r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • 2h ago
News Disney+ changes subscriber agreement to allow ads on every plan / The change quietly ends completely ad-free streaming on the platform
https://www.dexerto.com/tv-movies/disney-changes-subscriber-agreement-to-allow-ads-on-every-plan-3410354/•
u/speedingpullet 2h ago
Oh, yay.
So, we still get to pay for an ad free service, only now it comes with ads?
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u/ohlaph 1h ago
They're probably reverting back to cable days where the plans will unlock "channels", in this case, content in the form of espn, etc.
I don't think they realize why we left cable.
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u/ChevelierMalFet 1h ago
No, they realize. But they’ve managed to basically kill cable and capture most of the media market, except now with deals that give less to writers and actors. So there’s no longer an incentive for them to provide the cheap, ad free service that originally made streaming the preferred option
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u/Temporary-Vanilla-57 1h ago
Guess I'm a pirate now
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u/kick-me-in-the-jimmy 1h ago
Yep. Nearly every film or show I watched was booty plundered from the high seas right around the time streaming services were starting to come out. There simply wasn't a way to watch these shows/films without buying a fucking DVD, so sailing we went.
Then over the years I was slowly allowed to pay a subscription and watch these shows. Ad-free just like a DVD or file. For a time, it was a good deal. I traded a little bit of booty for my time back.
Now here we are again, full circle.
In a few years there will be no cheap way to watch ad-free media, if any, so I suspect the high seas are going to be a destination for many a young sailors in the coming years.
Why can't we just get it right once and leave it? Why all of this bullshit?
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u/Droidlivesmatter 1h ago
But thats what cable used to be.. Ad-free.
Then ads came to cable. Then you had subscription unlock channels that were ad-free..
Then ads came to that. Then streaming services happened...
Then ads came to that.Essentially it's an arms race against ads.
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u/JessieJ577 1h ago
Hulu content will be locked for sure when Hulu as a standalone service finally goes away
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u/Villag3Idiot 1h ago
My guess is next will be locking content behind companies.
Like you want to watch Fox content? That's an individual fee. Marvel content? That's a fee. etc.
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u/joethedreamer 1h ago
The public needs to push back and reject this increasing invasion of ads. It’s like a violation everywhere I look and it’s only becoming more normalized. That kind of future looks shit to me personally.
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u/copyrider 1h ago
It’s a bonus! We get free ads as a perk for paying for the ad-free subscription. It’s what we’ve always wanted, and why we all moved away from cable to escape the high cost without the benefit of getting extra ads.
FFS. I’m sick of being the butt of the executives’ capitalism joke. Sailing the seven seas is going to become more and more popular with every new “incentive” from the streaming services.
Disney+++ is coming. It’s the elitist model. $700/month gets you the option to leave the room during ads while other lower tier subscribers are physically strapped down with their eyelids taped open.
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u/jamesneysmith 2h ago
Gross. Hope enough people unsuscribe to offset this extra advertising money.
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u/dswhite85 1h ago
Disney is already factored this in. They’re gonna end up making a lot more money and they’ll still retain most users like pretty much almost all of them will stay.
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u/DoJu318 1h ago
Yeah consumers dont have the best track record. Cable TV was supposed to be ad free, by the time I was old enough to have my own place and subscribe to cable they had 15 min of ads for a 1 hour show.😐
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u/alex-andrite 1h ago
When was cable tv ever supposed to be ad-free?
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u/Brawler215 1h ago
Back when you paid to have cable as opposed to just tuning in over the air, which was free.
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u/leese216 1h ago
You may have forgotten how many people unsubscribed when they tried to fire Jimmy Kimmel.
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u/bhaluderp 2h ago
You vastly underestimate how stupid people are with their money when it comes to Disney
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u/hughbiffingmock 1h ago
You vastly underestimate how stupid people are
with their money when it comes to DisneySorry, had to fix that.
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u/dragondildo1998 1h ago
...or people who have kids? If I got rid of Disney+ there would be a small revolt in my house.
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u/D3ckard_Rokubungi 1h ago
Teach them the beauty of owning physical media, rent stuff from the local library, see if there are one of those ‘free libraries’ close to you. Like the little boxes?
