4.22 /// The Digital Dilemma: Subscription Overload...

Ever find yourself overwhelmed by the ever-growing list of streaming subscriptions and miss the simplicity of owning physical media? This week's episode of Infinite Prattle springs from my recent reflections on this very dilemma. Fresh from an eventful weekend at the British Superbikes in Knock Hill, Scotland, and after wrestling with some technical gremlins, I take you through the nostalgic charm of CDs and DVDs versus the modern-day convenience of services like Netflix and Disney Plus. We'll explore the transition from old MP3 players to cloud-based music storage and discuss how I juggle multiple subscriptions by rotating them for maximum media enjoyment.

In our deep dive into the evolving landscape of digital subscriptions, we tackle the soaring costs and bundled offerings like YouTube and YouTube Music. Is it time for more customizable options in our streaming choices? As we critique the rising prices against often limited content libraries, I ponder the practicality of a universal film archive with usage-based charges. Plus, we touch on the potential degradation of physical media and the reliability of cloud storage, all while reminiscing about a time when our media consumption was more intentional and less dependent on the digital realm. This episode promises a reflective yet critical take on the modern media landscape.

Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Chapters

• 0:01 Subscription Services and Binge Watching
• 12:15 The Cost of Subscription Overload

Transcript

Stephen : 0:01

Hello and welcome to Infinite Prattle. On today's episode, we're going to be talking about subscription services and binge watching, things from certain types of subscription services where you can watch and binge. Um, I don't think I need to explain that, really. Anyway, stay tuned for that. You're listening to infinite prattle with your host, steven. Thanks for joining me for unscripted, unedited everything. Welcome to, uh, welcome to another episode of Infinite Prattle with me. Stephen Um, if you're first time here, welcome. If you're not, what are you doing with your life? No, on a serious note, I appreciate all the support and, uh, I'm gonna make a confession. You may have seen on the social media that I posted over the weekend that, uh, this episode would be delayed by a day Because I had recorded an episode, lost the episode, found the episode but didn't have time to upload it and everything.

Stephen : 1:12

Before going away for the weekend, I went to the British Superbikes in Knock Hill in Scotland and I've come back and it's the Monday now, so I'm recording this quite close to the bone. To be honest, it's like half four. I don't even know where this is going. I'm so disorganised. I've been very tired today. It was a long drive, it was a busy weekend and I've been chilling out and I lost track of time. I was watching some football from the Euros and I lost track of time. So I'm very sorry, I'm rubbish anyway. Yeah, when I actually did discover the recording, I don't know I'd done with my microphone and I'd bodged something up and I wasn't happy. And he does have better quality. I know I'm a bit crap with a lot of stuff and I don't really plan stuff. That's the whole idea of this podcast. Most of the stuff in my life is meticulous. Um, when I do get down into it, I, I, I do work hard to create some quality stuff, but I, I decided just to record it, re-record it today, um, because I really couldn't talk as well the other day I, I was, um, my brain was full of stuff and I feel a't talk as well. The other day I was, my brain was full of stuff. I feel a bit more relaxed after the weekend and, oh, I left my phone on. That's what I didn't do the other day. I'll take my phone off now, silent mode, yeah. So I just thought I'll just re-record it today, because I actually came up with a couple more ideas I should have mentioned. It was all over the place worse than usual. So I thought, you know, I will re-record, and I also wanted to add some stuff in from last week. My downloads have like suddenly shot up, which is amazing. So I don't know that's down to one person or multiple people, but whoever's been listening recently? Thank you very much.

Stephen : 3:01

Anyway, onto subscription services and, um, binge watching, um, because most, most subscription services that most people will do will be something to do with, uh, media, I would say, and, uh, the intake of media. So what is a subscription service? Well, it's a service that you pay for to get a service. It's a something you pay to get a service for, normally monthly or yearly, and, um, you normally don't end up owning the thing. You kind of it's on lease or it's ethereal digital media, something like netflix or disney plus or something like that. And um, over the last I would say maybe like 10 years, it's become super, super popular and although I am going to rant a little bit about it today so rant warning I don't use these sound effects very often, for obvious reasons, I'm not very good at them. So, yeah, even though I'm not really a fan of them, I am subscribed to quite a few subscription services, but it's the only way to get certain media now and physical.

