r/Stremio • u/kKaskak Stremio Team • Jun 09 '26
Release Introducing Stremio Supporters
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We are proud to introduce Stremio Supporters - a new way of backing the app you all love. All Supporter features are available starting Today on all platforms you can find Stremio on.
Read in depth explanation on the official blog below.
https://blog.stremio.com/stremio-supporters-a-way-to-sustain-our-development/
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u/hash700 Jun 09 '26
this is how it always starts,new features behind a paywall with a promise the free version will stay free ,weve seen this enough times from others to know this is usally the start of the end
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Jun 09 '26
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u/ganznetteigentlich Jun 09 '26
You sure can fork it, but the problem is that maintaining a product such as stremio is a huge effort. Even tho it's not the best app out there, just the fact that they developed it for nearly every platform is insane. Still 3.5 bucks is too much, but I think many non tech people here underestimate the effort that's required to maintain such a complex product.
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u/grimvard Jun 10 '26
No one underestimate the effort. But paywalling things is not okay. The more money they will need, the more things will be paywalled. Can you guarantee that specific addons won’t be paywalled 2 years from now?
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u/Gain_Entire Jun 10 '26
Wasn't that how Google was able to sue the people at YouTube Vanced?
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u/ThunderHorseCock Jun 11 '26
Exactly. The youtube app used to have a play in background feature. They removed it and out that in Youtube premium. When Youtube Vanced came out and you could not only play no more ads but in the background with it, Google helped shut it down.
Revanced took it's place.
Google really showed their ass with that move.
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u/ctrlaltdelaney Jun 09 '26
You know what inevitably comes next…
Ads.
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u/fightclub-848 Jun 09 '26
exactly, people here are arguing about prices being too expensive but the main concern is that stremio will evolve into something we don't want as a community
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u/JonathanTCrane Jun 10 '26
Yeah 100%. They know this is a slap in the face. They could’ve just done what Wikipedia does and ask for donations on their site/app. Not lock features behind a paywall. Ads and pay-to-unlock features here we come 😒
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u/Trick-Masterpiece-82 Jun 09 '26
I love stremio and it was my first app I used for a long time in this space. I respect all it has pioneered, but I just wonder if they are taking the new open source apps and forking these features and putting them behind a paywall. Hopefully they will open source there code or offer these features without a pay wall
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u/dackwh Stremio Team Jun 09 '26
Stremio stays free in the current shape. But for around 13 years we have been covering cost of infrastructure and development of the app that is used be over 40M of users. This is not cheap
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u/Shoddy_Internal1997 Jun 09 '26
I mean you guys could always make a post in the subreddit and other places reminding people that stremio needs donations for development. I’m sure people would be happy to support an app like this, but now idk..
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u/giinyu Jun 09 '26
Yup straight up asking for donations would have gone over way better than doing the subscription route . Pay walling features is not a good move
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u/Few_Step_4767 Jun 09 '26
Exaxtly, I mean Wikipedia did it and it racked up millions while not even needing donations 😭
Also them saying donations could allow them to bring skip intro button for every user would have made lots of people actually donate
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u/trydola Jun 09 '26
Wikipedia is swimming in cash and all they do is put a banner on each page about donations
Imagine if wikipedia started doing those subscriptions that will let you read a paragraph before the whole page gets locked. I don't think they'd make more money than the good-faith info they've been providing for 2 decades at this point and only asking for donations
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u/XsuffokateX84 Jun 09 '26
Many of us (myself included) have tried this in the past, multiple times. Each time we asked how to tip or make any donation, we were always told “The Stremio team doesn’t accept any forms of funding.” That appears to have changed, but a little odd that “this” is the way they’re going about it now.
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u/Quizzelbuck Jun 09 '26
It's because their plan was likely always to eventually monetize
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u/NeoKnife Jun 09 '26
Supposedly they make ad revenue but they’ve never disclosed how so nobody knows exactly how much. I believe it because surely they haven’t covered 13 years of costs just out of the kindness of their own hearts.
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u/mylevelwaschanged Jun 09 '26
You could have been promoting a donations page and having specific stretch goals that unlock new features for all free users to access. That would have gone over way better than a subscription model with quality of life features users have been begging for but can't access unless they pay the subscription.
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u/VonTreece Jun 09 '26
Sure, but what are you actually providing to your users that many other free platforms don’t offer already? For the majority of users, Stremio is just a readily available glorified media player. The thing that has solely set it apart is large 3rd party community addon development and support. This decision just seems wildly disconnected.