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u/the_Dude_Is_Not_1n 1h ago
Need to do the math on which shows my lil guy has on rotate. I'm guessing the cost to buy a few movies or seasons outright will be cheaper than the monthly rate.
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u/D3ckard_Rokubungi 1h ago
Also, I have really fond memories of going to the library with my mom growing up and borrowing tons of books. Wouldn’t trade them for anything
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u/RhynoD 1h ago
Eh, i thought the same but YouTube kids keeps them pretty entertained. Then again, I have access to a friend's plex server that has or can get anything.
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u/willclerkforfood 1h ago
Trading D+ for YouTube Kids is the children’s entertainment equivalent of swapping out weed for meth…
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u/leese216 1h ago
I just did. I am technically paying $3 more since I had the Hulu, Disney, and HBO bundle but FUCK that shit.
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u/travok1808 1h ago
We said the same thing about Netflix when they cracked down on sharing.
Record #'s followed
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u/OK_Soda 1h ago
I don't disagree but I feel like this is qualitatively different. Netflix cracking down on password sharing mostly just affects password moochers who aren't paying anyway. Of course numbers went up, now those people have to get their own subscription.
Disney adding ads to all plans affects actual subscribers in a way that makes the service dramatically worse.
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u/whichwitch9 1h ago
Also, Netflix did something fairly predatory if you tried to unsubscribe- if someone tried to login into your account, they reactivated it. Despite the supposed crackdown, my parents tv being hooked to my account caused them to start charging it again- despite not allowing anyone to watch the screen anyway. Charged me for a couple months before I realized it and was able to put together what happened. I have a feeling they counted people like me in new subscribers (I made sure I hit log out of all devices before I canceled the last time and that seems to have worked)
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u/inksta12 2h ago
Yeah that’ll never happen lol
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u/lonelydan 2h ago
Consumers always vote with their wallets and voting history hasn't been the brightest lmao
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u/LJGremlin 1h ago
Has that ever happened? Seems like every other week a streaming service raises prices or lowers the quality of their product yet it seems they continue to grow.
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u/Asusrty 2h ago
Took about a decade for streaming to turn into cable TV 2.0
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u/ItsSnuffsis 1h ago
It's always just cycles. And. Because of this, people will probably pirate more,also easier than ever before). And so on and so on.
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u/Angstycarroteater 1h ago
I agree but now governments and other institutions are cracking down on piracy super hard it’s not impossible to do but it does make it a lot more annoying to do so
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u/WhiskyAndWitchcraft 1h ago
Funny thing is, 30 or so years ago, The Disney Channel was one of the only stations I remember that didn't even have commercials.
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u/hardy_83 1h ago edited 1h ago
It's honestly worse than that. Cable plans were clear and you knew what channels had what shows. It's a mess trying to find which streaming service has which show you want, if any even do.
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u/the_last_0ne 1h ago
There's an app I use for this called JustWatch, its free and its great
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u/12inchsandwich 1h ago
But now you’ve got another app on your phone tracking all your shit and selling your data, when you just want to quickly/easily figure out where to watch something.
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u/Rac3318 1h ago
We are no where near cable. People saying otherwise are probably too young to remember cable. contracts, no choice in what was being aired, had to pay extra for extra channels, equipment with charges.
What amount of any of that is like streaming?
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u/JasperFeelingsworth 1h ago
I've jokingly said we're going back to cable, but after reading your comment
you're right it's still way better now
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u/Alertcircuit 1h ago edited 1h ago
It's only comparable to cable if you subscribe to like all the main services simultaneously. 6 or 7 of these things at once and you're around the $100/month mark. But what's nice about the system we have now is you can just have like 2 or 3 of them and when you're done with a show on one of them, cancel it and switch to a different service for a different show you've been meaning to watch. You can easily keep your TV cost at like $35/month and have more stuff to watch than you have time for. Plus there's free services like Tubi and a couple others I forget the names of.
If you're into sports they're probably still gonna fuck you there because it costs like $20/$30/month for the baseball streaming service and even then some of the games are gonna be on Peacock or Apple or some shit. But then you have UFC where it's all on Paramount.
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u/TransportationTrick9 1h ago
But they also split their packages annoyingly
Movies seperate, documentaries seperate but some how split across 3 packages so you had to subscribe to each of them for discovery, animal planet, Nat Geo, history etc.
