Streaming Getting Too Expensive ?

Are streaming service costs getting out of hand? I mean, do you have to choose between eating or watching your favorite streaming provider? Let's talk about it. It's time for a virtual campfire sit down with Terry Weiss. Welcome to Weiss Thoughts. Welcome everyone, Welcome to another episode of Wis's Thoughts. I am Terry Weiss and I am so glad that you've decided to join me on this episode of the podcast today what I like to call our virtual campfire sit down. Thank you for joining me. And just a reminder, I do have a website. It is Weis's Thoughts dot com for the podcast. Just make sure you spell my name right WYCEE Weis's Thoughts for the podcast. And I also have a voiceover website at Terry Weiss. You just go Terry Weiss dot com, not at Terry Weiss. At Terry Weiss is my handle on X formerly known as Twitter, but you can tweet at me on Twitter or X if you want to call it that at Terry Weiss. And Terry Weiss dot com is the voiceover website as well, and the YouTube channel of the same name Terry Weiss on YouTube and oh Gosh on Facebook and all over the place LinkedIn you name it, I'm out there, so I am not hard to find. But good day, one and all, or good evening or good afternoon or good morning wherever you happen to be listening to the program today. And welcome, welcome, welcome. So what are we going to talk about on this episode of the podcast. Well, as teased in the intro, we are going to talk about streaming services. They seem to be going up and you know it used to be that. Well, you know what, before we get into that, let's do our wordsmith word of the episode, shall we. It's that time again. It's time for the wordsmith word of the episode. That's right, it certainly is. Thank you, mister announcer extraordinaire. All right, let's get to our artificial woman announcer AWA for short. What is this week's wordsmith word of the episode? Neoteric? Okay, say that one more time so we can hear that pronunciation. Neoteric, all right. Neoteric spelled n EO t e r ic ne e o t e r i c. And it is a noun. It can be used as a form of a noun. A modern person a person who advocates new ideas or as an a an adjective. It can be a new or modern or recent. Some example sentences. Even though he has a shelf of classic rock albums, Tom tends to listen to the most neoteric releases. Or another sentence that you can use the word neoteric in the University gallery is the hub of the city's neoteric art scene. So there you go. This week's wordsmith word of the episode. It is the word origin is from Latin in the late sixteenth century neoteric n e O t e ri i c and pronounced in the following manner neoteric. And that is this week's word smith word of the episode. So now everyone has a big brain. Everyone is smart and uh you know, yahoo, goodye for us, goody for you. So there you go. Now you can go out and impress your friends because you have the wordsmith word of the episode. There we go. You know, you know it works better when I talk into the microphone. Oh golly. You know sometimes you get in the studio and it's just you got a failing. It's gonna be one of those days and you're like, should I really go on and do this or not? But no, we do it. Come on, you know we do it. We love being with you, so neo terk, there you go. So anyway, welcome to this little ditty called Weis's thoughts. I am so glad you decided to join us today, and I am so glad that you are here and we are all enjoying everything as we Shamela a ding dong along here. So as promised in the opener, we're talking about streaming. Okay, streaming, and when I say streaming, a lot of you out there immediately, what's your first thing that comes to mind? Netflix? I mean that's like one of the biggest one, or you know, it could be YouTube TV or Hulu TV, stuff like that. When you think of streaming, you think generally of people who have cut the cord, found a way to get away from the big cable companies and have cut the cord and wanted to escape. Number one, and probably the foremost reason that people do it is for the money to save themselves a few shillings as it were, a few pennies, a few pounds depending on your country of origins currency, and they try and do it to save money. That's what we did in the White's household. We did it initially to try and save some money because you know, cable kept going up every year. But now here's the thing, my friends, here's the thing. Have you noticed in the past couple of years, especially in the past year, that streaming services not only one time, but in some companies' cases some of them, some of them have doubled down on increasing your rate twice in a year. I mean, you know, you got Disney Plus, you got Hulu, YouTube TV raised their rates a little bit while back, Fubio TV. Apple just came out with streaming. Now they're Apple TV Plus, which isn't really quote TV oriented like where you get you know, your regular terrain type channels cable channels. They're more of like a Netflix type thing where they offer you know, independent programming and things of that nature. They've raised their prices and in fact, in fact, when it comes to Apple TV, they just had a walloping price increase across the board on practically every service they offer for streaming, Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, you know, the what's the other one, Apple News, you know in a major major I mean it went up. I subscribe to the Apple Premiere Plus or Apple Premiere I think it's called they you bundle all of the services. You get your cloud storage, you get Apple News, you get Apple Music, you get Apple Fitness, you get Apple TV Plus and all that. And I was paying like thirty four bucks a month. By the time you got down with tax, you know, it was about thirty six dollars, because you know, government and states got to take their bite. And I thought, well, you know, it was a decent value for the money because I was saving, you know, a couple hundred dollars a year as opposed to buying all these things separately. Okay, so I'm not above looking into that seeing if it's a worthwhile investment for myself. However, they just raise that by five bucks a month. Okay, that's that's pretty substantial. I mean five dollars a month. Now, it's going to be near like forty dollars a month when