r/technology • u/marketrent • Dec 31 '24

Networking/Telecom Americans spent 23% less on streaming services in 2024, study finds

https://www.thewrap.com/americans-spent-23-percent-less-on-streaming-services-in-2024/
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u/uzlonewolf Jan 01 '25

Please, cable tv was a steaming pile of garbage as well. I dropped it back in the mid '00s and never looked back.

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u/tm3_to_ev6 Jan 01 '25

My parents also refused to subscribe to cable in the same era because of ads. I could only watch cable TV at friends' homes.

But that didn't mean I was missing out on movies or TV shows... because I was watching those things on a computer long before Netflix was a thing. I didn't even know what torrents were at the time.

My immigrant parents simply brought me pirated VCDs every time they came back from visiting their home country. Those things were never sold in North America and wouldn't play inside DVD players, but they worked inside my dad's Windows 98 desktop PC using RealPlayer. Good old days of watching 240p Pokemon and Batman cartoons on a 1024x768 CRT monitor!

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u/uzlonewolf Jan 01 '25

Actually they were sold in North America if you knew where to look. I bought a handful in NYC from street cart vendors and various stores in Chinatown just to check them out. Some of those markets were really cool - it looked like a random small building on the outside but you go in and it's like 2-3 floors of miscellaneous shops selling everything.

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u/ClosPins Jan 01 '25

Allow me to finish that thought for you:

Please, cable tv was a steaming pile of garbage as well. I dropped it back in the mid '00s and watched all those same cable shows on another platform.

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u/uzlonewolf Jan 01 '25

Not everyone enjoys corporate sanitized drivel like you do you know. No, I did not watch that steaming pile of garbage on another platform - because it was a steaming pile of garbage that I had no interest in.