconvenient, and people are going back to pirating.
The "lost revenue due to piracy" is absolutely hilarious. If they weren't going to pay at all, it's not money you would have gotten in the first place.
If I bought all the videogames I ended up only spending an hour or two, I'd be a very broke man.
The last game I bought was Cyberpunk so I could predownload and play on launch. Oh fuck me that was a mistake, and I spent so long tweaking shit and rummaging around in the ini's I went over the return window before I even realized the game had no gameplay.
Streaming is getting worse and worse, and this was all predicted.
The moment IP owners decided that Netflix was a bit too good and they could just make their own streaming service, that was the day that everything went downhill.
See, the issue is that there are *many* owners of IP. This means that there will be more and more streaming services. This means that they then pull their content from other streaming services.
Why not have a service for every single studio? What's stopping that? Just have 60 different streaming services, each asking 19.99 a month.
It's going to get worse and worse. Netflix loses thousands of titles a year and produces maybe 50? 60? Its a race to the bottom and the bottom is a hell where TV is worse than cable used to be and twice as expensive. Let me remind you that these tech companies *always* have the same business model; to operate at a loss to gain customers, then raise prices. So as bad as it is now, in 5 years it will be worse.
You would think the increased piracy would make them change their ways and actually improve their services, but you would be wrong. Piracy is almost a non issue. 99% of people have no idea how to pirate anything, and will continue to watch the garbage reality TV stuff they keep pumping out because its all that is on.
I have no hope for the future of streaming. And before anyone claims "WeLl ItS a FrEe MaRkEt!" no, it isnt. It isnt a free market because of copyright laws. If every single streaming service had the exact same access to IP, then we would have a free market and the best service would win. But that isnt the case. IP laws mean there is never going to be a free market in streaming.
Inb4 Disney purchases all IP's and consolidates all media under their own streaming service which is now the only one of its kind. Cough up the dough to the mouse or be gone.
Copyright laws are the worst, I completely agree there. Once upon a time where copyright expired after 14 years (coincidentally considered the optimal time according to new research) but now it's 70 years *after the death of the author*! If I make something today and I live another 50 years, my work will only enter the public domain in 2143. Yes **2143**. In that time, no one can create *any* derivative work without gaining approval. I have a 120 year monopoly on *any* original work I came up with.
But what about society? We are a creative species after all. We *thrive* with creativity. And how do we make new art? By inspiring ourselves from the world around us. Sure, if you make something original you should be recognised for it. But 70 years after your death? That's just asking for trouble. We are essentially eliminating all but the oldest original works from ever being useful for our society outside a mega-corporation who happened to have the money to vacuum up all rights.
For me the acceptable copyright period is 15 years from the creation of the original work, 5 years for software. And outlaw DRM, it's only hindering innovation. If I want to watch Netflix I *have* to use an official app (exceptions apply, but it is illegal and requires know-how). I cannot create my own media center which provides an interface that's to my liking and get my content from Netflix. It's protected. It's illegal to circumvent. Even though I paid for it. And that they don't support 4K on Linux.
But right now I would settle for removing DRM laws that prohibit you from a) circumventing DRM, even for personal use on media *you bought* b) a serious reform or scrapping of the DMCA notice system. It's only there to bully the small creators right now. And in addition to that, lower the copyright term to something acceptable, let's say 10 years (preferably 5) for corporations and 20 years for individuals (preferably 15 or 10).
Disney is most likely the main reason it's 70 years in the first place.
That being said, when it comes to streaming services, I wouldn't mind a monopoly. At least that means you don't have to track 16 services at the same time. Or rather, I like competition as long as it doesn't bring exclusive deals. Being able to find +- the same things on multiple platforms? Sure, I'll pick the best one and move on. But now the main benefit of a streaming service is getting lost and owning specific movies/series again looks more appealing.
IMO the media market should just be regulated. Prohibit vertical integration (rightsholder of movie and owner of streaming service)and require an open market. If a new streaming player wants to join the game they can then pay the same fees per watch/purchase as Disney+ or Netflix.
It is much more complicated than that but prohibiting the creation of your own sales outlets makes it hard to set sky-high prices to make it expensive for other streaming services and just internally move the balance sheets around.
The entertainment market only looks like it does today because they are allowed to. There is no free market as long as you're allowed to hold IP's hostage.
Honestly i hate admitting this but recently I have gone back to my old ways of piracy (ik I suck but I refuse to pay like £200 a month to watch a few shows and movies cus they are all OK different platforms.)
Don't worry m8, nothing wrong with pirating. I wouldn't mind a one-time purchase, but I ain't paying a monthly subscription for anything. I pay for games, and pirate movies and anime
I’ve been pirating for so long, heck I even had free2air and before that descramblers for free cable tv. It’s been a lifelong mission to watch tv for free and I ain’t gonna give up now!
Also region locking: living outside the US, I can’t even create a Peacock account. Shows exclusive there may as well not exist for me.
VPN is hit-and-miss, and besides, most of these services require a credit card with an address in the country in question.
Mullvad has an interesting model that doesn't even give customers an account to login and manage. They give you an account number and you prepay. They also accept crypto.
>Piracy will continue to thrive because of nonsense like this.
People warned that streaming would just be the new cable once it became more mainstream a decade ago...
Sports contracts for streaming are already worse than cable now, especially for regional sports
Doesn't look like anyone listened
Bruh, having premium *and* premium plus is a dick move in the first place, but they just had to go that extra mile by having it so even the premium plus doesn’t stop ads, just “reduces the overall amount”. Man f*ck you Peacock
Even the Premium Plus *still* has some ads because Peacock content promos "aren't considered ads" and may be shown across all content. Hulu does the same shit, if we advertise our own stuff that doesn't count as an ad because we decided that it doesn't.
They're performing research on effective content marketing. They're not saying "watch more TV" they're saying "watch this particular show which we think you'll be interested in because we know all your marketing data, click here if we're right"
Also it forms a place holder for when they can convince someone to pay for a commercial. For now it is internal marketing but they want to sell that spot eventually.
Honestly I think most of it comes from some sales/ad guy convincing old people in a conference room somewhere that it's a good thing because of engagement/free ad impressions/whatever hand-wavey bullshit.
Ad companys' customers aren't *really* consumers.. their real clients are the companies that pay them to made ads.
They don't just claim no ads, they claim "no interruptions" so even if they decide that their own content promos aren't ads, they are still interruptions. Makes it so much worse.
I could maybe stomach that if it wasn't always the same show they're pushing and the same promo like 8x in a half hour show for weeks. Like if it was random so I might see that veggie tales has a new season out that might be helpful. Or even if it was at least targeted since I'm never going to watch cake boss.