you all get said and done. It's like thirty seven something. I think thirty seven to ninety five for all those services. Now, these companies Apple include, and you those of you that listen to the Waste Thoughts podcast know that I am a big Apple fanboy, fan guy, what have you. Because I use a lot of the Apple products and have for over a decade. And again I've gone into reasonings why do this on past programs, because they just work for me. They just work. You know, very rarely that something goes to Ryan breaks down, and if it does, I can pick up a phone, I can call somebody. As opposed to companies that hide behind chatbots and email and AI chatbots and everything. You know, their customer service is by far still still for my money, the best in the industry. However, it comes with like some of you out there like to call it the Apple tax. Well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, pets of all ages. If you buy a product and it basically works and doesn't break down every other day, and if you have a run into a problem or an issue or a concern and then you've got to speak to someone, you can actually get a hold of somebody. I think that goes a long way for a few dollars more. However, they're getting kind of greedy as well, so I digress. I was a little disappointed at the you know, the frequency and the amount of the price hike. I really was. You know, Netflix has been just raising their their their prices every year and now you know, now now latest I have been an Amazon Prime subscriber pretty much since the program started way back when it was like forty nine dollars. Then it went to sixty nine dollars, then it went to seventy nine dollars, then it went to ninety nine dollars, you know, then it went up to one hundred and II think it was nine or nineteen and one twenty nine. Well, now it's up to over one hundred and fifty some bucks a year. But with that, you know, me and the missus, we do shop a lot on Prime and buy things. And you got the Amazon Prime movies and TV shows and the offer. They kind of threw that in as well, with a couple of the perks. And if you listen to Amazon Music with commercials or you know, they kind of threw that in as well. However, here here's a little sneaky thing Bezos, Jeff Bezos and Amazon has done now for Amazon Prime subscribers. So you're paying, you were paying for all those features, but now they're gonna sneak commercials in to Amazon Prime video and television programs. And if you want those commercials removed, if you don't want to watch two minutes or whatever, commercials you've got to pay an extra five dollars a month, five dollars a month to escape commercials. I mean, these companies are getting a little ridiculous, I think on the consumer side as far as and they they give you the corporate speak, well, it's to maximize development and content providers want more money. You know, we're doing original programming, and we got to pay these actors, got to pay the studios and the directors because you the public, have said you want more original programming. You see how it's a slippery slope, you know, a rabbit hole that you know you can fall down. Now, a lot of people have begun pulling back, and our household included on some of the streaming services because I challenge you to do this. I challenge you to do this because we did this in our household, and when we did, we would holy crap. The amount of money your household spends on streaming services, audio video subscription type, you know, internet based subscription services. Add them all up, write them down. I challenge you to do this. When you look at that number, you are probably going to need it depends because you're going to crap yourself because we did I mean, no, we didn't cramp ourselves. But we were like, wow, I can't believe that. And some of them we've just canceled. Some of them were like, you know what, I can live without this. I can live without that. You know what, we don't need that streaming service because there's free alternatives out there. We can cut back on this and no, we don't need that. And we've ended up saving ourselves almost five to six hundred dollars right off the bat, just doing minor cuts to streaming services and internet subscription based items six hundred dollars a year. Now, you might not look at that, you know, you might be out there singletary, big deal, six hundred dollars a year. You know, I get Starbucks twice a week. You know. That's how they get you. That's how they get you. They, as my grandfather used to say, God rest his soul, they nickel and dime you to death. And he was saying that about things long before the Internet it was around. They'll nickel and dime you the death. And that's what's happening, my friends. These internet companies, these streaming providers, they're nickel and diming us to death. They're getting us hooked on the content and the programming, and they nickel and dime you to death. You know, we we were looking back, you know, we were looking at internet TV providers. Now we have Spectrum for our internet provider. We have Spectrum. Now Spectrum offers you could get the terrestrial cable box. But they're going away from those. Okay. They have something called Zoomo. I think it's Xumo Zoomo that they want to have you have in your house, which is basically your house is basically wired up. That's for Internet. There's no more cable TV boxes in your house. They're trying to push everybody to this, okay, which okay, fine, because maybe it's easier for them to control. But they now they want to charge your five bucks for that, so I guess cable box rental was what nine ten bucks back in the day. However, for the past couple of years, we have as I mentioned, you know, we're an Apple household mostly and we have Apple TVs throughout the house and all our televisions, so we've been using that for our extra content you know, Netflix, Hulu, what have you, and our Apple movies that we purchased through iTunes, as well as a couple other things. So when they finally developed the Spectrum TV app for the Apple TV, we said, oh okay, and it just kind of came with it. You know, we were able to download it for free because we had a cable box in the house. A couple of years back, however, they came to us and offered us an Internet