So, Disney + is going to start imbedding commercials…

Better to let them use their imaginations. I watched a lot of TV growing up, but we didn't get cable until I was about 12. Even then I still spent a lot of time outdoors, riding my bike, reading, building props, and doing other things besides sitting in front of the television. Then again the internet didn't exist then. I can't say I would have been the same and reacted to things the same way kids do now, so what do I know. lol
Trust me, my kid uses her imagination all the time. Watching Bluey or If You Give A Mouse A Cookie on Amazon doesn't diminish that (although it does get annoying when she wants us to reenact Bluey episodes with her sometimes). But having a D+ subscription is definitely not reducing her imagination at all. :)
Oh yes. I think we grew up in the same era.

A good straight branch with a decently angled stub: that was perfect to pretend I was handling a blaster.
I'd spend my day wandering the forest (aka the lot next door with about 20 trees), either looking for "a secret base" or "fleeing the Empire" because "I had something they wanted."
Yeah, every stick for me was a blaster or lightsabre.
You're right though, we don't know. Today everything is different. But I'd like to think that, for kids, anything away from a screen - physically playing somewhere - is better than anything else.
So, it's been really interesting for me watching my kid grow up in this era. First, she VASTLY prefers using a tablet or ipad over watching on a TV. She can control it way easier than she can control the TV with a remote, and the larger screen doesn't interest her as much as being able to skip around and have full control over what she watches (I mean, based on what's available to her).

She also jumps all over the place with the things she watches, and she pretty much just completely focuses in on it while she's watching. She'll also skip thru episodes to get to the parts she likes, etc., etc.

For a while, I was kind of despairing of how she didn't have the experience of just, you know, sitting and passively watching a show, or multiple shows, on the TV the way I did as a kid (although, in truth, I was usually also playing with my Star Wars and G.I. Joe guys on the couch at the same time). But, like, that "Saturday morning cartoons" thing is kind of alien to her. She doesn't just have something on the TV.

One of the things I've noticed, though, is that while she does this stuff, she has turned out to be pretty good at self-regulating. She only really wants about 2-ish hours of that stuff. Sometimes less. She just hits a point where she's done and wants to do something else. Go for a walk, play pretend, go to the playground near us, etc., etc. It's interesting how she just kinda gets saturated at a certain point and is just...done, and it's made me wonder if part of that isn't simply because when she has everything available to her at a touch, she really only wants a bit, and then she doesn't want anymore, whereas for me growing up, I only watched TV on the weekends, and therefore consumed ALL OF IT THAT I COULD even if it wasn't stuff I really wanted to watch or liked that much. Like, I'd watch The Funtastic World of Hanna Barbera on Sunday mornings (after I finished watching Star Wars on VHS, of course), not because I really loved The Paw Paw Bears or Galtar and the Golden Lance, but just because it was TV and I could watch it. There were shows I loved, of course, but plenty I didn't care about and still would have on in the background. That experience is totally foreign to her and not anything she's interested in.
There's this artist named Craig Davison who made wonderful artwork about OT Star Wars from a kid's perspective. I always thought these illustrations reflected the mindset nicely :)

I mean, that image was basically my childhood. One of my favorite memories is when we had a (in my memory) MASSIVE blizzard here in Philly back in '82, and to dig out our sidewalk, my dad basically shoveled a snow trench which came up to (on me at the time) about shoulder height. For that week, my front stoop was Hoth and Imperial walkers were approaching Echo base.
 
One of the things I've noticed, though, is that while she does this stuff, she has turned out to be pretty good at self-regulating. She only really wants about 2-ish hours of that stuff.
That's interesting. Seems like she'll be one of those who'll mature earlier than most. A huge advantage for her as she gets older.

Over here, most parents I know say their kids spend mornings before school, evenings after dinner, and at least 8 hours a day on weekends doing the same. What I never liked is that most parents in that group are the type who "don't want to be bothered" by their kids, so they let them do it without oversight. We eventually distanced ourselves from that group.

We understand the need for kids to have a certain amount of freedom, allowing them to discover on their own, but that group was simply negligent. Not kidding, since then most of those kids have been through (and still are in) therapy and are on meds. We saw that coming before some of those kids were born :(

I mean, that image was basically my childhood. One of my favorite memories is when we had a (in my memory) MASSIVE blizzard here in Philly back in '82, and to dig out our sidewalk, my dad basically shoveled a snow trench which came up to (on me at the time) about shoulder height. For that week, my front stoop was Hoth and Imperial walkers were approaching Echo base.