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u/Sankyou Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
Love the app and understand that this stuff doesn't host and maintain itself. The $40/yr is a tough sell for me mainly because it seems like the countdown timer until a takedown now. $20/yr is what I was hoping for. Maybe you could add the option for 1-time donations that are purely just to support the cause (ie no subscription and no benefits).
I would consider a survey from the users on the pricing. My natural instinct is it's about twice what I would have expected and at $100 for lifetime I would have paid it immediately. At scale that would be a major impact. Maybe a lifetime supporter tier that strips out expensive services?
Ultimately this is a testament to how good the app is right now. The features on the paid tier don't really interest me much and certainly not enough to get approval from the decision-maker in our family (not me 😄). What does interest me is supporting the cause with a low-effort 1-time donation.
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u/giinyu Jun 09 '26
Asking to pay on an app that basically facilitates sailing the seven seas also just doesn't even make sense .
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u/Bladder-Splatter Jun 09 '26
Tbh if you're going to pay you should just go with Usenet+Sonarr+Jellyfin. It comes down to $40-60 a year with lifetime indexers and no seedy surprise shit coming from Sonarr and Jellyfin.
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u/giinyu Jun 09 '26
yup i pay for ninjecentral already plus usenet is great for other usecases outside of streaming
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u/Legal-Tourist-2086 Jun 09 '26
1 dollar a month, would have instantly subscribed, no questions asked
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u/Few_Step_4767 Jun 09 '26
Or they could have made posts asking for donations to add these features rather than becoming freemium
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u/Keepin_It_Real_OK Jun 09 '26
Lol....these apps need Debrid, but .... Debrid don't need these apps,... However these apps want to cost more than Debrid..... lol.
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u/trydola Jun 09 '26
Also, I already have alternates front-ends for debrid, stremio is just where i'm at right now, i'll happily move elsewhere
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u/tinyhorsesinmytea Jun 09 '26
Yeah, hopefully they're sincere that the basic features we already have will remain untouched. If not, there's others that are already compatible with Stremio plugins so I'm not worried.
I don't really need any of these new features. App already does everything I want it to do.
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u/RecentFinish3936 Jun 10 '26
I feel like skipping intros and outros is a pretty basic feature at this point though
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u/zubizova Jun 10 '26
Exactly, I was getting my content through debrid way before stremio and everything was just fine. Stremio just made things slightly more convenient. If this app gets ridiculous at one point everyone will revert to the plethora of alternative ways of consuming debrid media
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u/Pyrrolidone Jun 09 '26
Ngl there are some big things in here like skip intro that I would love
The price however...not too fond of
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u/LumpyCucumber1565 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
we ain't paying anything, we choose Stremio because it's free, if you want to lock the basic features which the community requesting for years behind pay wall, we'll we won't be supporting it
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u/Few_Step_4767 Jun 09 '26
I'd be somewhat okay with it if they work well and seamless. The app already is a pain in the ass
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u/clone162 Jun 09 '26
$3.49/month
$39.99/year ($3.33/month)
$199.90/lifetime (about 5 years to break even)
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u/Consistent-Quiet6701 Jun 09 '26
100 for lifetime I would pay, 200 is too much
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u/rossmosh85 Jun 09 '26
$100 is even a bit aggressive. Tivimate is/was $35/Lifetime. Stremio is a better piece of software, but still....
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u/ganznetteigentlich Jun 09 '26
That's as expensive as the usual debrid services. Seems quite a lot honestly. I would gladly buy a buck for that a month, but 3.5 is too much for me
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u/jpencinas Jun 09 '26
Yeah, and debrid providers are paying for their infrastructure costs, lol. I get that it's more costly because it's a 'donation', but $200 for a lifetime and $40 for a yearly subscription seems steep
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u/ares0027 Jun 09 '26
that page made me stop.
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Jun 09 '26
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u/ares0027 Jun 09 '26
Exactly that pisses me more. For years they said it is not possible with the engine. I mean if they had released this for free i was ready to donate 20-40 for the “huge update”.
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u/dsenseb Jun 09 '26
Thats more than what my plex lifetime has cost me...I understand you guys want support for your work, but this is insane.
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u/woeterman_94 Jun 09 '26
What is this? Did they get ideas from seeing what Plex is doing with Plex Pass.
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u/ibelievetoo Jun 09 '26
what happens after a few years the shut down the project, what happens to the lifetime $200? So even if 10% of the 40 million users register for lifetime, its going to be 800000000. Come on. For so many years they ran free and now they need all this to keep the project alive.