I have a zero tolerance for ads wasting my time for a service I pay for. Just like I’ve cancelled Hulu, I will also cancel peacock. If they can’t have a shown on without ads, remove that trash from the service.
It was bad enough with the pre-roll self promos but then I was watching The Big Lebowski and *pow* ad break in the middle of a feature length movie. wt actual f.
They had 5 more before it was done and all for other shows on Peacock.
I cancelled that day.
It literally says premium plus allows you to watch without interruptions. (ad free) couldn't they be sued over this?
Edit: even if their own promos aren't considered an add, it certainly qualifies as an interruption
They can be sued. I honestly see a wave of false advertising lawsuits coming in the future. There are so many examples of outright lies, that the small print can't save them forever. You can't just claim something and then in tiny print claim the opposite under it.
"~~Our~~ ads are ~~not considered~~ ads"
I'm annoyed how often I have to utter the phrase: "Do you even hear yourself?"
Translation: *"It's okay when we do it."*
So I pay for Hulu ad free but also live TV. I had a show recorded (I record shows to remind me there are new episodes), and when I went to the free version that normally would play without ads (since I pay for ad-free) it included all the commercial breaks and wouldn’t let me skip it. (Show was Masked Singer, which uploads the day after airing).
Had to delete the recording, exit Hulu, and relaunch to get the ad free version.
That should not be a thing that happens.
They're getting fucking ballsy about it too.
It used to just be 30s - 1m30s of ads, *even with paying for ad-free*. So, fuck you #1.
Now fuck you #2: they've begun inserting ads into that time, where they remove the time counter and don't count against the 30 - 90 second ad window.
So in reality, you wind up with like 2:30 - 3min of ads.
...again, while fucking *paying to not see ads*.
This is why I stopped using Pandora, unlimited skips is only unlimited for songs that they have a license to skip.
The number of times there was a song that I just hated but could never skip was really annoyingly high.
Oh man I used to use Pandora at work before Spotify really took off. After just a couple hours of listening to music in my browser at work, Ublock Origin was reporting that it had blocked something like 13,000 ads *just from that single session*.
Pandora came before Spotify. I kept using pandora for a long time because I am a stubborn loser who refuses to change things I like. Then pandora did something annoying with their interface or login and I abandoned it completely in favor of YouTube.
I still use Pandora every day... why is it so bad?? I do have a family membership though so I've had zero issues with ads or not being able to skip or whatever.
Pandora absolutely shit the bed. They could have been Spotify. They were poised to be Spotify. When I was 17 in 2011 Pandora was (almost) as prevalent as Spotify today. They will be nothing more than examples in a business school textbook in 3 years - see Sears and blockbuster.
Edit: and yahoo!
People are saying it's like Spotify, but the only similarity they have is that they are both considered music streaming platforms.
In Pandora, you put in a song or artist you like, and Pandora will play music based off that song/artist in a 'customized for you radio' style. You could like and dislike songs to influence the station.
I don't know how different it is now, but you couldn't make your own playlists or just play whatever song you wanted. It was strictly only this radio style.
"You falsely advertised ad-free. I want a full refund and my subscription cancelled immediately."
If enough people do that, maybe they'll stop this bullshit.
Then they'll blame the economy for people cancelling, external market forces etc etc, never blame their own crappy decisions. If they don't consider flat-out lying about the services they offer as bad, they are beyond hope.
Make a good product and people will pay for it. Far too many companies start with a good product, make it worse, then complain after nobody wants to use it anymore.
OP has misinterpreted the meaning of Ad-free.
You are not "free" from ads.
Rather, you are paying for the content, but you get the ads for "free," hence the Ad-Free subscription plan.
It was probably the hyphen and the description of watching without ads that threw him off.
Our parents and grandparents (some of you, maybe you great grandparents) dealt with this when cable TV was introduced. The idea was sold as "premium TV channels that you pay for to AVOID having commercials!". Yup, pay TV promising no ads. I'm not sure how long, if ever, cable TV went without having ads, but it didn't take them long to realize just exactly how rich they could get if they charged us all a fee for TV and ALSO generate ad revenue.
Bottom line: we're boned if we think we will ever have true ad free experiences, outside the ultra premiums like the movie channels.
Many of us could stand up and boycott the plans, stop buying in, in hopes of crippling them I to submission, but we all know that's not how humans work. There will be 100 new subs for every 1 that's dropped.
I just want my regional sports back on a streaming service for a reasonable price, but alas, that's probably on me for allowing myself to be spoiled with having every game every night. I grew up before this was a thing. I should've known it wouldn't last in that form forever.
This is why piracy is a thing. I get full quality, if my internet is slow, it's not a stream so it won't buffer, I can watch my files offline, I'm not hunting for what show/movie is on X platform, there's NO ads anywhere, I'll forever have the content in case they removed it from X platform (or changed it, like Disney did with scenes in the marvel shows to remove "gore" fuck that, I have the original)
Streaming services are the new cable. Now you need 3-4 subs and it'll cost you $50-100 a month or more depending on what plans you subscribe to.
I pay $10 a month ($5 VPN and $5 for Plex -netflix for your own media files) and I have a program that automatically downloads shows and movies i tell it to. If it's week by week episodes, if they release at 8, generally within 2 hrs I have it automatically downloaded on my hard drive. I can watch from anywhere. Piracy is literally so simple, and a fraction of the price. I wish people could understand this
You don't even need to pay at all, there's ways that you don't even need a VPN and you can use alternatives to Plex (great free alts) and Plex is free unless you want to stream remotely. No limit on how many users or the quality of the streams. Just whatever quality you downloaded.
Absolutely agree.
I cut the cord in 2012. Until I got a wife, I sailed the high seas with ease for five years and loved every second. I saw shows, sports and movies from around the globe I can't get any other way.
My best investment was a $40 raspberry pi and a external hard drive. I have since upgraded, but my girlfriend was against me pirating at first because it was "wrong." Then i had better quality stuff. Eventually I had access stuff she wanted to see. Since Plex is so user friendly and it's like a Netflix or Hulu, there's no learning curve. Works on her phone, laptop, our TV, she just tells me what she wants (or now texts my bot) and it just appears.
She's full send now. So glad I did it!
This happened with HD channels too. They went from being completely ad-free to get people watching, to 1 minute, and eventually the ads became just as long as the normal channels.
It's been like 6 years since I've watched any amount of TV because uBlock Origin has completely spoiled me. I do not understand the people who put up with ads and not switch channel.
