Netflix Canada is done with being basic. The streaming giant says it's phasing out the $9.99 'basic' option from its price plans, taking away the cheapest subscription without ads.
I should probably thank Netflix for helping me save money. Their shenanigans pissed me off enough that I've entirely withdrawn from all paid streaming - I have a media server and a VPN now. Total media cost, $70 /year or ~$5.83 /month. For that, I have:
Access to any movie or t.v. show any streaming service has ever provided
No ads
Shows/films don't get removed from from the platform without warning.
Look up Plex. And then look up Plexshares. Unfortunately the subreddit is private at the moment so I'm not sure where else to look but I am a part of one and I pay 18AUD, have access to all the latest movies Anne TV shows that are on streaming or have been on streams.
A couple of people have asked for more info about my setup, so here's what I did. I'm on mobile, so forgive any typos:
I bought a refurbished Dell mini PC from some website or other - if you Google "refurbished Dell mini PC" it'll probably be the top result. It doesn't need to be fast or have too much memory, but I've got a 2TB hard disk in mine, which is surprisingly cheap. Also needs at least one HDMI port.
I installed Ubuntu 20.04, and made a single user with no password, then set it to boot straight to the desktop. Plugged it directly into the t.v. with an HDMI cable.
I bought a cheap wireless keyboard with a roller ball in it that (barely, need a better one) can be used from my couch.
Installed Jellyfin and set it to run as a background service on boot. It has two directories it cares about: ~/Videos/Film and ~/Videos/Television
Set up ssh so that I can use scp to push files from my personal laptop to the server without having to dick around with thumb drives etc. I also have a script that checks how much disk space is available on the media server so I don't run out (that 2TB drive fills up fast).
Got a NordVPN subscription and use Transmission on my personal laptop to download anything I want to see, push it to the server.
For a while, I also had an external domain name and IP so I could watch my videos on my phone while travelling, but I switched routers recently and something broke. I haven't set this back up, but there are services that will give you a static IP and route requests to your actual IP so you can have a static domain name without having to pay your ISP for a static IP.
EDIT: also, you can set commands to run at login, so it boots directly to Firefox running in kiosk mode on the Jellyfin web app. The end result is that on boot, I get the Ubuntu symbol, a brief flash of desktop, and then I'm browsing my media library full screen.
We cancelled Netflix when they changed their plans earlier this year forcing people to pay extra to use their account in multiple locations.
Fuck em. There's plenty of streaming websites to watch their content without going through their platform, so whatever. Paying them was a means to say thank you for providing your service, but after being treated like that, they can get bent.
I was with them for over ten years. Cancelled when they said I could share an account with my mom. Sorry, it's just not that good anymore and the prices have gone way up. It was time to get out of the pot.
Why Canada? The artice says Netflix also used Canada to test its password sharing changes as well so it seems Canadians are a testing ground for Netflix for some reason
Why Canada? The artice says Netflix also used Canada to test its password sharing changes as well so it seems Canadians are a testing ground for Netflix for some reason
Well, Canadians have many biological similarities to humans, so they’re good candidates for a variety of experiments
I had noticed this as well. My theory is, they see us as a demographically similar market to the US but significantly smaller. So they can test their plans on us to get an idea of response before rolling it out to a larger American audience while taking a much smaller financial risk.
Bingo. Canada, Australia and New Zealand are all used as "test markets". They try an idea out with one of us to see how it might work in the larger markets.
Probably because viewing habits are similar to the US, but not as large. So if the "testing" doesn't go well, they don't lose out as much as the bigger markets.
Corporate test markets are always in areas where the demographics cover many different targets. If you test in an area that leans heavily towards one demographic, mostly old people for example, then you don't get any data about how other groups view your change, like teenagers.
Canada is incredibly diverse but also small and with well defined boundaries.
Personally I had cancelled my subscription a couple years ago. Not even over any particular action on Netflix's part. I wasn't using the service enough to justify paying for it monthly.
So now they've confirmed existing basic plan members are also being targeted "in the near future". No problem, I've saved them the trouble for myself. I had mostly stopped using it by now anyway, not even worth the $10/month I was wasting on it