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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

No, it’s much better than cable.

Most people don’t watch that much TV and won’t need more than one or two services. Those people are saving a ton of money.

And a few people that are glued to their TVs will pay more. As they should.

I’m particularly happy that I no longer have to subsidize sports, which I never watched, to the tune of $20 a month or so.

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Agreed, and people forget that you are not locked into contracts for any of them. That's the killer. Alternate them as you see fit, don't need to have them all at once. And since they all allow you to watch what you want when you want it, it's more like choosing a show to watch every month and paying only for that by subscribing for that service only for that month.

Problem is if you want one show from each service.

What do you think of this solution? (1) Sign up for a month, (2) binge, (3) cancel.

Good idea except I don’t like phoning up companies to cancel.

I've canceled (and later resubscribed) to Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon without ever picking up the phone.

This is easy now. Just wait until retention starts hurting their bottom line.

YAGNI

That's not legal in California since 2018. From SB 313, which requires that a subscription that was initially started online shall be cancelable online as well:

a consumer who accepts an automatic renewal or continuous service offer online shall be allowed to terminate the automatic renewal or continuous service exclusively online

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

What about all the other states? I don't live in California. Companies can and do script different behaviors depending on which state you live in.

And that doesn't stop them from using dark patterns or cancellation fees.

You could use privacy.com to limit each service as you sign up and then forget about it.

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