I grew up in the North East, so big storms were massive events as a kid. Leaning on the window sill at night, admiring the snow plows and blowers cleaning up the chaos. Bright orange flashing lights popping all over the place. I was always fascinated by the drivers in their warm little cockpits up top those blowers, wearing t-shirts while it was Hoth-cold outside.

For a few winters, every fresh snow fall was a Hoth snow fall. Like Luke escaping the Wampa cave, I've spent countless winter hours during those few years dragging through the snow, stuffing my scarf to my mouth, stumbling for a few steps, then falling flat on my face. I'd lay there for a few seconds before struggling to look up and painfully say "Ben?":lol: Then I'd get up and do it again. Over, and over, and over...

Countless hours.

What a wonderful time. So wonderful that just writing about here and now makes me happy.
 
What’s funny is that it’s just free money for them to put ads on the site. Since they own their IP on the site they aren’t paying for the content, so we are paying for the privilege to watch that content on their service. To have ads on shows is a way the “network” to pay for the content and the ability to upkeep the “network” to keep it on the air. Yet you have a subscription service where the viewer’s are paying to for the content and keep the “network” on the air. So to have a subscription and have ads, it’s just a way for them to get more money, but this time for free. Originally ad supported version was a free way for the public to watch the network like Hulu was when it first started. It just shows that capitalism is running too ramped now through the streaming services. So is this going to be the death of the streaming services and a new round of cord cutting like we had just a few years ago with terrestrial TV?
 
What’s funny is that it’s just free money for them to put ads on the site. Since they own their IP on the site they aren’t paying for the content, so we are paying for the privilege to watch that content on their service. To have ads on shows is a way the “network” to pay for the content and the ability to upkeep the “network” to keep it on the air. Yet you have a subscription service where the viewer’s are paying to for the content and keep the “network” on the air. So to have a subscription and have ads, it’s just a way for them to get more money, but this time for free. Originally ad supported version was a free way for the public to watch the network like Hulu was when it first started. It just shows that capitalism is running too ramped now through the streaming services. So is this going to be the death of the streaming services and a new round of cord cutting like we had just a few years ago with terrestrial TV?
It's the same old saying: having their cake and eat it too:rolleyes::(
 
I don't think that these ad supported tiers being offered by streaming companies are a matter of greed, at least not purely out of greed. I see it as a practical business decision as a result of increased competition. Since there are now so many different streaming services available now, people are starting to cut streaming services because they can't afford to pay for so many streaming services. So what's a streamer to do? Simple, find a way to entice their subscribers to not drop them by offering a lower priced tier option as a means of enticing any subscriber who might be thinking of canceling their subscription to keep it but at the lower priced ad supported tier. Say You have Netflix and Disney+ but you can't afford to pay for both and were considering canceling one or the other, but now with the ad supported tier, you can now afford to keep both, either one without ads or both with ads depending on what your budget supports.
 
People go to streaming to avoid cable because of the commercials and prices That was the entire attraction to streaming. You don't copy your competition when your competition is making bad business decisions.
I don't know if you're feeling it or not, but things have gotten tighter for a lot of folks. If I'm in a place where I can make something fit my budget by accepting a slightly more aggravating version of it, that's not a bad thing necessarily. If I'm not worried about it, I'll gladly throw a couple more bucks in for no ads.
 
I don't know if you're feeling it or not, but things have gotten tighter for a lot of folks. If I'm in a place where I can make something fit my budget by accepting a slightly more aggravating version of it, that's not a bad thing necessarily. If I'm not worried about it, I'll gladly throw a couple more bucks in for no ads.
Not for me, I'd rather cut it out all together. I'm not going to be paying for ads. I'll keep the cord cut, and cut out the streaming services that are charging me to watch commercials. I'll just read a book before I start dealing with that BS.
 
Not for me, I'd rather cut it out all together. I'm not going to be paying for ads. I'll keep the cord cut, and cut out the streaming services that are charging me to watch commercials. I'll just read a book before I start dealing with that BS.
I mean, that's your choice. If not seeing ads is more important to you than getting to see the shows.

Hypothetically, what if they adopted the Netflix model, where the service just goes up a buck or two every so often? Where is the line drawn between paying more for no ads, versus paying the same and having 30-60 seconds of ads?
 