only version of our TV subscription and a great package. I mean a great package, and I said, okay, we'll try it. You still get a cloud DVR. The cloud DVR has gotten better over the past couple of years. So I will give kudos and props where it is due to Spectrum. It has gotten better of the past couple of years. It allows you to keep it, you know, take it with you on the go, et cetera. So, you know, the the corporations, the big media corporations in that and the cable companies now are trying to embrace streaming. And I say all this to say this, sit down, take a hard look at what you're subscribing to on the internet, especially you know, audio slash video services. You might want to take a look. If you've cut the cord, you might want to take a look at your cable company again for the simple fact. The simple fact is that they might be offering a streaming only package that can get you the channels with their app through your device and save you a hell of a lot of money. They are actually coming around full circle and actually kind of being the best bang for your buck, the best the best value for your money. At this point in time, at least, it wasn't our household after we looked at because we had tried YouTube TV, tried Fubio TV. I think that's how you pronounce that Fubio. Fubio is nice, and they had a couple of you know, cool features, but they're the thing the problem with them, and they still haven't resolved this. And this has been going on for a lot of majority of people I've heard and because I had to look it up in forums when I ran into this problem with it during our trial is that when you record something on their DVR system, you can't delete it. It won't delete, It'll just keep coming back. You'll delete it and it'll show you initially, but then when you go back into the app on any device, your recording shows back up again. Well, that's the same problem I had with YouTube TV. You can't record individual programs or episodes or a season on YouTube TV. If you want to record something on YouTube TV, let's say that is a episodic type of television program. You get every freaking episode of that, and you got to wade through and find what's recorded what isn't. Now, I'm sure they probably have their logistical or operational parameters. Excuse me for why that is. I'm gonna take a quick sip of water here. I'm sure they have a reason why that is. But YouTube TV, Google, come on, guys, how about individual recordings? Are allowing seasons like Hulu does. I think you'd get a lot more people coming over to you a YouTube TV if you offer that, because your product is pretty darn good. And then there's Hulu TV there they're good as well. However, when you look at the prices of these these offerings seventy five eighty eighty five, ninety dollars a month for what you were paying seventy dollars a month, eighty dollars a month for in cable, and then by the time you get done with everything, cable might be you know, going back to the cables version of their streaming offerings might be the best way for you to go at this point in time. You know, I remember early on a lot of the talk was, yeah, let's let's jump out of you know, traditional landline, you know, terrestrial television and cable, so we can you know, we're going to go into the offerings of internet television and providers for that and see what these companies can offer for the simple fact of competition will open up the market. Well, one company, now, you know, Netflix, keeps raising their prices. They are definitely, by far the most expensive platform right now, the most expensive streaming platform for video is Netflix. Correct me if I'm wrong, email me at Terry at wiss Thoughts or mail at waste thoughts dot com. But they're definitely, in my mind's eye and research the most expensive platform. And quite honestly, they have some nice content on there. They've had some you know, they've lured some Hollywood stars and they've had some great content. However, at what point do you stay stay to yourself, this is just too much money for this what especially especially in this economy over the past couple three years, you know, with the economy on the downturn. Not to be a debbie downer, but at what point do you say, do I pay Netflix and have Netflix or do I eat this week? You know, and some of us that's a choice for some of us, you know, I mean, not myself, but I know some of you out there, I mean, and I get it, all right. You've got to have entertainment, everybody. You got to have something to do, whether it's read a book, watch a movie, sing a song, listen to music, what have you. Otherwise you just sit around going to be and you go bonkers. You know, I totally understand that. But at what point does the streaming offerings out there, audio video, you know, literary content based. At what point do these become more of a burden than they are worth? At what point are they financially just not worth it any longer? Excuse me? So you have to you have to determine that. And again, the best thing I would recommend is to sit down with your family and go through every single streaming platform, internet platform, everything that you subscribe to, and start looking at ways to cut back. Like I said, here in our household, we did it, and we just we just trimmed the fat a very very little. We just touched the surface and guess what we saved over six hundred dollars a year, and we don't miss anything that we cut out. Don't miss it at all. It was really painless. I was surprised. Hey, thanks for listening to the program today. I truly appreciate each and every one of you out there. And remember to see a change in the world, you have to be the change in the world you want to see. It all starts with you, the person looking back at you in the mirror every morning. Remember to be kind to yourself, be kind to others. If you want to tweet at me on Twitter, it's at Terry Weiss. Stop by the website Wis's Thoughts dot com just to make sure you spell my name right wysis Thoughts dot com, and hey, leave us a positive rating and review on your favorite podcast provider. Won't you tell your friends, tell your family, tell your pets about White's Thoughts, and I look forward to gathering yet again around the virtual campfire with you real soon. Take care,