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Disney+ Ad-Supported Plan to Limit Commercials to Four Minutes Per Hour
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That’s like claiming opium is good because it provides more vegan options.
This is actually from Apple. Apple will only let you watch 4k content on iphones, ipads or apple Tv’s.
If you have a Desktop PC or Mac, you cannot download/watch/listen to 4k Content or hi-res/lossless media, for some reason.
Movie studios/music label controls what media gets upgraded and send them to apple and apple is the one who publishes them for the Public, but for the moment all high quality media is not an option for watching or downloading Which i did as a means to back up my legal purchases.
It’s a valid complaint IMHO because I own a majority of media but I can’t download them for offline use Outside the ios devices.
That's generally not expected. Though ad campaigns do generate some immediate sales the real purpose is more nefarious. Ads are designed to affect our mind in a way we are almost helpless against. Because we are retaining the feeling about a product for an ad we saw out of the corner of the eye and thought we were not even paying attention to. It goes much deeper than even subconscious brand memory/recognition and affect us on a basic level. As humans, ads take advantage of how our minds work and the effect is measurable and proven.
Ditto. I've gladly paid more to NOT deal with ads. Some have said that "that was part of the plan". However, it's worth noting that on Hulu, they make far more money on the "with-ads" plan than "ad-free". Even if you get "with-ads" for free!
We felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in concern, but were also saying "totally called it!" at the same time.
YMMV. If you don't watch that much, then I can see that. Me.. it took me one month to catch up on 4 seasons of backlog from The Simpsons and a few other movies, alone. I would probably need a few more months for the Star Wars series (2 to 3 seasons of The Clone Wars, but the entireties of Rebels, Mandalorian, etc.)
Perhaps the only one would be Apple TV+ since they have the least amount of content of all of them. They may be "quality over quantity", but there is a certain quality to quantity as well. I've heard some who were able to binge everything in a month. However, I suspected that they really meant "everything they wanted", which wouldn't be large portions of their catalog.
LOL
! I'd love that, but they won't. They'll space them out, and have their durations set to get maximum eyeballs on them. I'm sure these are the same folks in the past decade who grew concerned when they showed ads in theaters and noticed people weren't watching them b/c they just whip out their phones to do something else. They actually brainstormed ways to "force" them to watch the ads!
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"The suspension of its business in Russia cost it 700,000 subscribers, and without that loss, Netflix would have added 500,000 paid global users"
That does not sound like it is hemorrhaging anything.
It's even more hilarious and crazy when many people who admittedly hated cable TV for pricey pricey subscription rates to then switch to multiple streaming subscription services and actually pay more than cable TV subscription rates.
I don't have a strict policy on "if you pay, there should be absolutely no ads". However, the ads have to be mild enough. YouTube has been the only SS I could put up with in that regard. Hulu and Paramount Plus OTOH... awful. Even when I had the former for $2 a month, and the latter is still free for the year, I'm not incentivized to use it. Only if I have nothing else to do.
To play devil's advocate on multiple fronts...
1) that can still be the lesser of 2 evils... you get the stuff on demand, without having to pay fees for "cable boxes" and DVR hardware and services. Quitting a SS is also less of a hassle than quitting cable TV
2) The content is still better even with multiple SS.
3) Some of the scenarios with multiple SS is actually pretty cheap if you can get deals.
I know some who get Hulu for $1 a month for the year, Paramount Plus and HBO Max are free for the year as well courtesy of T-Mo and AT&T respectively, Apple TV+ is free due to hardware purchases or other deals, and they get Netflix for free somehow. That's 5 different services for $1 a month! I wouldn't do this b/c I hate ads, and it's pointless since time is my bottleneck. I'd rather just pay much more for ad-free for one SS at a time, and just rotate them out
I'm sure advertisers would be lining up in droves to pay for those ads.
But is anyone surprised? It's not like the corporations that run the streamers are any different than the ones who run the TV networks. They're all middlemen who buy up (or finance the creation of) creative content, sell viewers access to it, and sell advertisers access to the viewers. Same as it's always been, but dressed up in new clothes.
The one thing that's improved is that these days if the viewers want to pay a little extra, they can opt out of advertising. I will make that choice every single time I can, personally.