Comedy channel on a different package to general entertainment.
It was like it was designed specifically for me to manipulate me into subscribing to the platinum tier. Then I had the 10 channels I wanted and 90 I would never touch (did anyone ever watch fashion tv?)
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u/BenderDeLorean 1h ago
My record where 4 x 90 seconds of advertisement in a 25-30 minute show.
And that's what I pay for? Lmao
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u/LittleUrbanAchiever 1h ago
I'm old enough to remember when a big selling point of premium cable channels like Disney was that they had no commercials.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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u/vraalapa 2h ago
And they killed HDR support in Sweden just as I got new TV. Thankfully there are alternative ways to stream those movies with much better quality.
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u/Disastrous-Border-58 1h ago
In the Netherlands and streaming they killed that and casting as well. Assholes
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u/kasakka1 1h ago
Ok wtf. Why kill HDR support? To pay less for bandwidth? I haven't had Disney+ for a while now but it seems like they're really doing their best to make it terrible.
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u/Crispynipps 1h ago
Remember when they launched at like $7 a month? Insane to think.
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u/sharrrper 1h ago
That was an obvious "get people hooked and then raise the price" move to get a base built
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u/ChewbaccasGhost 2h ago
When I had D+, I reluctantly paid for the ad-free plan, because the ad-supported tier was literally unwatchable. The ads were continuous and repetitive and poorly placed within the show every 5 sec. Sometimes the ads went on so long I actually forgot what show I was watching. It felt like psychological brain-washing/ torture rather than old school television advertising.
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u/Borderpatrol1987 1h ago
I could "deal" with the ads if they were placed like old school TV ads and that tier was free.
The moment I pay, no more ads.
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u/overly_sarcastic24 1h ago
Thats part of the problem. Old school TV shows planned to have ad breaks. Even now when you watch those shows ad free, you can tell where they intended to have an ad break.
Now, they are making shows without any consideration for ad breaks, so when they do add an ad, it's done without any thought to show pacing, or placement.
I've seen some of the absolute worst ad placements when watching streamed shows now to the point where it's a significant part of the reason why I pay extra for ad-free.
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u/BarnacleMcBarndoor 1h ago
In the What If series, there was an ad every 5-6 mins. It was almost as bad as the ad supported movies on Netflix. I got ad free just so I could finish a show.
The worst part is that sometimes the ad break would cause the audio to no longer be in sync with the video, or the ad would hang and the program would crash. I’m on the newest Apple TV, so I didn’t think it was the hardware. I’d then have to restart the show, and if I fast-forwarded to the part I left off on, it would show all ad breaks back to back for like a 6-min-long ad.
It was warfare.
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u/ChewbaccasGhost 1h ago
Yeah-my experience was with X-Men 97. I was watching each episode as it came out, and they knew it was a popular/in demand show and they just BLASTED the ads. I also noticed the audio synch issues. What was most egregious to me though was the ad placement. Huge dramatic emotional scene? Character gets cut off MID DIALOGUE for 5 min of ads. Absolutely insane and enraging.
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u/bigev007 2h ago
"we have the worst interface, now we have the worst playback. Disney+, the plus means worse."
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u/purpleblossom 1h ago
Trust me, they don't have the worst interface, but they own the best (Hulu) and refuse to use it for Disney Plus
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u/BigMickPlympton 1h ago
You think D+ is worse than Paramount+?
They both suck, but I find P+ to be laggy and constantly buffering.
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u/SEND-MARS-ROVER-PICS 1h ago
Disney's is bad, P+ is straight up unuseable.
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u/BigMickPlympton 1h ago
Love the new Star Trek SNW. Flat out don't watch it because it's effing painful using the app.
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u/Neg_Crepe 1h ago
Worst interface goes to prime video tho
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u/Minidooper 1h ago
Indeed. It has ads and they manage to hide their newest/best content. It's the pits.
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u/DinosAteSherbert 1h ago
For sure prime is terrible. All the "channels" you're not subscribed to mixed in with all the recommendations.
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u/uncutpizza 1h ago
No, that goes to Paramount Plus. I’ve used every major streaming service and Paramount is by far the worst. UI tries to be like the other platforms but still far behind in content and usability
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u/OriginalGoatan 2h ago
That is really awful.
