Disney+ has updated its subscriber agreement to allow advertising before and after movies and shows across every subscription tier. The change quietly ends completely ad-free streaming on the platform, even for those paying top dollar.
That includes the Premium plan, which costs $18.99 a month and was originally sold on the promise of an uninterrupted viewing experience.
Subscribers now face an on-screen prompt when logging in, requiring them to actively accept the updated terms before they can keep watching.
WE HAVE ALTERED THE AGREEMENT
PRAY WE DO NOT ALTER IT FURTHER
[heavy breathing]
haha that’s so fitting
Bespin was the original enshittification, a long time ago and a galaxy far away
Corporate enshittification accelerates and Disney is leading the way.
They’re really speedrunning it. Alas, I expected nothing less.
Wait didn’t Prime and Netflix do this already? After Hulu and YouTube went nuts with ads?
Disney sucks but seems like this is one of the last to ad ads.
IIRC, netflix did it only for a few plans
It was still added after initially not having any ads.
See ye on the high seas, matey! Arrr.
Some republican politicians are actually trying to push a legislation to require ISPs and VPN providers and whatever to block “foreign pirating sites”. I know there will always be a way for those who know what they’re doing, but they’re squeezing people little by little into having to pay these subscriptions no matter what companies do. I’ll personally just quit watching tv altogether if I had no choice but to pay these fuckers. I have zero subscriptions and I’d like to keep it that way.
My owned library is thousands of libraries. I’m with you, I’m checking out of current media if they want me to watch ads.
My public library still checks out DVDs. Some titles are blu-rays even. Get an optical drive and rip away. For free.
True that. I use both, Kanopy and physical from the library. I have a 42TB HPE server that has a ton of content. If it ever dies to where I can’t revive it anymore and all pirating sites are blocked, I’m fucking going back to the old days of dvd/blu-ray players. I will get me one of those portable ones like I had before and start watching. I’ll never pay them a fucking dollar.
Don’t forget thrift stores, you can get old media there super cheap and some thrift stores support good causes so you still aren’t giving money to the shitty companies but you are helping the thrift store survive and helping someone that needs it to keep a job.
This in particular makes me miss rental stores. Should have gotten into ripping twenty years ago.
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho!
Allows is doing a lot of heavy lifting
The are deliberately adding ads
My only streaming service
Stremio is so good too
Only 3.49€ a month too !
😁
(My VPN cost)
I’ve been a Transmission person for decades, what’s the reason to switch?
If you are happy, no reason to switch. I like the integrated search engine and the http remote control of qbittorrent, but whatever floats your pirate ship.
Remember that if you sign up for Disney+, you waive the right to sue them if they kill you at one of their restaurants.
What the actual hell. I am going to be a revenge pirate now
How can you sue someone from beyond the grave anyways?
Family on your behalf.
Imagine if people just stopped paying these companies. I guarantee you that most people have more entertainment than they can consume in their lifetime. They just want to have everything and these companies know it.
Also they could just pirate it if they wanted something new.
This is what capitalism does. Its endless profit growth requirement is not possible under any real market conditions. So it inevitably starts squeezing it’s own customers and degrading it’s own service to maintain these unrealistic demands for profit. The more consolidated the market becomes, the worse the outcomes. Anti-trust was always a half measure. The problem is capitalism is inherently unsustainable and can only lead to negative outcomes for it’s products and services over time. Nothing can grow infinitely and that pursuit will always collapse bringing societal pain.
“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell”
I don’t think it’s really the fault of the economic system of capitalism exactly. There’s nothing about “private ownership of the means of production” that requires infinite growth. For that I blame Wall Street in particular.
Name a time in history private ownership hasn’t metastasized into monopolies and imperialism. Wall Street as a financial hub didn’t even exist till 1817 and didn’t gain much hold on the world till far later. The first stock market was in 1611 in Amsterdam. British capitalism fueled British imperial rise before America even existed. Capitalism is just smaller fiefdoms under owner monarchs. It always exploits labor and slowly takes more and more power to oppress for its own gains. People are real quick to forget how awful businesses were to labor in the past. Union members died to get us the little we have they are again stripping away. Systems that centralize power with an unaccountable minority always do the same thing.
Fair point well argued and cited. I have no counter.
If I see an ad it’s over. I pay so I can feign being free of ad bullshit subconsciously.
People are so normalized to ads. I have many, many friends who either use YT free and wait patiently for 2 x 1 minute apps before every video AND ad breaks. I tell them about adblockers and they laugh and say “they dont mind”. Or they play for YT premium and I tell them that adblockers exist and they say “i dont mind paying”. Genuinely blows my mind
That’s how they do it, add 10% ads every year and normal people just figures it’s the new normal.
“Ad-free” has always been bullshit because every steamer runs ads for their own content at the start/end of everything and has giant “WATCH NEXT” “COMING SOON” “TRENDING NOW” banners on every screen.
Yeah. All the companies seem to think that ads for their own products don’t count as ads. Same with all these ad free mobile games…. 99% of them show ads for in game purchases.
I think that the bullshit mental gymnastics that they all went through to allow them to do that was to call them promotions, not ads.
Promotions are less annoying but still annoying.
“Hey heres a show thats popular with people who also watched what you watched, maybe you will too IDK.” Isnt as grating as “Have you considered going into 70k of debt for an oversized truck you dont need?” Every 10 minutes.
The secret recipe: add 10% a year and people start normalize it!
-“Well, some ads are okay like buy a car I mean I don’t care, I mean it’s way worse having your balls electroshocked every 10 minutes!!”
If I read the article correctly, that’s exactly what they’re talking about. Promo prerolls.
My jellyfin server doesn’t have ads
There are no ads in my paperback books either :-)
Was only using Disney and pirated the rest. Now we will be pirating every damn thing just like I did 20 years ago. Fuck any service that will not give you the option to pay for ad free.
I am told that back in ancient times people survived somehow with very few viewing options. They listened to radio, read books, magazines and newspapers and such for entertainment and information. Sometimes they talked to each other in person or on a phone. Sounds a little crazy but I might give some of these a try. Personal media streaming is an interesting bypass I would like to explore as well.
It is not streaming and doesn’t address the advertising part of the conversation but if you are lucky enough to be able to set up a good antenna appropriately placed, over the air (OTA) may be an option for some for some television. Location is a constraining factor.
I don’t object to paying a fair price for a service but I do object to “let’s take you for as much as we can possibly get”.
The older you get the easier it gets to abandon all streaming services to be honest.
Every high production value movie is a cliche you can guess 5 minutes in. And the few outliers get so much publicity you will probably hear about them anyway and be able to get a copy through other means.
I guess it’s also why apparently CD sales have been picking up. Easier to just rip your favorite music and listen to/stream your own collection than deal with a mess of different services.