Hypothetically, what if they adopted the Netflix model, where the service just goes up a buck or two every so often? Where is the line drawn between paying more for no ads, versus paying the same and having 30-60 seconds of ads?
Oh believe me, Netflix is on a thin rope themselves. If their content gets any worse, they won't be in my watchlist either.

And a lot of Netflix subscribers are feeling the same way about price vs content. They keep charging more for less content. The majority of their content is already mostly original series that are VERY hit or miss.
 
People go to streaming to avoid cable because of the commercials and prices That was the entire attraction to streaming. You don't copy your competition when your competition is making bad business decisions.
I don't think that you're getting it. There are a lot of streaming services out there these days and it's getting to be too expensive for a lot of people to subscribe to all that they do now so they consider unsubscribing to one or more in order to reduce expenses. That's why services like Hulu, Netflix, and now Disney + are offering an ad supported tier, it's to encourage people to not get rid of their service because they now have a lower priced subscription option available, you just have to be willing to put up with commercials. It may have been questionable for Hulu to have offered it first, but they did and it seems to have worked. So, as a company, do you follow suit in order to keep people subscribed to your service, or do you act stubbornly and risk losing subscribers? The members of your board of directors aren't going to care about talk of what cable did or some kind of moral high ground, they're going to see nothing but lost revenue. I'm sure that they'd rather keep their subscriber base but make a bit less money off of them rather than lose them altogether and get nothing from them. And if you insist on not offering an ad supported tier like the competition, the board of directors and/or the CEO are going to let you go because you'd be losing them money.
 
I don't think that you're getting it. There are a lot of streaming services out there these days and it's getting to be too expensive for a lot of people to subscribe to all that they do now so they consider unsubscribing to one or more in order to reduce expenses. That's why services like Hulu, Netflix, and now Disney + are offering an ad supported tier, it's to encourage people to not get rid of their service because they now have a lower priced subscription option available, you just have to be willing to put up with commercials. It may have been questionable for Hulu to have offered it first, but they did and it seems to have worked. So, as a company, do you follow suit in order to keep people subscribed to your service, or do you act stubbornly and risk losing subscribers? The members of your board of directors aren't going to care about talk of what cable did or some kind of moral high ground, they're going to see nothing but lost revenue. I'm sure that they'd rather keep their subscriber base but make a bit less money off of them rather than lose them altogether and get nothing from them. And if you insist on not offering an ad supported tier like the competition, the board of directors and/or the CEO are going to let you go because you'd be losing them money.
Except that it's not a "new lower-priced option." It's the current ad-free price we've been paying, just now with ads. If we want to remain ad-free, we'll need to pay more now!
 
Except that it's not a "new lower-priced option." It's the current ad-free price we've been paying, just now with ads. If we want to remain ad-free, we'll need to pay more now!
I mean, yes, but also... everything gets more expensive always and forever. There isn't a product or service that doesn't. Over the span of years that I read comics I watched them go from $1 each to $4 each. A bean burrito at taco bell isn't .59 anymore. At least D+ is continuing to add original content, and not skimping on VFX budgets to do it.
 
The problem I have with the ads is that there is no way to skip over them or switch to a different show until the ad finishes. I got Hulu just to watch season 3 of The Orville at the lowest price with ads and it was very hard to get through each episode. I cancelled it the day after the last episode aired. Never again.
 
The problem I have with the ads is that there is no way to skip over them or switch to a different show until the ad finishes. I got Hulu just to watch season 3 of The Orville at the lowest price with ads and it was very hard to get through each episode. I cancelled it the day after the last episode aired. Never again.
Every time I get impatient with a streaming service, or having to watch a commercial, I remind myself of my childhood. Three TV stations, and one fuzzy distaff station. Tv shows were 30 minutes, with about 4 commercial breaks that ran about 5 commercials at each break. And you sat and watched them, or used that time to get a snack, a drink, or to take a bathroom break.

When did our world get so impatient? Lol
 
When did our world get so impatient? Lol
With the launch of streaming services.

I mean, the current generation can’t sit through CONTENT that’s more than 90 seconds, let alone commercials.

My issues is NOT having commercials. My issues is after 3 years I’m now being told that I will now watch commercials or pay more.
 
Commercials do not belong on a streaming service. They can put those on a version that is free to view.

I've dropped out of all streaming services. They cost too much. Their content is boring. They deliberately prevent movies and TV-shows from coming out on physical media. Basically, they need to disappear.
 

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