Stephen : 4:16

I did a podcast a while ago about physical media and how I miss it, but it also takes a lot of space in your house. So having digital content is is really, really useful, but it's not if you want to own that thing and it is nice to own an item, um, I've got loads of cds and dvds and stuff in the loft. I got rid of a lot of my dvds. Actually, I kept like a precious selection and got rid of the rest. Really, um, and the ones that I kept were like special ones, special edition versions, etc. And I kept the, the blu-rays that I had, um, and everything else I got rid of, uh, kept all my cds. I've got all my cds and I've got a collection of mini discs there's an episode on that, don't get me started on minidiscs, um, and it is nice to have that physical media.

Stephen : 5:07

But I mean it's handy to have the digital because, let's face it, you buy a cd, you normally put it into itunes or windows media, whatever service you use, and then you can put it onto your mp3 player, but mp3 players have really died, so you upload them to the cloud, uh, through itunes or something, and then you can listen to on your phone digitally. Um, I used to have an mp3 player. I used to have an ipod and I used to have an old sony one that I used to have, which was fantastic, far superior than an ipod, really. I thought for like build, quality, etc. But the interface was terrible. Itunes nailed the software. The Sony I can't remember what it was called, but the Sony software was absolutely abysmal. Sonic Stage, yes, sonic Stage, anyway.

Stephen : 5:55

So, yeah, I'm subscribed to quite a few things and I probably need to stop because I feel like I need to subscribe to one, watch some shit and unsubscribe, switch to another one, watch some shit, unsubscribe and switch to another one. However, I have Disney+, discovery+, netflix. What else do I have? Amazon Prime Video. That's because I've got Amazon Prime. I've got Apple TV because it's like a family subscription thing, which is actually quite good good to be fair, and it's not, I think, 40 getting that is actually quite good to see, like you know, server space and um, film, tv, music, all that sort of stuff. So I've got that, uh, and it's and it's a family thing, so my wife can use it as well. What else do I have. I think that's enough, really. I used to have powerpoint plus but I cancelled that. I think that's all actually. I think that's all, but it comes to about 70 pound a month.

Stephen : 6:54

Normally you get a discount if you do annual, but that's a lot of money. That's a lot of money considering there's a lot of content on my fingertips, don't get me wrong. But then I don't physically own it. If I really like a film that I've seen, I'm like well, I don't actually own that now. But it does also get you out of the fact that if you ever Because I used to buy films and go, that's shit, I haven't bought that or I thought it would be good and it isn't Then you own a film that you don't actually like. Whereas like, whereas the good thing about digital content is you can, you know, suppose, kind of like when you used to go to the video store and rent a video or a dvd, I used to remember going to hire a vhs and, uh, yeah, I suppose it's kind of like that. The digital media is like the taster and if you really want to buy it then you go buy it. But then you think to yourself, well, I've already paid for it kind of, then I don't want to spend money buying it. It's a dilemma.

Stephen : 7:48

We live in a time where, um, technology moves so quickly and physical media is being edged away. I mean, it seems to have, although there has been a seem to be a resurgence recently in blu-ray players because they're really pushing these 4k blu-rays steelbooks they just re-released Aliens and Terminator. James Cameron's doing like, I think, his back catalogue in this 4k steelbook seems to be a thing. Um, I think you need a 4k blu-ray player to play them and a 4k tv. And my blu-ray player is in loft, for one thing is in my, in my attic, and, uh, the one I've got downstairs is technically in my the blue, but I've got downstairs is actually my xbox, so I took that downstairs to play that. And again, xbox. I don't.