I had a TV at one point that had a cool little commercial timer on the remote. You'd press it once for each commercial you thought there might be (you start to get a feel for it once you start counting) and it would add 30 seconds to the timer. Then you could change channels to watch something else for a few minutes, and when the timer ran out, it would flip you back to the channel you were on. If you had counted right you'd rejoin your show right when it came back on.There are too many commercials, and they are TOO DAMN LOUD!!!
Watch an unedited episode of the old Star Trek episodes, they run minutes longer with today's required dose of commercials. There was also a regulation put in place to stop broadcasters hiking the volume of commercials, and somehow it was eliminated. It's amazing to me that advertisers think that by YELLING AT VIEWERS, viewers will be more likely to buy their crap. Some commercials are REALLY LOUD, and some networks are noticeably louder than others, the Weather Channel being one of them, at least on my provider (U-Verse
I'm all in favor of doing away with ALL commercials, and having a 'commercial channel' (like all the junk selling channels like 'QVC'). I'm sure there will be people who will watch them. Heck, my mom was hooked on QVC. (Their crab cakes were heinous)
I hate ADs with an immense passion.
Even for live sports, which I watch a lot of, I almost always record and get behind and then sit down and skip all the AD breaks and halftime/intermissions.
It's shocking how little actual "gameplay" there really is in a multi-hour sports broadcast.
I sense a palpable calm and relaxation and just "bliss" after watching a great sporting event where I've skipped all the ADs, breaks and BS.
ADs are just absolutely toxic for the brain (IMO)
Even for live sports, which I watch a lot of, I almost always record and get behind and then sit down and skip all the AD breaks and halftime/intermissions.
It's shocking how little actual "gameplay" there really is in a multi-hour sports broadcast.
I sense a palpable calm and relaxation and just "bliss" after watching a great sporting event where I've skipped all the ADs, breaks and BS.
ADs are just absolutely toxic for the brain (IMO)
To expand on this, consider brand recognition. When presented with two options we tend to perceive more value in a brand we recognize. This means we are willing to pay more for the same procedure, and more likely to select it over an identical product at the same price. Lucky cigarettes is the textbook example of being influenced by ads despite not caring about brands.
Now consider that Disney content is targeted kids. That means the ads will target kids too. Given adults are so susceptible, it’s not reasonable to expect kids to understand what they are being exposed to. Sure, there is precedent for direct targeted ads towards children, but that doesn’t make it less gross.
Finally there is the worst part of this. Ad supported tiers take advantage of the socioeconomic status of low income families.
It's more like you are being "paid" for ads. If ad-free Disney+ costs $7.99/month and an ad version is $4.99/month (TBD), you are being "paid" $3/month (via the subscription discount) to watch ads.
Most content over time has been a pay/ad hybrid model from print (newspapers and magazines) to cable/satellite television.
In MLB and NFL, sure, where the actual formats of the games seem designed around squeezing in adverts. European football has adverts at before and after the match, and at half-time. The game itself goes uninterrupted, thankfully. It's a real culture shock to Europeans when they start trying to get into American sports.
Does anybody believe it will stay at 4 minutes? Didn't happen with cable, won't happen with streaming. My only concern is one of the majors opening the floodgates by eliminating its ad-free tier(s) entirely. I almost don't care what it costs to never see a commercial again for the rest of my life.
Baseball is a 19th Century game. Television was 50+ years in the future.
They will lie and reverse that decision just like they did with ESPN+ and its limited ads (in the beginning)
Heh... some have done this with their own timers. I had an app on my Palm PDA that counts down 'x' # of seconds. Annoyingly enough, this is hard to do these days. The broadcasters knew of this and commercials are now in sync (dunno if they colluded in this regard [shrug])
I've know people who would watch sporting events recorded on DVRs at 1.25x to 1.33x the speed. Saves a nontrivial amount of time, and being sports fan, they do this often enough to add up!
I was in marching band and it infuriated us how our team would be 4 touchdowns behind, but with 2 minutes left on the clock, THAT was when we decided to use all of our remaining time outs
It's a vicious cycle considering they're the ones who are likely to go "with ads".
Some have suggested to parents to go with ad-free anyways.. for the sake of your wallets
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