The other week I found myself cancelling my Disney+ subscription for the first time since I initially set up my account. I have made posts in the past regarding my pleasure in the platform and how, at least in the United Kingdom, it has managed to dominate my viewing time over other streaming services due to its library size and offering for the very much affordable price. I have found myself in recent months mostly browsing through its library, and enjoying the content available from the application on my phone, mostly in the evenings. Okay, I know it might sound strange to watch things from your phone, but my frugal nature insists I don't splurge on an expensive Macbook just yet.
Though this is not the first time I have found myself cancelling my streaming service subscriptions. I have countless times in the past cancelled both Netflix and Amazon Prime Video for multiple different reasons: poor libraries, expensive monthly fee, or perhaps just a lack of interest in watching something and finding I just don't feel it's worthy of paying for the following month. Though eventually I return to the platform(s) and continue the subscription until the next reason for cancellation. And each time the service, of course, insists that I can save money by purchasing the yearly, or as they call it, annual subscription. On paper it seems like a solid deal, where they boast a large percentage saved on the yearly plans, whereas the monthly plan is a pounds (or whatever your currency is) more.
Though with this time's cancellation, I had the curiousity come to me: have I actually ever known anyone that does pay for the yearly plan? I don't think I have. What reasons would someone have for paying that heavy upfront fee knowing that anything could happen to limit their viewing time. Work. Relatives. Travel, even! Or maybe just like me, you find yourself getting a bit tired from time to time, incapable of seeing yourself watching a whole lot of things in the following weeks.
Sometimes I find myself writing little compilation posts, more so ramblings, on the many things I may have been watching over the past month or week. A post that sums up my roaming interests in genres and laziness. Incapable of sticking to one thing and thus feeling the need to write about them all. This typically happens when I do feel some slight boredom of watching things. The inevitable burnout that can come with lengthy series to keep track of, and lengthy runtimes for feature length productions. Sooner or later, I hit the wall and take a break from it all. Ultimately, this is my reason for forever choosing the monthly subscription option. The ability to abandon ship at any moment having felt I received my money's worth, and thus never feeling the assumption that I must continue watching things to justify the heavy annual fee I have just thrown towards the evil mouse or Netflix.
At least the positive to Prime Video is the ability to perhaps obtain the student subscription, which is incredibly affordable and fair given you also are given access to Amazon's music, cloud storage, some digital books, and incredibly speedy free shipping on regular goods you may need to purchase throughout the month. At around £5 a month, that justifies the maintaining of the subscription even when I don't feel all that interested in their Prime Video side of things. Which I find is quite often given its, well, strange choice of near zero content filtration; essentially allowing anything to be part of their library even if it just so happens to be Minecraft Let's Plays (yes, I have seen these in the past appear). Even without the student option, it may very well still be worthy of the fee per month depending on your spending habits.
I know in other parts of the world there are streaming services available as an alternative option to the main giants. From friends around the world I have discovered that often enough these nation specific services tend to have larger libraries than the giants. Containing a bit of everything from them all without really falling victim to the timed licensing deals or perhaps competition that keeps these services relatively thin on content, as each service fights for your money.
All this said, I will be starting my Disney+ subscription again at some point. My current cancellation is not due to any dissatisfaction in the platform at all. Sure, it could be better, but my experience with it has been quite good, and its original content as well as the fact that Disney owns pretty much everything means the service does have a very nice, wide range of content and genres to choose from. I still find myself roaming through the National Geographic side of things, watching various documentaries from history to science. I find I get disappointed looking elsewhere for similar content. Not to forget that Disney+ owns Fox and all the hits that came from 21st Century Fox. As mentioned, I am just a little tired. Breaks from watching things so often refreshes the mind and allows me to enjoy those things a bit more. With a monthly subscription, it's perfect for me.
Hopefully we can get a bit of engagement going. Sharing the streaming services we use the most, why we love them the most, and perhaps revealing as to whether there are some strange folk out there that really do pay yearly for their streaming services! Perhaps even sharing the ones we tried and found ourselves disappointed in, never to return to the platform.