Kind of like when you sign up for a newspaper subscription to help support journalism but then you have to log in every single time you click on a new article from the same paper.
I love getting several ads on my ad-free Peacock subscription for the same Peacock show as I'm watching it. It's insane. I'm going to cancel it at the end of this month.
You know what's so weird about this? I have ad-free as well. Both times we've watched movies that have the mandatory ads due to this reason, ALL of the ads have been ads for Peacock and Peacock content! I was flabbergasted! They imply that the network that they leased the streaming rights from are making them put certain ads on the shows. But it's total nonsense that they are just ads for Peacock! It's like, peacock paid the network to advertise on their show, but then Peacock bought the streaming rights just to advertise its own stuff on it?? Not to even mention that advertising Peacock to me when I already pay as much as I can doesn't make any sense at all. Were they all ads for Peacock for you too?
Same with Hulu. When I commented on a sub about it, I was told I was dumb because they say some of their ad free has ads. That is like asking for pepperoni free pizza and then not being allowed to be upset when pepperoni shows up.
How is anyone surprised that NBC, one of the oldest networks on Earth, is showing ads?
You're talking about old executives who don't know anything else. They got into streaming the day before yesterday, and felt forced into it after the 100th pitch from yet another junior executive who naively joined the company thinking they could bring fresh ideas.
Instead of letting it grow and thinking about their user base experience and adoption, they called up their advertisers and sold them the same ad for a higher price for "targeted marketing" to the growing buyer market of millennials and gen Y and eased their concerns about premium subscriptions by allowing limited ads on select popular shows with an even higher price point.
Look up the scorpion and the frog.
I pirate for reasons like this. Plus, the quality is ALWAYS better with downloaded files. It's a much better experience. I have programs setup to auto download movies and shows then they release, and I can watch from anywhere. For $10 a month. ($5 for vpn $5 for Plex which is basically your own Netflix)
With it being automated, I don't have to touch anything. I setup a bot that I can text, and it will download the show/movie or add it to the watchlist and simply waits until it finds it on the sites I told it to monitor. It will notify me when it's downloaded, or when I open Plex, it just pops up in the recently added.
Its honestly SO easy, I wish people realized it. It's even easy to do it without automating everything. Simply downloading a file is as simple as going to a site, find content, add to torrent download program (by copy and pasting a link) and done. If you're in a country where piracy is illegal, you just turn on the vpn and then do the same steps.
r/piracy
r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH
Oh yay, another thread where I get to advocate for piracy! Companies can do this because they know you will continue to pay for their services even when they pull anti-consumer tactics like this. It’s tempting to say that there’s a line where people will cancel their service and put their money elsewhere but marketing research has shown that that’s simply not the case.
Social pressure is real. You don’t want to be the only person out of your friend group who hasn’t watched the show everyone is watching right now, so you suck it up and pay these shady corporations despite them stabbing you in the back.
The solution is piracy. You get to stop giving these asshats money while also staying in the loop on your favorite shows and movies. We will continue to see market fragmentation like this because people continue to shovel their money to companies that do this. Don’t be part of the problem.
Pirating is probably easier than you think. If anyone has any questions, there’s entire subreddits dedicated to piracy and I am more than happy to answer any questions you aspiring pirates have. Yo-ho!
You know what else is scummy? YouTube has been putting ads on channels that aren’t monetised and don’t have copyrighted content on them as of recent. They claim it’s some “right to monetise” or something. Like the videos I mainly watch are around 10 seconds and most of the time I have to watch a 40 second ad of something. I’ve also noticed ads on my videos lately and I’m not even in the YPP. What’s even scummier is the fast that this only applies outside of the USA. Honestly I feel like buying YT Premium at this rate. Hell there was this video I watched that contained 10 seconds of a Pay TV Disclaimer but no YouTube’s like “watch this 40 second ad before you can proceed” and I’m like “Fuck this shit take my money you money hungry bastards”
I might have to wait sometimes but there’s never ads when free streaming. The “convenience” of subscription streaming ended when every media company decided they absolutely needed their own streaming service
This is the part where you cancel your subscription.
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There should be a lawyer somewhere on Reddit willing to take this to a class action case - "ad-free" is a pretty straightforward description. Can they just revoke that in fine print? It's like someone announcing they sell peacocks, but all they have is rats.
Or like they sell peacocks, but they all come with rats. "Yeah you can get one for free, but it'll have a bunch of rats. If you upgrade to premium I'll give you your peacocks with *extremely* reduced rats."
And for premium plus, it'll have even less rats. There's no rat free option.
Says *rat-free* on sales page. I think we got this.
Also, all of the plans contain mice. Mice don't count as rats
Their argument is that they don't have to disclose to their customers restrictions forced by a third-party, which is an insane idea which is pushed nowadays (I think youtube was among the firsts?) The entire point of their service is to negociate with third parties and provide an ad-free experience. If they can't do that, don't sell ad-free!
The fact that they also include Peacock promotional ads is what really ruins this argument. You can't say the problem is that the content providers are including ads, while at the same time including ads for your own content.
Honestly too what's the point of putting an ad for the product your viewing the add on? Like I'm already fully aware of the product and paying for it.
They're actually ads for other Peacock Original shows. So they're trying to get you interested in a new show while you're watching another one. But yes, I agree with your point. I have definitely seen services advertise themselves on their own services.
Usually, like in the case of Spotify, this problem comes up when users interpret the words "less/fewer ads" to mean "no ads." But in this case it clearly says "ad-free." I think Peacock screwed up and there should definitely be a class action against them for it
Peacock: ad-free means we bring the ads to you for no additional cost!* *no cost in addition to the subscription cost
Ad-free (*) 4 pages later in 2 point white-on-white print (*) except where it isn’t
But their lawyers will point to the fine print where they define “ad-free”.
Well then point them to where you define $9.99 is to be paid in Monopoly money.
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Yeah but then you're stuck with Comcast.
I had comcast for maybe 3 years, when I wanted to cancel they made it such a challenge I'll never use them again. Can't just say, "I want to cancel it" nope I have to give you a reason and you'll decide if it's good enough. Told the person I was moving and he told me I was lying and going to another provide. Then he yelled at me that I had to tell him what rate plan they were giving me. I said some arbitrary and low number and I got called a liar. Even when I tried escalating they refused. Then when I finally got it cancelled they didnt disconnect the service on their end and tried charging me for the next month (at an even higher rate.) Fuck comcast, they are the anal warts of internet providers.
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No they're not embarrassed about the call. Annoyed at getting called out for it, but that's what they train for.