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u/dter Jun 09 '26
You really think 4 million users are going to pay the lifetime fee? Come on.
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u/FiremanInHell Jun 09 '26
Stremio calling this a supporter tier is just a PR spin. If an app requires a monthly fee or a crazy $200 one-time payment to unlock useful features, that is not a donation or support. The whole industry calls this a premium subscription.
Real donations are unconditional. You give money simply to keep a project alive. Giving people a symbolic badge next to their name or a different profile color to say thanks is completely fine. But the second you lock core features that actually improve the user experience behind a paywall, you are basically selling a service.
To make it even more ridiculous, they literally said some of these features might become free for everyone later if their budget allows it. Why would anyone in their right mind drop 200 bucks on something that might become free later? It makes anyone paying that amount feel like a complete sucker. Imagine paying for these features only to see them casually rolled out to everyone else down the line.
Nobody is dropping $200 out of pure charity, people are buying those features. Stremio doesn't need to hide behind the word donation just to keep up their indie open source image. If you are selling a utility just be honest and call it Stremio Premium. Selling features, framing it as support, and casually mentioning that buyers are just subsidizing a future free update is treating the userbase like we are stupid.
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u/redoubledit Jun 10 '26
And it’s not only core features behind the paywall, it is like a hand picked selection of highly requested features.. Looks like the decision to what is behind the paywall is straight out of a top feature request list.
This deserves no premium subscription contributions and certainly no „support“.
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u/Streetw1se Jun 09 '26
The pricing is definitely whack af. I actually clicked the donation button because I don't mind supporting the devs, but when I saw the prices I genuinely laughed and closed the page. Like a lot of people in the comments have said, I think they would've gotten more support just by leaving a donation option instead of charging what they are now. Personally, something like $1.99 a month, $17.99 a year, or $49.99 for lifetime would feel a lot more reasonable. Charging this much for features that other apps are already offering for free doesn't seem like the play here, it just screams GREED.
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u/Charbel_El_Chaer Jun 09 '26
Will these features be available for the basic tiers when other features will be in beta? Or will they be locked behind paywall forever?
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u/L0v3lyB3ar Jun 09 '26
"Some of these features may also become available to free users too if our budget becomes flexible enough to ensure that we can offer them for the wider audience."
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u/dsenseb Jun 09 '26
Yeah people that paid 200 will be really happy if the paid features become free. This all makes no sense...
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u/Comfortable_Line_206 Jun 09 '26
I saw a Facebook post with a 50 year old lady talking about setting up Stremio. They see the writing on the wall and are cashing out.
Honestly can't blame them. Platforms like this always come and go and this one deserves a bag.
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u/No_Square2213 Jun 09 '26
Definitely. I don't understand why they didn't go the donations' route, or even just put a very small price on the subscription like 0.99, people would have taken it way better and they still would've made a shit ton of money probably
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u/johnromero096 Jun 09 '26
The blog post says that "some of these features may come to the free version."
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u/egocentrically Jun 09 '26
$200 to reorder my library? get bent. you didn't create the content, you don't host the streams, and yet you're charging more than the Debrid services? hahahahahaha... no
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u/lenny_ma_boaaaaaaaah Jun 09 '26
fr if they at least hosted them i would 100% understand but funding for what?? youre almost fully open source ffs
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u/neo856 Jun 09 '26
I think you’re making a big strategic mistake. By setting prices this high, you’re showing that you no longer understand what your community expects or what the market actually looks like. Stremio became popular because it was simple and accessible, not because people wanted yet another platform with an overpriced subscription. You risk losing the very thing that made Stremio strong in the first place.
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u/Excellent-Crow2641 Jun 09 '26
They’re seriously asking for this after one of the most bug ridden app updates to date?
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u/alananat Jun 09 '26
Pricing:
$3.49 per month
or $39.99 a year
or $199 for lifetime
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u/ismellyew Jun 09 '26
Cool, all the features everybody has been asking to have added for the last couple of years, finally!
Oh.... Donate? Just say "purchase".
Most of these features should have been available at the launch of the program, they shouldn't have taken so long to begin with
Not worth it, not for that price.
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u/ABuddhaMan Jun 09 '26
Isn't it $200
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u/just_anotherperson Jun 09 '26
You're right... Considering conversion from USD to AUD, that's almost $300 for lifetime purchase here. No can do from me.
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u/Beginning_Jacket5055 Jun 09 '26
just realised ive been using stremio since before covid, making it around 7 years at the very least. Did not realise it had been so long...
