Rotating services

Glancing around some Websites in the streaming world, I have seen a few articles that mention canceling certain services this month. There are a couple of reasons for this, and these are reasons that many don't think is all that important.

More and more Websites that promote or support streaming will mention what's coming to certain services or leaving certain services during a particular month. This may bear some explanation to those that aren't as familiar with what's going on.

Services such as Netflix or Disney+ (and most all others) don't always create their own content. They'll reach licensing agreements with content creators who actually own the rights to the show. The agreements will allow the services to carry certain content for a particular period of time. Sometimes, it's an exclusive agreement, meaning that only one service has the content, and the other services are out of luck. Sometimes, the content is shared across multiple platforms.

After the license agreement is up, the content will either be renewed or an agreement with a different service will be reached. Or, if the content turns out to be not very popular, then it simply won't be available anywhere.

What some viewers don't understand is that just because that particular viewer may enjoy a show, often not enough enjoy the show to justify the expense of continuing to carry it, at least not enough justification for a particular service.

So, content moves around. And many Websites will post articles about whats new to this service or leaving that service. And for the streamer that's looking to save money, that's important information to have.

The most cost-effective way of streaming is to only subscribe to a few services. Well, that's the second most cost effective way. The most is to subscribe to nothing. There is plenty of free content out there, and for some, that's enough. They are willing to wait until a free ad-supported television (FAST) service picks up certain content to wait. That usually takes longer, but if the wait is worth the savings, then that's a good decision for them.

For others, they don't want to wait, so they subscribe to services. This is me, to a degree. I subscribe to one service. Which one? All of them. Just one at a time.

I rotate around services. This month, it might be Paramount+. Next month, it might be Disney+. The following it might be HBO Max. The next, Netflix. And so on.

That seems like a lot of work, but it isn't. I subscribe when I want to watch something, then set a calendar reminder to cancel at a later date. During that 30 day period of time, I watch all I want on that service. Then, during the next cycle, based on what the services are carrying or what I want to catch up on, I'll subscribe to something else.

I get to watch all I want, and only pay for one service at a time. It's really easy, and not a lot of work. It is a lot of savings.

How much savings? Well, add up all the subscription services you use, and see what the total is. Now, compare that to any one of those services. See the difference. Now, spread that out over a year. If you have six services, for example, and you subscribed to only one a month, you'd be able to watch the same content over a year for 1/6 of the amount of money in a year. That's a chunk of change.

These Websites that tell what is coming and going to the various services are useful. And they can help you save money in your Streaming Life, if you take just a little bit of time and rotate your subscriptions.