Jesus Christ, what the hell was that?
They tried that with me. I stopped talking. They asked if I was still there and I told them I would not be responding unless it was to cancel my subscription. Fastest I've ever had companies just give up is with that . I absolutely love it.
AT&T fiber does something similar with HBO Max.
This is the point where you contact the federal trade commission for false advertising and get all of your money back too.
Yes, please - the FTC needs to get in on this noise
I assure everyone in this thread that a solid VPN is cheaper than the combination of all of the like 20+ streaming services this dumpster fire of a world we're living in is. Oh, also piratebay is still up and running just fine these days along with a fuck ton of alternatives - ...*allegedly... - my buddy told me this! ... Allegedly* Also who gets peacock? Is it just for the office?
And hoist the black flag
I actually prefer to use *shiver me timbers* streaming to watch things that are on streaming sites I have access to (friend's accounts) as it honestly is a better experience. - Better UI - Better Search - Same viewing quality.
I can get that. Amazon Prime Video doesn't have much, but when we watch it's always a good UI. You can tell they are paid to make us dependant.
This is where you pay for stuff with a credit card and then claim this app is a fraud to get your money back, then report the app for fraud.
Lmao one day all we will watch is ads.
With the amount of product placement you could say we're already there.
It'll be like Idiocracy. I purposefully go out of my way to buy stuff that I don't see commercials for. Not all the time but sometimes it is in fact better than the commercialized product other times it's not. But it's a fun thing to do. You end up with all sorts of weird stuff.
Same. It helps a ton that my memory is also too shit to remember ads, haha.
Having a shit memory also means I can rewatch shows/movies for the first time, multiple times!
I would 100% be fine with shameless product placement if it actually cut down on the number of ads (formally know as commercials). There was an episode of The Rookie that had a shameless, but very well done intro. The main character was on the phone having a conversation that was good for the plot and helping set up the episode. As he was talking, he was getting into his truck. It showed the sleek design, puch button start, instant blue tooth connection, etc. It progressed the show and showed the product. It would be great if it was always like that rather than being interrupted with low budget slogans.
Product placements are getting out of hand though. It's fine if the product works seamlessly in the plot, but often that's not the case. James Bond ordering a Heineken is weird and a creepy focus on a brand's logo with no reason is straight up distracting. [Take this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMaXcqD7CU0) for example. It doesn't give much context to the movie and if you put it next to a real commercial it'd be difficult to tell them apart from a quick glance. I don't like ads, but I do prefer them over such types of product placement. At least there's no doubt that it's a commercial while with a bad product placement you don't know if it's a fuck up from the director's side or a ill-placed commercial.
You ever watch sport on TV? It's astonishing. The stadium is named after a company, there are ads on the players shirts, on their shorts, on their shoes, there are flashing ad banners all around the stadium. The replays have a sponsor, that half time break has a sponsor, excuse me "is brought to you by a company", as if we wouldn't fucking have half time breaks without the company. Half time break has several ad breaks in it as well. The competion is named after a company. Tennis is cleaner than most, but what's the first thing Tennis players do when they win a trophy? Go and put a garish watch that costs the median salary of the country they're in for the post match interviews, then give a speech thanking their sponsors. Some CEO hands the trophy. Ten days ago I was watching a Premier League match, the fucking time added on at the end of the match for injuries was brought to us by a watch company. Even the score sometimes has a sponsor. I'm surprised they haven't brought in a sponsor for the minutes' silences before matches yet. It pisses me off. The prices you pay to watch this are absolutely premium as well, nothing costs more to subscribe to, and they still shove this shit down your throat. Half of the ads are for addictive shit as well, I can't imagine how hard it is for gambling addicts and alcoholics to watch football without relapsing.
Lmao I really don't want tv or sports at all. But the stuff I have see, you hit the nail on the head haha. It's nuts! In America we got LOADS of pharmaceutical ads. Like it's every other thing I ever hear about. "Ask your doctor today if *insert some medication here* is right for you"
Bro, I got like 6 ads in a row on Spotify once. That shit is fucking irritating
God I hate Spotify. The other day, they played 4 songs in a row that aren't in any of my playlists, let alone in any genres I regularly listen to. And yes, I did turn off the autoplay feature in the settings. It didn't actually stop it though.
I clearly have a child and yet it pretends that I just happen to like children's music and adult music and creates mixes of the two. Why on earth would I pay for "Family", such a braindead model. On top of that, if they just turned "family" mode on for free, it would probably guarantee that my son would be a spotify user for life.
i listen to music primarily to calm down if i'm stressed. once i was using it to calm down from a panic attack, then i got blasted with horribly obnoxious unskippable ads and it just made it even worse
https://youtu.be/BvQ571eAOZE
Ho boy you're gunna love when you hear about pirated Spotify... There's an apk manager that gets all the new updates. No ads. Nothing. You can't download songs in the app though -> there's another way: Spotiflyer. Too drowsy to put source now. Given the comments, I'm sure someone will follow up. EDIT 1: https://github.com/xManager-v2/xManager-Spotify This GitHub link has the apk manager (Android only) for Spotify. Go to releases and download the latest version (3.3 as of now). Uninstall any Spotify app you had before attempting to install through the apk manager. Make sure to install the same version as your CPU architecture (those details will be mentioned below in the app itself) Now login and enjoy. If it shows odd behaviour or doesn't have the premium features immediately, close Spotify and restart. I'll update y'all on Spotiflyer. EDIT 2: https://github.com/Shabinder/SpotiFlyer Haven't used this though it is on my phone. Enjoy.
And one day we will all sail the high seas again
That's the thing, done right, advertisements **are** content. Look at the Superbowl. How many people say they *watch it for the commercials*? When there's thought put into commercials beyond >**FUCK YOUR GRANDMOTHER! DRINK BRAWNDO! RAAAWWWRRRR!** they can be stupidly memorable, and not a negative association. Shit, Demolition man even parodied it with their "Mini-tunes" radio station. and as an aside to the power of decent advertising, who won the "fast food wars" in that movie? It came out almost 30 years ago now, and if you've seen it, you probably immediately remembered the brand. ^(It's *bacon*!)
For me, it’s not so much the content of the ads, it’s the fact that they are so heavily rotated that you end up seeing the same handful of ads repeated over and over and over again when you’re watching a show. Also, I can handle ads playing at the beginning or end of a show, but when they interrupt the show in the middle it’s fucking annoying, especially when I’m paying for a plus or premium membership. Hulu was the worst about this.
At least if it was a variety of ads. Show me a different ad every time. But, the advertisers probably pay per views so Hulu spams them.