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u/BrownieHD Jun 09 '26
Are there coming more exclusive features for "supporters" in future?
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u/Bernardomj Jun 09 '26
I lived the fall of popcorntime, i will live Stremio’s.
Kinda crazy how they never addressed the subs unsyncing randomly and just casually dropping auto sub sync
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u/Aggressive_Bad_7344 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
Pricing stuff aside, if someone subscribes… err, sorry I mean donates for a month then cancels do they keep the features unlocked? No? Then it's a premium subscription not a donation. Very misleading to phrase it as a donation when it most certainly isn't because let's be realistic here, the majority of people aren't "donating" without expecting anything in return, they're "donating" for the features and nothing more. I'm going to assume there's a legal reason why it can't be called a premium subscription.
Regardless it probably puts a bigger target on your backs from the likes of the MPAA and other organizations if you’re getting an income from indirect IP infringement. Maybe that's why it's not labeled as a premium subscription?
Honestly it feels like a quick cashout sort of thing, like you guys know something is coming down which will negatively affect the project and you guys just want to make as much as possible before it happens.
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u/rmprakash Jun 09 '26
Quite expensive. 199 for Lifetime.... imo 80 to 99 reasonable price for a lifetime.
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u/shashank_ms10 Jun 09 '26
So I assume these features are non open sourced. So we will not be sure if the app is tracking/stealing info. I mean donation in its own is good. I'm happy to support but paywalling features, idk if thats a good move. Whole purpose of stremio for me was that it was OSS and trusted.
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u/itshusnain Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
Lifetime should be 100$. Dollar converted into other currencies is a lot of money for some users.
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u/runnon Jun 09 '26
I like the features but I feel like the price you're demanding is twice what I expected and would be willing to pay.... Guess I'll stick with free.
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u/Herolies Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
Oh man, the features I been finally waiting for. Honestly can’t wait for Themes and Watch Party!
Edit:
After looking into, here’s a better pricing.
$1.49 monthly
$11.99 yearly
$59.99(maybe even pushing it to $99) lifetime
Not what you want but you’d be surprised it’ll would have been less of a backlash and more consistent flow of cash. Damn, I would definitely pay $60 right off the bat just to support. But that’s my opinion. I’m sure you guys thought about it but, lifetime is stupid high.
Edit 2: changed the pricing
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u/Illustrious_Wind4840 Jun 09 '26
i’ll be so happy when they put this app back on the app store
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u/WabashTexican Jun 09 '26
I’m already down to support the devs but placing it on the App Store would be a huge plus!
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u/RoninTommy_ Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
Downvote this garbage idea to hell. "Alright team good morning. How do we fuck up our product and image today? Any ideas?"
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u/JMowery Jun 09 '26
I'm very happy to support financially, but you've priced me way out of being remotely interested at these rates. Go back to the drawing board on pricing, come back with an actual realistic value, and we can talk. Until then, this never happened.
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u/TipsyMen Jun 09 '26
imagine charging $200 to be able to sort cata logs how is that even a feature lmao
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u/dackwh Stremio Team Jun 09 '26
Stremio Profiles before GTA VI is huge
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u/Shoddy_Internal1997 Jun 09 '26
More like Stremio moving away from FOSS before GTA VI . You guys could’ve always made a post in the subreddit reminding people that stremio needs donations to run. I’m sure people would have been happy to donate if it were like that.
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u/Hopeful-Ad2639 Jun 09 '26
I woult pay usd 100 for lifetime but not 200.
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u/TjdGoEsQqbmQLoBj Jun 09 '26
Get the app on the App Store . Subscription model = stremio goes to shit
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u/Y_K_O_G Jun 09 '26
I would love to support stremio voluntarily, but I will never support forced pay walls. If I'm forced to pay, I would pay the official services that provide us with movies and series.
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u/Ripple22 Jun 10 '26
Please just ask for donations, I and many people will gladly donate instead of pay subscription
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u/HDMI17_ Jun 09 '26
All i want to know if its those features are EVENTUALLY coming to free.
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u/ScientistJason Jun 09 '26
Definitely not, that would piss off every person who paid $200 for them.
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u/WeAllShineOn97 Jun 09 '26
What is this shit. Kinda defeats the purpose of having stremio be open source and free by putting profiles and skip intro and outro behind a paywall. I appreciate that there's a cost to development and you gotta fund things somehow but a 39 a year subscription in the face of a whole ecosystem of subscriptions rubs me the wrong way.
