Which is exactly where it came from. I watched Hulu when it first started and you had, I think, one quick ad break during the show. Then it became three. Then they started with the subscription and still kept the ads.
No.
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My only objection to Plex is that theyāre moving further and further away from being a way to play your own media and more and more toward things that actually make money (lol).
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We signed on as PLEX lifers years ago. The only thing I really use it for is watching my DVDs or listening to my music. I really donāt care about anything else. Thatās what I have it for. Thatās what I use it for.
They are trying to be a clearinghouse of sorts for all of your streaming services, showing you whatās available and the like on the various platforms you subscribe to. Havenāt really played with that at all either.
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Likewise. So Iāve noticed all the issues that arenāt being addressed. Which, again, I understand. Youāve got a bunch of lifers paying youā¦nothing.
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Iām pulled in the dual directions of needing to clear out things to get more space and cleanliness, and thus better access to the most desirable things, vs. wanting to hold onto it all. Obviously you canāt do both at once. So I have to clear out things, with the knowledge that I can try to save them in non-corporeal forms but thatās fraught with risk. When you ditch the solid form itās best to treat that as a real goodbye. 
(Also support your local library, while itās still standing.)
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Binge watching seems to be a personal choice thing, more than most seem to think?
I think that it will also vary by show?
Probably just me but, I binged all of S1 of Mandalorian and most of S2 before getting ācaught upā and hating having to wait a whole week for more? And, based on what I heard from someone who binged the first few episodes of Moon Knight, thatās a better experience/flow as well?
Ozark*, on the other hand? I canāt do more than two or three episodes at a time, without a change in ā¦ scenery(?). Shrug. (Family members wanted to keep Netflix after MST3K was canceled, shrug. Iād have rather purchased the seasons of Kimās Convenience and Heartland on iTunes but what are you going to do?)
I think binging on shows will always depend more on the show and each individual taste/tolerance for injecting it all into their eyeballs at once. For most shows over the years, Iāve found that I prefer binging three or four at a time. Wait, I hope Kinga doesnāt get any ideas from thatā¦ 
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My limit is 1.5 to 2 hours of whatever Iām watching, per night. I might do 3 half-hour shows but only two full-hour shows. My brain just wonāt hold onto more than that. Iāve tried.
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Iām sure that Netflix will lose a chunk of their userbase including those who canāt afford the monthly rate, but also donāt want the ads. I suspect that the international user population will take the bigger hit.
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Isnāt this what happened with cable? It touted itself as ad-free at first, then eventually succumbed to advertising (minus the premium channels and TCM).
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As Iāve said elsewhere, the streaming companies and devices (and now TV manufacturers!) looked at the cable company model of āforce people to pay for things they donāt want!ā and thought āYeah, great idea! Everybody LOVES cable companies!ā
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Yeah, this is one thing that is really preventing me from even entertaining the idea of buying a new television. The idea that this product that I paid for (and paid a lot of money for) is now going to report to some clearing house what I watch so I can be fed adverts on the bloody screen?!
Hell No.
Iāll do the same thing we did for the few years we had cable, never hook it up to a phone/internet connection.
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Big, shiny TVs will get super-cheap (they are already in a lot of ways) and lure people in.
Iām gonna bite the bullet and buy a big, dumb monitor. Itās spendy relative to a TVāwhich is your first clue that theyāre already offsetting some of the costābut a monitor canāt spy on you.
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My TV is just something to decorate the corner of my living room with now. I literally havenāt had it on sinceā¦ maybe the series finale of The Good Place? Before the pandemic, anyway.
Everything I watch at home now, I watch on my computer. Streaming, and DVD. (I still have a DVD player in my computer.)
I would never, ever again accept advertising on a channel Iām already paying for access to. Iāll pay for the higher tier if the content is worth it to me. If not, Iāll go without rather than watch ads.
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Especially when the prices for everything are going up, and people need to reevaluate whatās essential.
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I hope this happens more and forces the mindless reboots and remakes and āreimaginingsā to be rethought and actually good. I havenāt been to a movie in a theater in years (well before the pandemic) because there hasnāt been a movie I wanted to see. I watch almost no TV series because they donāt interest me. Honestly, the most TV I watch is cooking shows and remodeling shows. Oh, and the local morning news while Iām exercising.
If people start saying, āThis is expensive and it looks stupid. Why should I pay money to watch this?ā then maybe entertainment will become entertaining again.
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Iām casually acquainted with a local couple who collaborate on fun pop-fiction things. Theyāve had a small but very loyal fanbase for decades of independent comics and graphic novels. People ask them all the time how it can be that their work hasnāt made it to movie studios. Their explanation when I last heard them speak is that money people only want known quantities. They only want to make more of what everyoneās already used to. Which is really f-ing sad.
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The tv I purchased was actually a 42" monitor that a hotel chain purchased in a lot of 3000 before going out of business. I got a really good deal on it through one of Tiger Directās āscratch-n-dentā sales.
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Pre-crazy, I could count the number of movies I watched in a movie theater usually on one hand. For the most part, it was things like the Marvel movies where I knew Iād end up spoiled if I waited for the DVD/Blu-ray, and Fathom events kinds of things like the annual Miyazaki festival.
These days? Itās Fathom events kind of things like the Miyazaki festival (and Star Trek II later this year).
I watch very little current TV. I have zero interest in the endless parade of ārealityā and ācompetitionā shows. The scripted comedies are all inane and mind-numbing. I used to enjoy shows like NCIS, Bones, Hawaiāi Five-0, mystery/ procedural kinds of shows, but no one seems to make those anymore.
Interestingly, I write a weekly ratings article for a TV website, and ratings for network television absolutely tanked with the pandemic. Cable isnāt doing any better. Itās hard to tell with the various streamers as they donāt release rating numbers consistently, but other than the one or two ābigā shows like Mandolorean, their numbers arenāt always that great either. Too many services, too fractured of a landscape means no one really wins these days*.
*Except the Super Bowl. 
Ratings for that were back up around 100 million people this year.
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Per Eli Roth, itās even worse than that: Besides every aspect of a film being focus tested, theyāve moved to focus testing scripts.
I saw 120 on a slow year. Iām sure I hit 150 some years. But pre-crazy there were over 100 screens showing different movies every day.
There was a period a few years ago where āthrowbacksā got real popular, so you could literally see 100 movies a year and none of them new. The theaters were usually packed but somehow the fashion fell off and now weāre back to maybe 30 classics in a year. With the seating restrictions, studios Iām sure demanded all the exhibition halls they could.
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