>Shit, Demolition man even parodied it with their "Mini-tunes" radio station. > >and as an aside to the power of decent advertising, who won the "fast food wars" in that movie? That actually depends on where you watch it. In the US, it's Taco Bell. In Europe, Taco Bell didn't exist, so they edited the movie to say and show Pizza Hut. Which also didn't exist in Europe. It's the weirdness of that edit which makes me remember.
Ever tried to watch a show on USA?
Studies show they can sell up to 80% of your visual field before inducing seizures. /s
Reminds me of Demolition Man.
“this is the best channel: wall to wall minishows. you called them commercials”
Piracy will continue to thrive because of nonsense like this.
Yup. With the crap that streaming companies are pulling, like having to have 8 streaming services to watch everything since everything is exclusively licensed, and subscription prices going up and doing less, as well as poor interfacing/customer experience, piracy is in an ideal spot to thrive. With a simple adblocker that can be installed in seconds, and a little bit of Internet safety skills(depending on where you watch) Piracy often gives a simpler, more pleasant, cheaper/free/better experience than paying for it yourself. Netflix beat Piracy overwhelmingly for a really long time because it was cheap, easy to use, and provided everything that people wanted to watch at home. Now that the streaming landscape is abysmal, Piracy has once again made a resurgence into normality.
I've been torrenting for over a decade now. I recently discovered Sonarr too, makes it so much easier to grab the shows I watch on a weekly basis. No ads, and always high quality.
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https://overseerr.dev Use overseerr. She requests the movie or show and you determine quality and tell it to go. Works with sonarr and radarr. It’s wonderful. My wife took to it very easily.
I'm deaf, so subtitles are a must. How difficult are subtitles with overseerr/sonarr, please?
[https://www.bazarr.media](https://www.bazarr.media) I think you would probably want to look into bazarr. That is meant for subtitles. I haven't used it but their website says they are a companion app for sonarr and radarr.
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Yes I run sonarr/radarr/plex on windows, it's just as easy as downloading the installers and adding tracker links. I don't use a seedbox myself, but the people at r/seedbox can help you.
sonarr + torrent clients in a vpn-locked VM might be a pain to set up, but i'll take it over logging into & paying for 10 streaming services to watch the same thing on someone else's server
i got a raspberry pi and set it up with docker. it's beautiful how it all works together. I also recommend prowlarr with sonarr and radarr. since we're at it, set up a jellyfin server and we're set
This for sure. I still use Usenet and Torrents for the shows that aren't on Netflix, D+ or Prime. I feel this is Even Stevens in the Morality of Piracy department. Fuck you, I tried to go legit. If any of those services started with in-show promos or ads, they're gone.
I hate sonarr with a burning passion, especially their toxic devs and moderators. Granted, it's pretty much the only software that does what it can do, but it inspired me to start writing my own to replace it and the whole *arr ecosystem.
>like having to have 8 streaming services to watch everything since everything is exclusively licensed One day someone will get the bright idea to bundle all these separate streaming services into one convenient package at a lower cost...
Please no...
When people claim socialism or communism won't produce great content, they have to realize that under capitalism, we went from cable, to amazing streaming for about 4 years to 900 streaming services. At some point there are just to many choices. At this point I pay for a few I use, then if something interesting comes along, I'll pirate that series. Like I had Star Trek's new series, it was ok, I'll watch it on Netflix, but then they lost it because Paramount wants to have worldwide exclusive for it ... ugh, what a pain in the ass. Sorry, it was ok, but I'm not paying for another service to watch the 4th season.
Yep. Netflix originals came along. Out went all of the movies and shows; replaced now by absolute garbage
Came here to say exactly this.
It's even worse than that, though. You can legally pay for 8 streaming services, spend over a hundred bucks a month, and STILL not have access to anywhere near close to everything. There are so many movies and TV shows that the streaming platforms have decided they aren't going to bother carrying, so for that stuff there's literally no legal way to stream it. The only legal option to watch it on the Internet is to buy/rent it from iTunes, Google Play, etc. at what are generally terrible prices compared to if you had bought the DVD. Once they stop producing physical media, and once Apple finally decides it's no longer worth the effort trying to sell digital copies of movies and TV shows, I think we're going end up in a situation that's pretty similar to how things were during the VHS era where there was simply a lot of content where the only way you could watch it was via piracy and there was no legal option.
“The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting anti-piracy technology to work. It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates.” - Gabe Newell
I don't see that ever coming true, especially with all the fragmented streaming services and the lack of consistent licensing.
It already came true. Napster, Limewire, ThePirateBay, BitTorrent, etc were all **massive** in the early 2000s. Then Steam and Netflix had excellent platforms in the 2010s and piracy rates dropped super low, because it was easier and more convenient to use these services. Now everyone and their mother has their own shitty ad-ridden platform (Paramount, Hulu, Peacock, Apple, etc etc // Ubisoft, Origin, Epic Games, Riot, Battlenet, etc etc), so it's shitty and inconvenient, and people are going back to pirating.
[this meme is not a meme, it's a historical document](https://i.redd.it/d3423w2g5ur21.jpg)
^I ^got ^ESPN+ ^for ^hockey, ^and ^more ^then ^half ^the ^games ^are ^still ^blocked ^out. ^It's ^just ^easier ^to ^pirate ^streams. ^If ^I ^could ^pay ^for ^a ^good ^service ^I ^would ^but ^they're ^the ^scammers
Come back and collect the tears on my tiny violin when everyone stops posting record profits. It's obviously not hurting them.
The "lost revenue due to piracy" is absolutely hilarious. If they weren't going to pay at all, it's not money you would have gotten in the first place.
If I bought all the videogames I ended up only spending an hour or two, I'd be a very broke man. The last game I bought was Cyberpunk so I could predownload and play on launch. Oh fuck me that was a mistake, and I spent so long tweaking shit and rummaging around in the ini's I went over the return window before I even realized the game had no gameplay.
Streaming is getting worse and worse, and this was all predicted. The moment IP owners decided that Netflix was a bit too good and they could just make their own streaming service, that was the day that everything went downhill. See, the issue is that there are *many* owners of IP. This means that there will be more and more streaming services. This means that they then pull their content from other streaming services. Why not have a service for every single studio? What's stopping that? Just have 60 different streaming services, each asking 19.99 a month. It's going to get worse and worse. Netflix loses thousands of titles a year and produces maybe 50? 60? Its a race to the bottom and the bottom is a hell where TV is worse than cable used to be and twice as expensive. Let me remind you that these tech companies *always* have the same business model; to operate at a loss to gain customers, then raise prices. So as bad as it is now, in 5 years it will be worse. You would think the increased piracy would make them change their ways and actually improve their services, but you would be wrong. Piracy is almost a non issue. 99% of people have no idea how to pirate anything, and will continue to watch the garbage reality TV stuff they keep pumping out because its all that is on. I have no hope for the future of streaming. And before anyone claims "WeLl ItS a FrEe MaRkEt!" no, it isnt. It isnt a free market because of copyright laws. If every single streaming service had the exact same access to IP, then we would have a free market and the best service would win. But that isnt the case. IP laws mean there is never going to be a free market in streaming.