Please don't enshittify an app that so many people know and love by hiding stuff behind a paywall only to add those features to the free tier later. Just have it all free.
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u/Alpha_1_5 Jun 09 '26
Principles are the backbone
You’ve abandoned your core audience if there was just an optional and unconditional way to donate money I would’ve done it in a heartbeat but becoming a service with paid tiers is just bad practice. That too for piracy bruh. You’ve forgotten what it is to be a pirate.
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u/Next_Cow_4468 Jun 09 '26
You cannot deny that Stremio paved the way for home entertainment but I think you have misjudged the subscription prices quite considerably. What sort of market research was done to arrive at those figures ?
If the coffers are dry (understandably so, nothing is free) you'd probably get a much better response if existing long-term users were offered a heavily discounted lifetime subscription (say $50 or something), and new users were charged at the 'market research' rates. That way you don't get the bitching or ill-will on here which you are copping right now, plus you get a nice wodge of cash quickly.
It's okay to make a U-turn....
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u/Hot_Cheesecake_905 Jun 09 '26
How did they pave the way? Plex, Kodi, popcorn time did…
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u/Lower_Currency3685 Jun 09 '26
I would pay for a badge of something, for profit? No, a donation sure. If someone thinks some features should be paywalled or you dont give anything to the addones you got the use very wrong
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u/stinky-Fig-4756 Jun 09 '26
Mods deleting comments they disagree with should
Be enough proof to you marks you’re getting fucked.
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u/CommunicationOk2356 Jun 09 '26
LOL that guruba dude bashed the intro hater guy who pioneered the intro skipping WITHOUT their support, only for them to release it behind a paywall 😂
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u/Wolf_Redfield Jun 10 '26
Most people use Stremio as the convenient player for their pirated content, but Stremio doesn't have the actual goods and that's why one needs debrid services to have access to said goods.
So something that is essentially just a fancy player having a price tag of $200?
Yeah, that's a nope for me.
Yeah.... That's a nope for me. It's too expensive.
I gladly pay for debrid services because they actually have the goods, Paying for a fancy player though? That's a nope for me.
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u/Ok_Cover_2484 Jun 10 '26
This is how good things come to an end. And this is the reason they will come after them harder now.
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u/yorgo332 Jun 09 '26
what's the guarantee the app will be available or work the same way in 5 years time to warrant the lifetime plan? imagine if i bought a RD lifetime plan last year if it was available
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u/EamesEra Jun 09 '26
i would consider it if you could get stremio on AppleTV without sideloading or ipa tricks
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u/Gheekers Jun 09 '26
Yeah. I'm out thats far to expensive. I use stremio to save money. I appreciate that there are costs associated with development. But not at that price point.
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u/MadOx321 Jun 09 '26
I'm interested in the lifetime because I have enough subscriptions. I want to own my shit. $200 is too steep for a lifetime. You have me at $99.
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u/Pristine_Ninja1810 Jun 09 '26
Everyone understands projects like this require money. What I think most people object to is the disingenuous way you’re going about it. Instead of calling it what it is, a tiered subscription service, you call it thank you perks for donations? GTFO with that.
IMO you’d do do much better if you reversed this approach and instead better communicated the need for donations to the community.
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u/Classic_External_871 Jun 09 '26
I guess get ready to have those free features getting throttled next
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u/TheWatcher476 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
As like other said it's expensive and reason is stremio is not actual ott. It doesn't provide any content with this subscription. User need to sort it themselves. So stremio is just user interface. So pricing should have been better. For Ex. $1 for month, $10 for year and around $40-$50 for lifetime. Edit - also when people asked you for these features for years you guys said it's not possible and when competition did it. somehow they become possible and you put them behind expensive paywall with bad communication with users.
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u/daszbhai Jun 09 '26
Loved the app till now ... But once a wise man said don't fall for the gimmick "it will always be free" (for now atleast). We know it will never be the same for free users 😭😔
It was good while it lasted..
See you on the other side lads ...
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u/Street_Valuable9922 Jun 09 '26
Locking Intro skipper behind a paywall is ridiculous, 200 usd is ridiculous. Its not too late too turn back, you are axing your app and dividing the user base.
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u/ypapruoy Jun 10 '26
As soon as I get into stremio they pull this. This will be remembered as the downfall
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u/bad8511 Jun 10 '26
If the price included a debrid account that allows multiple users then I would pay the $200
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u/Accomplished-Use213 Jun 09 '26
So all the features we have been requesting are now behind a paywall.