Disney+ changes subscriber agreement to allow ads on every plan

(dexerto.com)

72 points | by DemiGuru 20 hours ago ago

25 comments

  • caidan 18 hours ago ago

    Back to piracy it is. I mean I gave you all the money you asked for and it wasn’t enough was it? You also demanded to shove your ads in my face. Even though I said no, and that I would pay to avoid this, but you said no, I don’t love your money as much as I love their money AND violating you.

    • y-curious 17 hours ago ago

      I have, uh, heard that running a seedbox and dealing with the various -arr annoyances is very easy now that you can have Claude code SSH into the seedbox.

      • m4rtink 15 hours ago ago

        Inam not sure that is a very good use case for remotely running centralized AI.

  • CoastalCoder 18 hours ago ago

    Crunchyroll is skating very close to this line.

    For paid accounts they don't show ads during an episode, but they're injecting their own little things before some episodes.

    My policy now is that every time they do this, I suspend my membership for 2 months. So basically I pay them for 4 months of the year.

    That lets me binge each complete season of anime, while still punishing their misbehavior.

    It's trivial for them, but it feels like a small win for justice for me.

    • nubinetwork 16 hours ago ago

      Ads are bad, but all the bad AI translations on CR were somehow okay?

    • mousy 16 hours ago ago

      How is that punishing their behavior?

      Instead of using nyaa[dot]si and dowloading the seasons that you want to watch, like a normal person would, you decide to pay for DRM content from time to time to get Crunchyroll's own little things and consider it a win for justice.

      Wow, amazing, some applause for you please.

  • TitaRusell 18 hours ago ago

    I am quite happy with my premium Netflix account (even though I don't use it much) but if they started showing ads I'd cancel in a heartbeat.

    People my generation won't go back. But the children of today who grow up in the Advertising Jugend are the future.

    • bguebert 17 hours ago ago

      I got tired of the price hikes of the ad free netflix and finally canceled. Since they added the ad tiers it got too expensive for what it was worth to me and I won't pay someone to watch their ads.

    • steve-atx-7600 16 hours ago ago

      Same. I used to pay for WSJ and at one point Apple News (RIP Texture App) but both of these still show ads prominently. I could use my VPN but as a matter of principle I used codex to make me a browser extension to redirect to the archived version of an article and will not subscribe again. Yes I realize paper newspapers had ads but I never recall the top of the first page or text within an article showing loud, distracting ads.

  • SaucyWrong 18 hours ago ago

    I’m paying top dollar for what I thought is an ad-free tier. First ad I see and that will be the end of that.

  • DiabloD3 19 hours ago ago

    Thats a weird way for Disney to announce the end of Disney+.

  • spl757 15 hours ago ago

    Just like in elections, you can vote with your wallet, too. They will never stop squeezing. Amazon Prime had a no-ads tier then just decided to put ads in it. Did they drop the price of prime? Hell no. They said, Hey that's a nice ad-free tier you had there, shame what happened. I can fix that for you for a mere $36 more a year. And consumers let that happen. That was when I went amazon-free and never looked back.

  • branon 18 hours ago ago

    Full circle, streaming is just OTT cable TV now. Actually this is worse than cable I think because previously I could buy HBO or Starz and actually get an ad-free premium channel.

    • gdulli 18 hours ago ago

      It's much worse, because streaming introduced unskippable ads and surveillance to deliver hypertargeted ads.

    • Tadpole9181 17 hours ago ago

      And you could change channels while the ads played.

  • eutropia 15 hours ago ago

    Right after hiring the CEO of character.ai as its new CTO.

  • fnordpiglet 14 hours ago ago

    I don’t get it - what does paying for the premium tier buy you then? I’ve always been willing to pay for content, and happy to pay to not see ads. But this is bizarre - pay less, see ads; pay more see ads?

    Disney+ is probably the least valuable streaming subscription I have but I keep it for the backbook of star wars and marvel content. They keep trying to package it with random crap, and I assume they’re going to wave hands at some garbage package as the benefit. But I for one absolutely refuse to be marketed to, especially during my rare moments of free time.

  • toomuchtodo 20 hours ago ago

    Yarr, there be no ads on the high seas.

    • whynotmaybe 19 hours ago ago

      A few days ago I watched a few music clips on YouTube to remind me of my MTV youth. There was an ad between every song, sometimes 60 seconds ad for pickup trucks or makeup, each promising happiness with their products. I felt like I was in this scene in idiocracy https://youtu.be/hj7c0J_V1L8. It's now clear that ads are legal brain malware.

  • profstasiak 8 hours ago ago

    ehh I pay for netflix and hbo but dont even bother with them, I just use stremio with real debrid. I cant deal with all this shit of trying to find out which streaming service has a movie I want to see. And now I will be also forced to watch ads? i’d rather touch grass

  • atoav 20 hours ago ago

    Can I also u literally change my subscribers agreement with them after the deal has been made?

    • uberman 19 hours ago ago

      If you were able to do so would the result not be the same. We dont accept your terms update so we and terminating your subscription. Essentially the same that you can do.

      • gonzalohm 18 hours ago ago

        Not the same though. A lot of people are just too lazy to cancel. If Disney had to terminate all the subscriptions that would probably have prevented this type of behavior

        • virtual_void 17 hours ago ago

          I think that would actually be a great regulatory move; If they change the terms then they must cancel your subscription.

          You'd have to elect to resubscribe with the new terms. Bonus points if it has to be the normal subscription flow, not some kind of one click to resubscribe.

          I'd bet the pressure of instant drop in revenue and the likelihood of people being less motivated to resubscribe would kill some of this behavior.

          • Henchman21 15 hours ago ago

            Remember that the last time Disney fucked up a MASSIVE number of subs cancelled via Apple’s 1-click cancellation. Which Disney promptly exited from.