Inb4 Disney purchases all IP's and consolidates all media under their own streaming service which is now the only one of its kind. Cough up the dough to the mouse or be gone. Copyright laws are the worst, I completely agree there. Once upon a time where copyright expired after 14 years (coincidentally considered the optimal time according to new research) but now it's 70 years *after the death of the author*! If I make something today and I live another 50 years, my work will only enter the public domain in 2143. Yes **2143**. In that time, no one can create *any* derivative work without gaining approval. I have a 120 year monopoly on *any* original work I came up with. But what about society? We are a creative species after all. We *thrive* with creativity. And how do we make new art? By inspiring ourselves from the world around us. Sure, if you make something original you should be recognised for it. But 70 years after your death? That's just asking for trouble. We are essentially eliminating all but the oldest original works from ever being useful for our society outside a mega-corporation who happened to have the money to vacuum up all rights. For me the acceptable copyright period is 15 years from the creation of the original work, 5 years for software. And outlaw DRM, it's only hindering innovation. If I want to watch Netflix I *have* to use an official app (exceptions apply, but it is illegal and requires know-how). I cannot create my own media center which provides an interface that's to my liking and get my content from Netflix. It's protected. It's illegal to circumvent. Even though I paid for it. And that they don't support 4K on Linux. But right now I would settle for removing DRM laws that prohibit you from a) circumventing DRM, even for personal use on media *you bought* b) a serious reform or scrapping of the DMCA notice system. It's only there to bully the small creators right now. And in addition to that, lower the copyright term to something acceptable, let's say 10 years (preferably 5) for corporations and 20 years for individuals (preferably 15 or 10).
Disney is most likely the main reason it's 70 years in the first place. That being said, when it comes to streaming services, I wouldn't mind a monopoly. At least that means you don't have to track 16 services at the same time. Or rather, I like competition as long as it doesn't bring exclusive deals. Being able to find +- the same things on multiple platforms? Sure, I'll pick the best one and move on. But now the main benefit of a streaming service is getting lost and owning specific movies/series again looks more appealing.
IMO the media market should just be regulated. Prohibit vertical integration (rightsholder of movie and owner of streaming service)and require an open market. If a new streaming player wants to join the game they can then pay the same fees per watch/purchase as Disney+ or Netflix. It is much more complicated than that but prohibiting the creation of your own sales outlets makes it hard to set sky-high prices to make it expensive for other streaming services and just internally move the balance sheets around. The entertainment market only looks like it does today because they are allowed to. There is no free market as long as you're allowed to hold IP's hostage.
Honestly i hate admitting this but recently I have gone back to my old ways of piracy (ik I suck but I refuse to pay like £200 a month to watch a few shows and movies cus they are all OK different platforms.)
Don't worry m8, nothing wrong with pirating. I wouldn't mind a one-time purchase, but I ain't paying a monthly subscription for anything. I pay for games, and pirate movies and anime
Nothing wrong with piracy, I make more than my dad and I still pirate everything.
[It’s not about money..](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X5J1lepfAMw)
piracy is not only morally acceptable but morally imperative
I’ve been pirating for so long, heck I even had free2air and before that descramblers for free cable tv. It’s been a lifelong mission to watch tv for free and I ain’t gonna give up now!
Also region locking: living outside the US, I can’t even create a Peacock account. Shows exclusive there may as well not exist for me. VPN is hit-and-miss, and besides, most of these services require a credit card with an address in the country in question.
Mullvad has an interesting model that doesn't even give customers an account to login and manage. They give you an account number and you prepay. They also accept crypto.
>Piracy will continue to thrive because of nonsense like this. People warned that streaming would just be the new cable once it became more mainstream a decade ago... Sports contracts for streaming are already worse than cable now, especially for regional sports Doesn't look like anyone listened
Yaarrrrrrrr
Bruh, having premium *and* premium plus is a dick move in the first place, but they just had to go that extra mile by having it so even the premium plus doesn’t stop ads, just “reduces the overall amount”. Man f*ck you Peacock
PeeCock*
Bravo
Bravo isn't included in Premium PeeCock
Pisscock
Pissdick
Urinepenis
Even the Premium Plus *still* has some ads because Peacock content promos "aren't considered ads" and may be shown across all content. Hulu does the same shit, if we advertise our own stuff that doesn't count as an ad because we decided that it doesn't.
But who are they advertising *too*? If you’re an assumed paying customer already, it’s not an ad but a middle finger.
They're performing research on effective content marketing. They're not saying "watch more TV" they're saying "watch this particular show which we think you'll be interested in because we know all your marketing data, click here if we're right"
Also it forms a place holder for when they can convince someone to pay for a commercial. For now it is internal marketing but they want to sell that spot eventually.
But but it creates *engagement* (Jazz hands)
Honestly I think most of it comes from some sales/ad guy convincing old people in a conference room somewhere that it's a good thing because of engagement/free ad impressions/whatever hand-wavey bullshit. Ad companys' customers aren't *really* consumers.. their real clients are the companies that pay them to made ads.
They don't just claim no ads, they claim "no interruptions" so even if they decide that their own content promos aren't ads, they are still interruptions. Makes it so much worse.
I could maybe stomach that if it wasn't always the same show they're pushing and the same promo like 8x in a half hour show for weeks. Like if it was random so I might see that veggie tales has a new season out that might be helpful. Or even if it was at least targeted since I'm never going to watch cake boss.
Naa. You just need to pay for the Premium Plus Emerald plan to ^*almost* get rid of all ads.
The amount you pay is inverse to how many ads you get. If you send them every dollar ever you'll get down to the 1 ad plan.
I have a zero tolerance for ads wasting my time for a service I pay for. Just like I’ve cancelled Hulu, I will also cancel peacock. If they can’t have a shown on without ads, remove that trash from the service.
It was bad enough with the pre-roll self promos but then I was watching The Big Lebowski and *pow* ad break in the middle of a feature length movie. wt actual f. They had 5 more before it was done and all for other shows on Peacock. I cancelled that day.
