I dread the emails, but I\u2019ve always wearily accepted them. Like a reminder about an annual teeth cleaning.<\/p>\n
\u201cUpcoming price increase,\u201d the subject line so casually reads.<\/p>\n
He we go again! TV streaming services, which were once cool and shrewd ways of cutting the expensive cable cord, now do little more than maniacally jack up their cost to infuriate their customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cTed\u201d airs on Peacock. Peacock<\/p>\n
All the while, they shovel us more cheap crap.<\/p>\n
Two TV streaming services have increased their fee this month, within days of each other, like some sick joke.<\/p>\n
\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJohnny Oleksinski<\/p>\n
Peacock flew up from $10.99 to $12.99 (ad-free). And Apple TV juiced from $12.99 to $14.99.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the reason for this random 27% hike?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re bringing you more of what you come to Peacock for, including year-round live sports, new movies from Universal Pictures, and your favorite TV shows from Peacock, Bravo and NBC,\u201d Peacock claims.<\/p>\n
My favorite shows from Peacock?! You\u2019ve gotta be kidding me. \u201cThe Minature Wife\u201d? \u201cTed? \u201cThe Copenhagen Test\u201d?!<\/p>\n
These losers truly need $2 more per person to afford to include \u201cThe Odyssey,\u201d a movie they already own, which has grossed $1.46 billion in large part because audiences want to enjoy it on premium formats like IMAX? Please.<\/p>\n
Jason Sudeikis (left) and Tanya Reynolds in a scene from \u201cTed Lasso.\u201d \u00a9Apple TV\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n
How stupid do you think your customers are? Oh, right \u2014 you produced \u201cThe Miniature Wife,\u201d a \u201cHoney I Shrunk The Kids\u201d for adults. You think we\u2019re total imbeciles.<\/p>\n
Apple is better, but not by much. At any given time they have maybe two shows worth watching \u2014 namely \u201cSeverance\u201d and \u201cThe Studio.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the rest? \u201cThe Morning Show\u201d makes \u201cThe Bold and the Beautiful\u201d look like \u201cThe Sopranos.\u201d \u201cTed Lasso\u201d is a sickly sweet pandemic-era bowl of Fruit Loops. And \u201cWidow\u2019s Bay\u201d is an overwrought (and vastly overrated) \u201cTwin Peaks.\u201d You people make the iPhone. Why are you pilfering my wallet for some crummy TV shows?<\/p>\n
Their compadres are cheating us, too.<\/p>\n
The best days of founding father Netflix ($19.99 ad free), which kicked off the streaming revolution19 years ago, are far behind it. \u201cStranger Things\u201d is done and all of the service\u2019s new series look and sound like the result of a Chat GPT prompt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Matthew Macfadyen, left, as Les and Elizabeth Banks as Lindy in \u201cThe Miniature Wife.\u201d Rafy\/Peacock<\/p>\n
HBO Max ($18.49 ad free) has only one more season of \u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d to go that will air God knows when. And \u201cKnight of the Seven Kingdoms\u201d is a six-episode-per-year, 30-minute show. So you\u2019re effectively spending $19 a month on \u201cThe Pitt\u201d and a Christmastime rehash of \u201cHarry Potter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hulu is meant for masochists who can stomach the garbage pile of Ryan Murphy\u2019s repetitive schlock.<\/p>\n
Paramount+ is for the five people who watch the Golden Globes.<\/p>\n
And Amazon\u2019s Prime Video? Well, at least it\u2019s a bonus alongside free two-day shipping.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The era of Peak TV is obviously over. Quality and interest have plummeted to their lowest levels in more than 20 years. Nothing is airing that everybody cares about. The Emmys are frankly depressing. And yet we\u2019re still being charged like these are actually desirable products that we urgently need.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The truth is, with the comeback of theatrical movies and the rise of YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, we simply don\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We\u2019re paying as much or more than we would for cable to click around for 20 minutes only to find nothing to watch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This month\u2019s robberies \u2014 sorry, emails \u2014 actually did serve one useful purpose.<\/p>\n
I went: \u201cWait. Why am I subscribing to Apple TV and Peacock?\u201d And then I decided to cancel both.<\/p>\n
You should too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I dread the emails, but I\u2019ve always wearily accepted them. Like a reminder about an annual teeth cleaning.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1031716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7],"tags":[4964,171,487,4659,6584,158,173,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1031715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-apple-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-hbo-max","tag-netflix","tag-streaming","tag-technology","tag-tv","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117180932530596101","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1031715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1031716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1031715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1031715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1031715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}