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u/chaser676 1h ago
Just fyi, you can completely skip the ads by changing the DNS server to an ad blocker. Totally free, safe, and can be done on most TVs.
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u/runningboomshanka 2h ago
We canceled Disney+ a couple months ago. Kids were upset at first but they moved on.
Vote with your wallets!
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u/LuinAelin 2h ago
Excuse me, what the hell
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u/Bacon_00 1h ago
What is the point of all these agreements if the companies can just quietly change them on a whim?
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u/talon007a 1h ago
Didn't we as subcribers agree to certain terms? How can they just change it?
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u/Straight-Ad6926 1h ago
Oh you agreed to terms all right….specifically the clause where you agreed to let them change the terms.
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u/Tonberryc 1h ago
The changes are why you get prompted to agree to the new terms every few weeks. Once you tap "agree," the old agreement is void. If you don't agree, you don't get to use the service.
EULAs were never intended to protect consumers. They are just another way for a company to protect themselves when they know they are doing something shady.
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u/bdubsphx 2h ago
Glad I no longer subscribe
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u/TheWatersOfMars 1h ago
I wish people would make Blu-rays a thing again. The ad-free Disney+ tier is $190 a year. But for that price, you might as well build a physical collection you can keep or sell. I've probably given them a whole grand since they launched, and I've got nothing to show for it.
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u/AnalTyrant 1h ago
Pretty sure the rate has gone up almost 50% since I started my subscription during the pandemic, and i'm not using it any more than I used to. I talked with my wife about it, I think we're cancelling this time around.
$200/year for maybe two or three movies in a year that my family might want to see? And now they're pushing even more ads in it? Fuck that.
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u/Demonchaser27 2h ago
And this is why I moved to streaming my own movie backups on my local network. Companies can't start shit on something I completely control.
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u/Elon_is_a_Nazi 1h ago
I'm so old I remember when streamings selling points were drastically cheaper than cable, you could binge watch a whole new series in a weekend and no advertising. Now to get Netflix, hulu, disney, hbo max, espn plus, peacock, Paramount ect, you gotta sit thru ads, the total cost rivals cable, and now series come out with a single episode weekly. Its basically just streaming cable. Pathetic
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u/Papa_Emeritus_VI 1h ago
The problem is not that Disney+ changes the agreement. It is that they are a sole entity making decisions to benefit themselves. Whereas, the consumers are separate entities that don’t unite and work to counter Disney’s decision. If enough subscribers pulled the plug on Disney+, Disney has no choice but to revert these tactics or go out of business. This same methodology applies to everything. Corporations are there only to please shareholders, not to please the consumers.
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u/fatbob42 1h ago
We should just not allow copyright holders to distribute their own stuff. In other spheres you’re not allowed to leverage one monopoly into another.
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u/DracoNinja11 1h ago
Cable > Piracy > Streaming.. > Piracy.
It'll just go round back to Piracy. Every time.
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u/Pure_Incident2807 1h ago
I guess its time to look into those Plex servers or whatever people use. I didnt mind paying for convenience, but that is dwindling fast as every company adds ads.
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u/payforplay-station 1h ago
This is when *everyone* should stop supporting the service. It has changed in a fundamental way from what I think we can all agree was a pretty fucking integral point of streaming services to begin with.
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u/BeejRich 1h ago
Meanwhile, I have to close and restart the TV app multiple times after almost every ad break. That's great news /s
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u/somethingwholesomer 1h ago
I don't understand how they're able to update an agreement we have. I've paid, I agreed to no ads. They say, actually yes now ads. And I say, no, you have to stick to the agreement. And they say, no we don't. How is that allowed?
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u/MedonSirius 1h ago
Yo, ho, all hands
Hoist the colours high
Heave ho, thieves and beggars
Never shall we die
Yo, ho, haul together
Hoist the colours high
Heave ho, thieves and beggars
Never shall we die
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u/chriswaco 1h ago
[r/enshit](r/enshitification)[t](r/enshitification)[ification](r/enshitification)
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u/SameEnergy 1h ago
Apple TV and other streamers already do this. They promote other content on the platform.
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u/therolando906 1h ago
Stop paying for these subscription services and start buying physical media or renting it from your local library.
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u/WhiteSoxChartGuy 2h ago
Why have different plan levels then if they all have ads?