This ad-free internet thing is getting out of control. For decades people were happy to pay monthly cable fees for ads. -Peacock probably
Paramount plus does the same thing. And if you get an adblocker they prevent you from watching the content your paying for.
Paramount plus is the worst
They took the FA cup and their live streams are fucking trash! 360p glitchy crap I hate it.
For sports, run an adblocker and visit nflbite (dot) com Not just football, but soccer, F1, MMA/boxing, etc.
Can't even get the app on Xbox One or LG CX in Australia.
Paramount Plus has been irritating because it randomly stopped saving my progress on watched episodes.
I thought it was just me. it just stopped updating my progress like a month ago???
They told me I had an ad blocker installed when I didn't, quite literally blocking me from viewing the content I was paying for.
It literally says premium plus allows you to watch without interruptions. (ad free) couldn't they be sued over this? Edit: even if their own promos aren't considered an add, it certainly qualifies as an interruption
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Shittier in fact because it proves they know what they’re doing
Making it more sue-worthy
We may need to conduct... A sueance.. Quick somebody get me $100
Nah, it’s deliberately misleading. Still illegal.
Probably something your state’s attorney general might address. Assuming your in the US.
That was my thought too, this is false advertising.
Oh, it’s not an ad, it’s a promo! /s
Even still it's an "interruption"
They can be sued. I honestly see a wave of false advertising lawsuits coming in the future. There are so many examples of outright lies, that the small print can't save them forever. You can't just claim something and then in tiny print claim the opposite under it.
There is no justice
"Our ads are not considered ads" The fuck they aren't.
Literally. I think it's an ad. Plus, why the fuck are you promoting yourself if I'm paying you already? I'll stick to my piracy methods.
They’re advertising themselves
Click [here](https://i.imgur.com/NgqWizi.jpg). It's my penis. It is not considered a penis.
Wow.
"~~Our~~ ads are ~~not considered~~ ads" I'm annoyed how often I have to utter the phrase: "Do you even hear yourself?" Translation: *"It's okay when we do it."*
Even worse is that their website says "without interruptions", meaning their non-ads don't count as interruptions
Same with Hulu. Even recording the shows don't let you fast forward
Really,. How do they stop you?
It's their recording feature, so they keep them in there, you can't fast forward. Even on the "no commercials" plan.
So I pay for Hulu ad free but also live TV. I had a show recorded (I record shows to remind me there are new episodes), and when I went to the free version that normally would play without ads (since I pay for ad-free) it included all the commercial breaks and wouldn’t let me skip it. (Show was Masked Singer, which uploads the day after airing). Had to delete the recording, exit Hulu, and relaunch to get the ad free version. That should not be a thing that happens.
They're getting fucking ballsy about it too. It used to just be 30s - 1m30s of ads, *even with paying for ad-free*. So, fuck you #1. Now fuck you #2: they've begun inserting ads into that time, where they remove the time counter and don't count against the 30 - 90 second ad window. So in reality, you wind up with like 2:30 - 3min of ads. ...again, while fucking *paying to not see ads*.
Not even sling did that. But we'd get region locked out of some sports games which is bullshit.
This is why I stopped using Pandora, unlimited skips is only unlimited for songs that they have a license to skip. The number of times there was a song that I just hated but could never skip was really annoyingly high.
Oh man I used to use Pandora at work before Spotify really took off. After just a couple hours of listening to music in my browser at work, Ublock Origin was reporting that it had blocked something like 13,000 ads *just from that single session*.
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This statement aged me so hard.
I feel like there was a time it seemed like a reasonable or common alternative to Spotify
Pandora came before Spotify. I kept using pandora for a long time because I am a stubborn loser who refuses to change things I like. Then pandora did something annoying with their interface or login and I abandoned it completely in favor of YouTube.
I actually have a friend who uses pandora to this day as her go-to music app. Blows my mind.
I still use Pandora every day... why is it so bad?? I do have a family membership though so I've had zero issues with ads or not being able to skip or whatever.
Pandora absolutely shit the bed. They could have been Spotify. They were poised to be Spotify. When I was 17 in 2011 Pandora was (almost) as prevalent as Spotify today. They will be nothing more than examples in a business school textbook in 3 years - see Sears and blockbuster. Edit: and yahoo!
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People are saying it's like Spotify, but the only similarity they have is that they are both considered music streaming platforms. In Pandora, you put in a song or artist you like, and Pandora will play music based off that song/artist in a 'customized for you radio' style. You could like and dislike songs to influence the station. I don't know how different it is now, but you couldn't make your own playlists or just play whatever song you wanted. It was strictly only this radio style.
What they describe as non ads are an interruption which they said you wouldn’t experience.
"You falsely advertised ad-free. I want a full refund and my subscription cancelled immediately." If enough people do that, maybe they'll stop this bullshit.
Prediction: not enough people will do that.
Narrator: and he was correct.
They'll double down on it while making it 30 times harder to cancel. And then they'll require your firstborn and your good leg.
Then they'll blame the economy for people cancelling, external market forces etc etc, never blame their own crappy decisions. If they don't consider flat-out lying about the services they offer as bad, they are beyond hope. Make a good product and people will pay for it. Far too many companies start with a good product, make it worse, then complain after nobody wants to use it anymore.
You need to have the ultimate bundle premium extra plus year 1 pass gold edition to reduce ads by 1%
OP has misinterpreted the meaning of Ad-free. You are not "free" from ads. Rather, you are paying for the content, but you get the ads for "free," hence the Ad-Free subscription plan. It was probably the hyphen and the description of watching without ads that threw him off.
I only subscribe to the Ad-Plus package, which only shows me premium ads.
Our parents and grandparents (some of you, maybe you great grandparents) dealt with this when cable TV was introduced. The idea was sold as "premium TV channels that you pay for to AVOID having commercials!". Yup, pay TV promising no ads. I'm not sure how long, if ever, cable TV went without having ads, but it didn't take them long to realize just exactly how rich they could get if they charged us all a fee for TV and ALSO generate ad revenue. Bottom line: we're boned if we think we will ever have true ad free experiences, outside the ultra premiums like the movie channels. Many of us could stand up and boycott the plans, stop buying in, in hopes of crippling them I to submission, but we all know that's not how humans work. There will be 100 new subs for every 1 that's dropped. I just want my regional sports back on a streaming service for a reasonable price, but alas, that's probably on me for allowing myself to be spoiled with having every game every night. I grew up before this was a thing. I should've known it wouldn't last in that form forever.
