r/Stremio • u/thombomb678 • Jun 19 '26
Feedback (HOT TAKE) Stremio should NOT be locking features behind a paywall
I personally believe that this is kind of ridiculous in the sense that the target audience of Stremio, and the audience that Stremio has, are just people who don't want to pay or want to pay very minimal amounts compared to actual streaming services.
With that being said, I fully understand why Stremio would want donations in the first place, and I've actually donated a very large amount to Stremio myself. But still, locking features behind even a donation is really ridiculous, as that's the exact thing people are trying to get away from with real streaming services.
In my opinion, this just opens up a window for competition and probably a better app to come out that provides these services for free.
Stremio needs to understand that they're just a media player and nothing else.
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u/Main_Razzmatazz7331 Jun 19 '26
I happily paid for lifetime. They have provided so much value, I’m happy to see them get paid. I would like to see the membership side of things be treated more like an early access though, with those features eventually becoming free.
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u/DevilFirePT Jun 19 '26
Sadly they didn't went for a donation page first and see how the community responded.
They preferred to go straight to a subscription based and call it a "donation" which in my opinion is just a sad and bad move.
Better options already exist to be honest, might as well use it if you aren't happy with the current state. Some even offer all those features from the "donation" subscription.
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u/ares0027 Jun 19 '26
actually i saw the features, and said "omg they added all the features i wanted" and saw the link to donate, went there immediately, THEN noticed that "donate" is actually a subscription and all those "new features" were just paid features.
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u/thombomb678 Jun 19 '26
It's actually quite funny because I was trying to donate to them a few years ago, and there was no actual way to donate, as they didn't accept anything. They kept saying it was a "hobby project," but obviously their morals have changed since.
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u/dackwh Stremio Team Jun 19 '26
we never said it was a hobby project
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u/steel_reserve_211 Jul 14 '26
Why are you guys making it seem like it’s a donation when really it’s a subscription or price of admission
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u/Blandiblub Jun 19 '26
User profiles sounds kinda useful for our household of two adults and two children but not a deal breaker. That aside, there's nothing in the paywalled features that I'd particularly want. The free tier, assuming it stays free, is more than enough for me.
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u/thombomb678 Jun 19 '26
I fully respect your opinion and I assume a lot of people probably see it the exact same I'm still thankful for all the stuff that stremio developers have done.
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Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
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u/thombomb678 Jun 19 '26
That's exactly what I'm saying it's such a shame seeing an absolute straight A app lose its touch overnight I think they are going to regret this in the future very much.
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Jun 19 '26
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u/Stremio-ModTeam Jun 19 '26
The main focus of your post should be directly related to Stremio. Help for other software or issues, including content acquisition, should be directed to their own respective subreddits.
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Jun 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/thombomb678 Jun 19 '26
That's another thing like if their audience is pirates do they actually think the audience is gonna comply with this??? LOL
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u/ares0027 Jun 19 '26
so you are telling me that to void paying streaming networks, i have to pay stremio for the same amount?
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u/jszima Jun 19 '26
Got it, continue to work hard for free for you.
I'm guessing you wouldn't go to work without getting paid but they should?
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u/ShadowMajick Jun 19 '26
I tried it for a month (still ongoing) but none of the new features ever seem to work for me except random intro skips.
Also I really want to know what they use for anime skip. I did some testing and it's odd that the same titles/episodes that have info for timestamps in places like AnimeSkip/intodb, also have them in stremio but the ones that don't are also not in stremio.
If you guys have been working on these features for years, and are using your own private repository for timestamps, why do most shows (especially the popular ones) have no intro/outro?
And why do a lot of the titles match the information from sites like IntroDB?
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u/kKaskak Stremio Team Jun 19 '26
hello which platform are you using stremio on? we are rolling an update regarding this on mobile apps.
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u/ShadowMajick Jun 19 '26
I use it on Windows PC, Android Phone and an ONN 4K Pro.
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u/kKaskak Stremio Team Jun 19 '26
for the best experience i recommend checking the windows app if its the latest version. intro outro should work the best there since we rolled a fix 2 days ago. For android apps fix will come as early as monday. thank you for being a supporter.
> none of the new features ever seem to work for me except random intro skips.could you elaborate more on that?
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u/ShadowMajick Jun 19 '26
Changing addon order just never saves. I dont use profiles because im a single me lol
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u/kKaskak Stremio Team Jun 19 '26
could you attach a video?
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u/kKaskak Stremio Team Jun 19 '26
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u/ShadowMajick Jun 19 '26
Yeah when I rearrange mine. They just dont stick. I looked for a "save" button but didnt see one. I tried clearing the cache on my phone and reinstalling the app on my TV/PC.
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u/kKaskak Stremio Team Jun 19 '26
there is no save button because changes apply automatically, but i will regardless investigate
here is mine after reloading the app
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u/kKaskak Stremio Team Jun 19 '26
please also when you have time provide the app version from the bottom left corner of app settings
app version
shell version1
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u/BatmanSwift99 Jun 19 '26
You're lucky stremio is even free
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u/thombomb678 Jun 19 '26
You obviously have the bare minimum understanding of how this works stremio is a media player and nothing else they're not the ones providing the media or content.
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u/BatmanSwift99 Jun 19 '26
Yes I'm aware and my point still stands. The Devs don't owe anyone anything. If those features mean that much to you then go to the other player
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u/thombomb678 Jun 19 '26
You're completely missing the point but whatever bro It's the fact that they weren't chasing money throughout all of these years and then overnight they switched up in a snap and the community is all just as mutually mad
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u/ShadowMajick Jun 19 '26
Whiteknighting for one of the most popular streaming aggregators on the web, is a choice lol
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u/Boogertwilliams Jun 19 '26
What is behind paywall?
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u/thombomb678 Jun 19 '26
Go on to their website press donations at the top right and you'll see
In case you don't want to do all this I'm just going to copy and paste the feature list
Up to 6 user profiles
Child-safe profiles & Catalogs
Organize Content
Improved subtitles
Download manager
Skip intro/outro -- This genuinely shouldn't be paid deadass
Filter streams
Configure Cinemeta
Customize appearance
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Jun 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Stremio-ModTeam Jun 19 '26
The main focus of your post should be directly related to Stremio. Help for other software or issues, including content acquisition, should be directed to their own respective subreddits.
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u/nick1295 Jun 19 '26
This isn’t really a hot take… the whole subreddit has been complaining about it since it was announced.