Sharing Services

When streaming became widespread, cloud-native media companies threatened the traditional model of subscription-based cable TV by offering a service which blended both on-demand and classical subscription services into a single monthly subscription. Despite the massive amounts of disruption that companies such as Netflix spearheaded, in recent years it’s almost as though we’re regressing towards what was normal back then.

I remember watching TV as a kid. Ads were a necessity that couldn’t be helped, and missing an episode meant waiting for summer re-runs (or staying up until 2am for the second showing). Eventually, pirating content that I wanted to watch became convenient enough that I shifted away from cable, and in 2020 I finally cut the cord to save money. With that being said, the world of subscription services today isn’t necessarily a world of cost-savings and convenience. The world today is one in which you have to subscribe to Netflix, Crunchyroll, Funimation, HBO Max, Disney+, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV+, each for the low price of $13.99 / month. While there can be no doubt that the convenience of picking what shows to watch is one advantage we have today (albeit there was a charm to randomly finding a movie to watch), at the end of the day we’re still paying the prices that we paid before.

So, fuck that. Let’s just share as many services as we can. There’s no better feeling than going to someone’s place and seeing that the profiles on their Netflix are them and a bunch of random friends. For me personally, I’ve shared the credentials to my accounts to so many people, that I’ve already lost track at this point. Whenever I see my friends lamenting about not wanting to subscribe to Funimation or Crunchyroll, the only streaming services I subscribe to, I immediately write to them.

My friend recently gave me his username and password to his Amazon account with Prime; I wanted to buy a few small things and didn’t want to pay for shipping. Shopping on Amazon with Prime is some of the most seductive shit I’ve encountered in my two and a half decades of existence. Although, I can’t really justify subscribing to Prime myself as someone who doesn’t use Amazon that often. Ultimately, sharing services enables us to somewhat improve the lives of our friends without having to give away anything in the end.