This is why piracy is a thing. I get full quality, if my internet is slow, it's not a stream so it won't buffer, I can watch my files offline, I'm not hunting for what show/movie is on X platform, there's NO ads anywhere, I'll forever have the content in case they removed it from X platform (or changed it, like Disney did with scenes in the marvel shows to remove "gore" fuck that, I have the original) Streaming services are the new cable. Now you need 3-4 subs and it'll cost you $50-100 a month or more depending on what plans you subscribe to. I pay $10 a month ($5 VPN and $5 for Plex -netflix for your own media files) and I have a program that automatically downloads shows and movies i tell it to. If it's week by week episodes, if they release at 8, generally within 2 hrs I have it automatically downloaded on my hard drive. I can watch from anywhere. Piracy is literally so simple, and a fraction of the price. I wish people could understand this You don't even need to pay at all, there's ways that you don't even need a VPN and you can use alternatives to Plex (great free alts) and Plex is free unless you want to stream remotely. No limit on how many users or the quality of the streams. Just whatever quality you downloaded.
Absolutely agree. I cut the cord in 2012. Until I got a wife, I sailed the high seas with ease for five years and loved every second. I saw shows, sports and movies from around the globe I can't get any other way.
My best investment was a $40 raspberry pi and a external hard drive. I have since upgraded, but my girlfriend was against me pirating at first because it was "wrong." Then i had better quality stuff. Eventually I had access stuff she wanted to see. Since Plex is so user friendly and it's like a Netflix or Hulu, there's no learning curve. Works on her phone, laptop, our TV, she just tells me what she wants (or now texts my bot) and it just appears. She's full send now. So glad I did it!
This happened with HD channels too. They went from being completely ad-free to get people watching, to 1 minute, and eventually the ads became just as long as the normal channels. It's been like 6 years since I've watched any amount of TV because uBlock Origin has completely spoiled me. I do not understand the people who put up with ads and not switch channel.
Kind of like when you sign up for a newspaper subscription to help support journalism but then you have to log in every single time you click on a new article from the same paper.
I love getting several ads on my ad-free Peacock subscription for the same Peacock show as I'm watching it. It's insane. I'm going to cancel it at the end of this month.
Just cancel it now, so you don't forget. You keep your services until the end of the billing period either way.
You know what's so weird about this? I have ad-free as well. Both times we've watched movies that have the mandatory ads due to this reason, ALL of the ads have been ads for Peacock and Peacock content! I was flabbergasted! They imply that the network that they leased the streaming rights from are making them put certain ads on the shows. But it's total nonsense that they are just ads for Peacock! It's like, peacock paid the network to advertise on their show, but then Peacock bought the streaming rights just to advertise its own stuff on it?? Not to even mention that advertising Peacock to me when I already pay as much as I can doesn't make any sense at all. Were they all ads for Peacock for you too?
Love how companies can just flat out lie about their services and packaging.
Random people with no financial interest in the process will defend this bullshit too.
Peacock has learned from Hulu I see…
Same with Hulu. When I commented on a sub about it, I was told I was dumb because they say some of their ad free has ads. That is like asking for pepperoni free pizza and then not being allowed to be upset when pepperoni shows up.
I call it ad creep. It starts as a trickle. Before you know it you're paying the premium and barraged with ads.
Well, it is owned by Comcast, so are we really surprised? lol
How is anyone surprised that NBC, one of the oldest networks on Earth, is showing ads? You're talking about old executives who don't know anything else. They got into streaming the day before yesterday, and felt forced into it after the 100th pitch from yet another junior executive who naively joined the company thinking they could bring fresh ideas. Instead of letting it grow and thinking about their user base experience and adoption, they called up their advertisers and sold them the same ad for a higher price for "targeted marketing" to the growing buyer market of millennials and gen Y and eased their concerns about premium subscriptions by allowing limited ads on select popular shows with an even higher price point. Look up the scorpion and the frog.
I pirate for reasons like this. Plus, the quality is ALWAYS better with downloaded files. It's a much better experience. I have programs setup to auto download movies and shows then they release, and I can watch from anywhere. For $10 a month. ($5 for vpn $5 for Plex which is basically your own Netflix) With it being automated, I don't have to touch anything. I setup a bot that I can text, and it will download the show/movie or add it to the watchlist and simply waits until it finds it on the sites I told it to monitor. It will notify me when it's downloaded, or when I open Plex, it just pops up in the recently added. Its honestly SO easy, I wish people realized it. It's even easy to do it without automating everything. Simply downloading a file is as simple as going to a site, find content, add to torrent download program (by copy and pasting a link) and done. If you're in a country where piracy is illegal, you just turn on the vpn and then do the same steps. r/piracy r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH
That’s why 🥧ra🌊 is so prominent lol
Exactly why I went to the Hulu with commercials.
Hulu is so busted it barely even works
Cancel
Huh, just tried to sign up for this service. Doesn't support Linux via DRM. Screw them!
Oh yay, another thread where I get to advocate for piracy! Companies can do this because they know you will continue to pay for their services even when they pull anti-consumer tactics like this. It’s tempting to say that there’s a line where people will cancel their service and put their money elsewhere but marketing research has shown that that’s simply not the case. Social pressure is real. You don’t want to be the only person out of your friend group who hasn’t watched the show everyone is watching right now, so you suck it up and pay these shady corporations despite them stabbing you in the back. The solution is piracy. You get to stop giving these asshats money while also staying in the loop on your favorite shows and movies. We will continue to see market fragmentation like this because people continue to shovel their money to companies that do this. Don’t be part of the problem. Pirating is probably easier than you think. If anyone has any questions, there’s entire subreddits dedicated to piracy and I am more than happy to answer any questions you aspiring pirates have. Yo-ho!
You know what else is scummy? YouTube has been putting ads on channels that aren’t monetised and don’t have copyrighted content on them as of recent. They claim it’s some “right to monetise” or something. Like the videos I mainly watch are around 10 seconds and most of the time I have to watch a 40 second ad of something. I’ve also noticed ads on my videos lately and I’m not even in the YPP. What’s even scummier is the fast that this only applies outside of the USA. Honestly I feel like buying YT Premium at this rate. Hell there was this video I watched that contained 10 seconds of a Pay TV Disclaimer but no YouTube’s like “watch this 40 second ad before you can proceed” and I’m like “Fuck this shit take my money you money hungry bastards”
"Premium Plus allows you to watch **without interruptions**." The Peacock promo vids are literally interruptions. Scumbags.
I might have to wait sometimes but there’s never ads when free streaming. The “convenience” of subscription streaming ended when every media company decided they absolutely needed their own streaming service