Stephen : 8:36

I don't have a few games on there that are digital media, digital purchases, and you can actually buy games on the internet and they send you a case. So you get the game case with it, with the artwork in and sometimes a manual, weird um, but then there's no cd or dvd. Whatever it is, it's like a dvd, isn't it? Like a blu-ray disc, basically, but there's no CD or DVD, whatever it is, it's like a DVD, isn't it? Like a Blu-ray disc, basically. But there's not a disc, it's a code to go onto the Microsoft shop and download the game. That's the freaking point. Like, if I buy a game physically, I want the actual physical disc.

Stephen : 9:10

And the risk of doing all this, especially making purchases digitally because I have some iTunes stuff, normally through the fact that I've bought the blu-ray and they used to give you a digital copy to download on, like what's called ultraviolet or itunes. So they normally give you a choice uh, sometimes it was just ultraviolet and sometimes it was both or a mixture. You can redeem it on multiple sites, um, so I've got a lot of films through that and I've bought some stuff myself. But the risk again with that is if they decide to close or the companies go bankrupt or the terms and conditions change or they want to make you see a different version of that film, you can't do anything about it. You can't do anything. They've got you, they've got you, they've got you. Like in a vice of give us money, we'll give you what we want you to see. So the library's changed on these downloadable services and then we'll also. We could just remove stuff whenever we want to, we could change the version on that film. Yeah, there's and there's not a lot of choice. I mean, the disney plus app seems to be pretty good. I think you can like. You can choose, like the kind of the options.

Stephen : 10:20

I think I watched aliens recently because he had the upgrade that to the 4k and I watched aliens on there and I'm pretty sure I give you the option to watch the movie or the theatrical, the directors of the theatrical version, because I love the director's version of aliens. I love the directors' version of Aliens. I love the directors' version of Alien as well, actually A lot more features in that. And we're not going to talk about Aliens. I'm going to do a very special couple of episodes of Aliens because I've got to like nearly the end of Series 4 and I've not even spoken about Aliens.

Stephen : 10:50

It's one of my biggest loves. Yeah, but like loves. Um, yeah, but like they really have you by the balls, really that they could just change their terms and conditions whenever they want to and you've got nothing you can do about it and you don't actually physically own anything. Um, whereas at least you buy blu-ray. You've got that forever and you could supposedly keep a blu-ray player, even if it becomes an antique and you could potentially repair them or maybe buy another one, you know, yeah, it's a strange thing. It's a strange thing.

Stephen : 11:20

I'm a fan of having access to stuff wherever you want, because obviously we carry these little digital assistants around in our pockets Little digital computers, really, aren't they Like phones and tablets and we can just consume. Oh, I'm also subscribed to YouTube as a subscription and, to be fair, that's the one I use kind of the most. I follow there's a couple of episodes on my subscriptions and they did pretty well. Actually, people seem to like them. So I might do some of that lines again. But I just went through all the people I like to watch on youtube, or my my favorite people at that time, and, uh, I consume quite a lot of my media through youtube. Um, I like the content that people put out there, um, yeah, so I think that's the one I would always probably keep.

Stephen : 12:15

I'd like it to be cheaper, because I'd like you to have the option of only having the video or audio. But if you subscribe to YouTube, they basically give you YouTube music and YouTube, and I'd like to. I would prefer, maybe, to save a few quid and knock the music bit off, because I already have the Apple iTunes stuff. Yeah, music bit off, because I already have the apple apple itunes stuff. Um, yeah, but the subscription thing is, I think, getting out of control. It is getting out of control. The prices are going up as well, um, and I don't think that we get anything more for it.

