Only one at a time, each month varies between All4, Amazon Prime, Netflix, NOW TV or Disney+ depending on which one currently has the thing I most want to watch.
I’m considering bouncing between Disney+ and Discovery+ as the shows dictate. I’m happy cutting my monthly costs from $110 to $50 though. I also have an over-the-air antennae that works very well at getting 3 of the 4 major networks (can’t pull in ABC for some reason) so I can watch those if I want basically for free.
Ha, “the Balkanization of streaming TV” is how I’ve referred to it as well. It’s getting to be as, or more expensive than, cable TV used to be if you want to watch everything you want.
For us, the constants are:
- Netflix
- Hulu
- Prime (mainly for the delivery, but I do enjoy some of their original content and their catalog of older, offbeat movies)
The rotations:
- HBO Max (we did a 3 month deal when they were doing first-day releases of WB movies; then cancelled awhile ago. May renew at some point to see S2 of ‘Raised by Wolves’)
- Showtime (Just finished a 3 month run of this, mainly for the new Dexter and Yellowjackets)
- Starz (wife just subscribed only to watch S5 of Outlander. We also started watching ‘Shining Vale’, a horror comedy series with Greg Kinnear and Courtney Cox)
- Paramount+ (son signed up for a month trial to watch some new South Park content; wife and I binged S1 of the American ‘Ghosts’ and ‘The Stand’ miniseries. Other than that, I don’t think we’d want it back anytime soon for anything but S2 of ‘Ghosts’.)
I’d like to try Apple TV at some point- it has some shows that sound good and have gotten some buzz, especially Ted Lasso.
Youtubetv
Netflix
Hulu
Prime
Amazon Prime
Netflix (shared with SIL)
Also we use a lot of the On Demand provided with Xfinity.
We have Netflix and Amazon Prime (in Canada). The majority of my watching is on Netflix, but my wife watches a lot of streaming shows from the library (via Kanopy) or various free Chinese sites and on rare occasions I’ll watch something from the free version of Tubi.
I’m hoping that there will be some consolidation of services down the line, but I’m not holding my breath.
Unfortunately, I still have cable * so I am not going to count the streaming channels I get as part of the cable subscription, like HBO Max and Smithsonian. I have no idea how many of those apps I have and also no idea of how many totally free services I have like Roku and Pluto.
I pay for Netflix, Amazon Prime ( mostly for delivery) and Paramount. When Paramount was CBS All Access, I would subscribe for a month or so a year for a particular show and then drop it - but when they flipped to Paramount there was more content and I was able to get a one year subscription on sale for $30 . I get Disney, Hulu and ESPN+ included with my cell phone plan.
I probably have at least twenty , but I pay specifically for two ( Netflix and Paramount) , I get four ( Disney, Hulu, ESPN+ and Prime) as a result of paying for something else (cell phone and Amazon shipping) and an unknown number either with my cable subscription ( HBO Max ) or just plain free ( Pluto, etc).
* my husband has to have live sports and most non-cable alternatives black out certain sports in the local market
I remember when people complained about cable services forcing you to take channel bundles, so that even if you watched no sports, you had to pay (quite a bit as I remember) for ESPN, or the Spanish language channels even if you didn’t watch them. I remember some advocating for a la carte cable service, where you could pick and choose which channels to pay for. The Balkanization of streaming services seems like that taken to an extreme.
Netflix
PBS Passport
I have a Roku, and sometimes look at the free shows on it, but I don’t subscribe.
I can’t watch all the shows on these, so there’s no reason to pay for more services for shows I don’t watch.
Netflix ($12/mo)
Hulu/Disney+/ESPN+ that come bundled together ($14/mo)
Amazon Prime (“free”)
YouTube Premium ($12/mo)
Peacock ($5/mo)
HBO Max ($10/mo)
UFC Fight Pass ($96/year)
NFL Game Pass ($99/year)
0
Netflix
Prime.
Curiosity Stream
I also have a Fire Stick with a number of free subscriptions on it like TVG and NASA.
We have several but it changes frequently. I’ve taken to signing us up when we want to watch something, then cancelling it a day or two later. That leaves it active for the rest of the month but I don’t have to think about it again. If we want to watch something else there, I turn it back on.
This is with an Amazon Fire Stick, which makes the purchase/cancel process painless.
I had HBO Max… but got rid of it. All I really watched was The Larry Sanders Show.
Got Paramount + for the obvious reasons, (New Beavis and Butthead Movie)
I might check out Picard. I actually liked the South Park special. Ren and Stimpy. Reno 911…
Can I piggy back on this thread and ask how I can cut the cord, please? I just got my AT&T bill and it’s gone up another $30.00 a month. That’s with no premium channels. So now it’s almost $200.00 a month for basic tv and internet. Whew.
I have Verizon and I’m on an unlimited plan. I have two smart tvs. I have Netflix and Amazon Prime.
What other hardware would I need in order to cut the cord?
Biggest hurdle to cutting the cord is dealing with your ISP, especially if you have bundled services. Un-bundling them can be annoying and painful, possibly even impossible; they intentionally don’t make it easy. And note “internet only” service may not actually save you that much, since all of the discounts are linked to bundled deals.
My TV service was with DISH Network without any bundles, so it was easy enough to cancel once my contract was up. I bought a $20 over-the-air antennae which gives me about 16 channels, including CBS, NBC and FOX. (Not sure where you are located.)
I use an Amazon Firestick on all 3 TVs in my house where I access all of my subscription services.
Oh thanks, I’m near Sacramento. I’m in a mobile home park and I’m not sure if I can get Dish or not, but I just need to do something. The antenna thing might be the best way to go.
There are websites you can Google that you put in your address and they give you a pretty good idea of what you can pull in over the air with an antennae.
I’ll check that out. I do remember seeing something out on the web about that.
Thanks again.