Just steal everything. The powers that be rob you blind every day in a death by a thousand cuts kinda way.

They don't give a fuck about you, don't pay them any courtesies in return.

👉 Your local public library. You can borrow movies and books. Return them so someone else can use them too. Not run afoul of the law. Libraries are great!

fmhy.net is a constantly updated directory of streaming piracy sites. Make sure you have an ad blocker and enjoy any show from any service instantly with no sign up.

Piracy.

Your public library.

Consume less media in general.

Buy stuff once (eg: DVDs, drm free music)

Spotify specific:

Use the free service to listen to new stuff in order to find groups you like. For the sub cost you can buy an album per month and have it forever. I work in areas that don't have great data connections, so having a local copy keeps the jams going without interruption or ads.

How is this a surprise to anyone? They came to replace cable.

No, you still don't get it.

THEY CAME TO REPLACE CABLE.

Streaming is not frugal by definition since you don't own anything.

1. Buy from Bandcamp, own and stream forever for a cheap price
2. Torrent movies
3. Torrent or Soulseek music
4. Listen to podcasts, there are billions of those, it will last forever
5. Free music on SomaFM, ByteFM, Radio Paradise, Shoutcast, etc.
6. YouTube client like NewPipe if you have Android to listen to music

The sea awaits you.

Self-hosting and/or use Kanopy if your local library offers it

Fmhy net

If buying isn't owning piracy isn't stealing

🏴‍☠️

For streaming, Debrid and Stremio!

Your local public library!

Buying physical media.

Piracy

yo ho, all hands, hoist the colors high

heave ho, thieves and beggars, never shall we die

I'd say piracy ... but it's definitely not cheaper the way I do it (at least not short term).

But if you have some spare storage and don't need a huge amount of content, that's a good option.

Qbittorrent and a VPN, I've been using Proton VPN and it's been good.

Save up for a 2 bay NAS and a couple hard drives once you cancel your subs, if you want to keep any content that is.

Plex is still a solid choice, but there's probably other self host media options now.

Download it. If caught just say you are training AGI (Actual Genuine Intelligence) of your own.

Jellyfin on an old computer that you happen to have lying around is free.

You can get videos to watch by going to your library and checking them out and using MakeMKV to rip them to digital format and saving them to the Jellyfin server.

Alternatively, many thrift stores and pawn shops sell DVDs usually for a buck or two.

Cancel and setup a nas.

Truenas, openmediavault, unraid, yunohost. There are many option out there.

Many would gladly help you if needed. :)

I know this isn't the point, but has Spotify ever been good, as in a well designed UI? I feel like every time I've used it, there's been some bizarre design choice.

My VPN is as cheap as ever.

Before I streamed music I'd just download it from YouTube at the low cost of free.

I see a ton of people talking about setting up a nas and running Plex or Jellyfin, and i do prefer to store my own media but I've gotten so many more people to switch over since suggesting stremio.

People can take their current firestick or android tv, delete Netflix and Hulu and get stremio set up in 10 minutes. Pay $3/m for torbox and you get a pretty seamless streaming service.

Theoretically speaking...if someone wanted to search for torrents, where would one visit? Afaik, piratebay is long gone.

Jump aboard, matey! The seas are always open and full of joyous plunder.

🏴‍☠️ good ol' piracy will never let you down. 🏴‍☠️

It's not that these use a lot of gasoline explicitly, but their shareholders need to to drive too.

🏴‍☠️

!piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

Check the megathread

Why subscribe? Subs like this perpetuate a worse future. Go cold turkey for two years and re-evaluate then.

The last time Spotify put up their prices, I told myself that I would cancel if they did it once more. If they do they would rise beyond the maximum budget I allocated to them, so to speak.

For I am a Pi-irate Kiiiiiing!

Hurrah, hurrah, for the Pirate Kiiiiiing!

And it is, it is, a glorious thi-ing

To be a Pirate King!

dont use imperialist american services

you can watch movies for free https://fmhy.net/video

🏴‍☠️🦜

Bandcamp is still the GOAT and Tidal as actually lower their price last year.

Wait until they implement Surge Pricing. If it's a busy time, it costs more, if it's a popular song, it costs more. If it's both, go watch TV, you can't afford music.

It's harder to deliver movies over the internet when there is a WAR going on.

Yarrrrr.

Get an Android device go on the Play store download a torrent search engine and then look for something you want to download it will prompt you to download another app that will then download that torrent and then you watch it

for streaming movies/shows just find something on fmhy or if you want to set up your own server download the stuff off like 1337x and put it on jellyfin.

For music you can do the same with soulseek/nicotine+ and navidrome on a server. OR sign up with Qobuz. I use Qobuz and I like it. artists get paid more on there than spotify and since I don't care about podcasts it's not an issue.

I’m a tidal user because I’m an artist myself and the artists pay 2nd highest per stream out of all streaming platforms on the market. Tidal costs me 10.99 a month.

But, best to amass a personal locally accessible collection of your media

I'm on Android and using ArchiveTunes to stream free music. No more Spotify.

We use deezer and basic netflix since a month and I don't know how but we never had a single ad (using firefox with ublock on linux mint)

Edit: works as well with tv websites.

And public library is the best

With regards to Spotify, assuming you are able to build a reasonable library by other means, I've been massively impressed by Navidrome.

Run it through a free Tailscale tailnet, and you can access it wherever you like (as long as the accessing device is in your tailnet). Run it through a reverse proxy on a VPS and you don't even need your accessing device to be in the tailnet.

So I now have Symfonium on my phone, and Feishin on my desktops, all accessing the same library.

The only part of that that has to cost any money (aside from buying music, that is), is the £5 I paid for Symfonium.

Check out Bloomee

For videos, how about just …. Not?

People used to be glued to the tv, the “idiot box”, consuming whatever media offered by a few dominant companies and on their schedule. Despite “free” (with ads) broadcasting we all opted for expensive (with ads) cable and let them drastically raise prices. We had a brief renaissance with streaming, lead by Netflix, but they’re becoming “the new ComCast”. Ever increasing prices, shittier service, hostile to customers.

Video is no longer the only option to decompress after work and they keep making it worse. It’s time to just say no

Not streaming and finding a different way to enjoy your time. Honestly, at this point, I'm getting less interested in things I enjoyed as a younger person and more wanting to do models and tabletop things I can now afford to buy.

People still pay for this shit?

Jesus dude, buy an android TV and use Cloudstream or Stremio and the cost will just be the device itself. If you have decent internet but your ISP blocks that kind of streaming traffic, use DNS over HTTPS

it's 1 dollar.