Stephen : 12:47

Like all the stuff's gone up and I know they've got server charges and electric charges and stuff, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't mind, necessarily, if they said, right, everything we've ever done is on this thing, like, I know netflix like changed that stuff around because obviously we're signing contracts and deals with certain film uh, companies to you know, have a periodic, um, license for playing their stuff, um, but disney, like if all of disney fox stuff was on, was on there, like every single thing they've ever done, everything, like literally I'm talking everything shorts, cartoons, features, live action, you know, going way, way back, I wouldn't mind, but it isn't, it isn't, and that's where they've got you, you see, because you're subscribing to, you know what is relevant to them and what they want you to see. It would be, it would be so much better if, like, there was just one archive of all film and they maybe logged how much you're consuming and then they charge you by that, charge you by data. Would that many? Would that be any better? I, I don't know. I suppose for the casual viewer it might be a thing, but for people that you know engage a lot, maybe that would cost them an absolute bloody fortune. I don't know, it's a strange thing. It would be even cooler if you could. Actually, I don't know. Sky did a thing for a while that if you bought the film from Sky, the digital version version, they would send you a hard copy of the dvd. I think it was, I don't think it was a blu-ray, but it was the dvd. So you still had a hard copy, which I think is quite cool. Cool thing to do.

Stephen : 14:27

Um, yeah, it's just a weird world that we've come into, where things just seem to be we don't need to own it. But maybe that's coming from the concept of like touching what I said earlier, that we don't want to own stuff because we've got too much shite in our houses. You know how space is precious not that you don't have. From looking at this bedroom I'm sitting right now, however, um, but space in your house is a premium. You know you want to keep your house kind of decluttered. You want as much space as you can, you know, for the important things, just for mood around it.

Stephen : 15:02

I like things, though, but there's the other way of looking at it. I suppose there's like $7.99 for Disney+. You could watch like a film a day. I don't know how many films are on there, how long it would take you to get to the end. But if you decide to buy a film a day, you're probably talking like anywhere between 5 and 15 quid maybe for that content. So that makes the physical media so much more expensive. But then what price do you put on that? Because then you can keep that forever.

Stephen : 15:34

And I read somewhere actually recently and I think my mate told me this as well that DVD media content was wiping itself. I'm not sure if that was just like rewritable formats, though, but if you had like a rewritable DVD, they were actually degrading to the point they wouldn't read, which is actually quite scary, because I've got some like backup dvds of like photographs and stuff like that. So what, what is safe? What is safe because we back all our phone stuff up to the cloud now? Well, that all disappeared. Thousands and thousands of phone phone pictures and my dog would disappear, yeah, but it is a strange thing. But binging stuff has become a massive thing and I think, because we can get everything just straight to our phones, like it's a bad thing.

Stephen : 16:16

In a way, like mindfulness plays a part, like before I had a phone that could do all this stuff. Like I was like off the grid, a little bit. Like I am of a generation where I had a phone at 16, I think it was Like I didn't get a phone when I was super, super young. I might have been still 15., but I wasn't too old. I wasn't too young, should I say. But children now, like five-year-olds, six-year-olds, have like smartphones or tablets. It's bloody crazy, it's unneeded, it's not necessary. It's not necessary. I don't think, and I would like, I'd love to revert back to a time where we were more engaged with each other rather than having this content. But it's certainly drawn me in, like the first time when I subscribed to Netflix, I had a day off and when Breaking Bad was online, I decided to watch it because I had a couple of free episodes from itunes.

Stephen : 17:13

They used to do a thing where it was like the 12 days of christmas. It was a great thing. Um, if you had an itunes account, they would just literally say you can download. I think it was an app. Actually, you download an app and it just revealed something every day with a link. So, like the first day might have been like the first 12 day of Christmas might have been like we're going to give you a song for free. The second day would have been like an app for free. The third day would be a film, and it would just go through the 12 days and you get 12 unique items from Apple. But there was always so much backlash about it, like they give away a film and they go oh my god, why have you given us this film? It's the worst film ever. It's something free, calm yourself down.

Stephen : 17:55

I downloaded pretty much. I think it was only one thing I didn't download from then. It was something I was really not interested in, but I didn't and that's the reason I didn't download it. But anyway, got these two episodes, or one episode from of Breaking Bad through that system and it was on Netflix and, uh, had it on my phone for a while and it came to Netflix. I thought I'm gonna watch this because I've seen the first episode ages ago and it was really good. So I just watched it from start to finish really quickly. To be fair, it's a brilliant series. If you've never seen it, I really, really enjoyed it great acting and great storyline and loads of twists and turns and just always left you wanting more. And I had a day off one day and I think I was on the first series and I really wanted to watch it and I thought, you know what, I'll put some washing in and I'll sit and watch an episode during breakfast and then I'll go and do something and then might watch one later on.

Stephen : 18:42

I always had a bit of a reward system for myself and I ended up sitting watching it all day. I think I'm much what must have watched like nine or ten episodes back to back. I end up being nearly on season three by the time I finished, didn't get anything done, felt really guilty because I just literally melted into the settee all day, and that's what it leads us to do. You know, we've got this content and we feel obliged to watch it and my bloody netflix, disney and all that. All my watch lists are ridiculously long and then I just sit and scroll through and can't decide what to watch, and then I end up not watching anything or scrolling on my phone and doom scrolling and I've been sat there and I think I've done nothing.

Stephen : 19:18

I could have done anything else. I could have been in the garage pottering around, could have gone for a walk, could have listened to a podcast or an audiobook yeah, it's crazy. And there's another subscription. There you go audiobooks and podcasts and like, even I have a subscription service. Hopefully don't throw it down your throat um, no one subscribed you anyway, which is fine, it's just fine.

Stephen : 19:39

Like I'm a small outfit, I'm an indie podcaster, do all this myself. Um, but yeah, everyone's asking for money. I mean, I'm, I'm not asking for it, I suppose I am, but it's funny to keep myself going really like it's only to keep the process. And maybe, you know, make it cost neutral. If I, if I hit cost neutral, I'd be happy. Obviously, these big companies, they don't want to do that. They want to make a living out of it. Don't be wrong if I could make a living out of this, if I to make a living out of it. Don't get me wrong if I could make a living out of this, if I could make a living out of prattling down a microphone. I think hell would freeze over, but it would be nice. But yeah, everyone's on this subscription thing, like Patreon and all that, and I don't know where it would end. I don't know where it'll end.

Stephen : 20:22

Will people wake up and think, you know, want to go back to physical media or buying stuff? I don't know, I don't know. It's just all a bit too much sometimes for me. So I think I need to re-look at my subscription status and maybe go back to the times of actually buying some physical media of the things I really like. I mean Hummer and Ironweather should get the Aliens 4K just because I like to collect the Alien stuff. I'm not sure. I'm not sure I would like Aliens on VHS and UMD as well. Anyway, I'm not talking about Aliens. What am I talking about that for?

Stephen : 21:07

Anyway, what do you think about subscription services? Do you have loads of subscriptions? Even car companies now are even doing subscription services for the features in their car which are already baked in and you have to pay to unlock them, like you know, driving assistance things and stuff like that. What do you think about that? Because surely if you buy a vehicle, everything that's pre-programmed into it should come with a price, or would you be willing to maybe unlock a feature later on? And I suppose cars are a lot of the times cars are kind of subscriptions, higher purchase and stuff like that. You're really only hiring it out.

Stephen : 21:44

Maybe that was the godfather of subscriptions. Whoever's come up with the concept is a genius. It's made a lot of people a lot of money. But do you subscribe to a lot of stuff? Do you wish you didn't? Do you wish that you had more physical media? Is your playlist as long as mine and you never actually get to watch anything because you're too long scrolling through your playlist thinking, no, I can't watch that today.

Stephen : 22:04

No, I can't watch that today. No, I can't watch that today. No, I can't watch that today. No, I can't watch that today. That's all I ever do. Let me know in the comments and, you know, make contact with me. I really am not impressed. I really am interested is the word. I'd be impressed as well, I'm sure, in hearing your thoughts. So, yes, thank you for listening to me. That was subscriptions and binging. Try not to binge too long. Get out and walk around a little bit. Need to take my own advice on that and until next time, I will speak to you soon. Thanks for listening to Infinite Brattle with your host Stephen. Thanks for listening to Infinite Prattle With your host Stephen. Follow me on social networks at Infinite Prattle and don't forget to subscribe. Thanks very much.