I have a budget I set and I spend across a couple creatives and media companies, but they are direct payments tonth creatives themselves. I have no issues paying for people to create works.

But such a microscopic portion of any streaming service payment, coupled with deeply toxic, dark patterned business models, not to mention how the business structure has distorted the model for creative works.

I have views on property rights that I know aren't the most popular on a dot world or even some of the more radical instances. I know a few share it, but I know most don't, but I genuinely don't believe in copyright.

This was exactly the way I thought of my spending habits for a long time. Then a few years ago, Netflix prohibited password sharing, a soft feature they had specifically encouraged in the past, with the explicit purpose of desperately generating additional revenue as other growth streams plateaued. When most users just kind of accepted it, the dam broke and all the other services followed suit.

That was the final straw for me, on top of the proliferation of dedicated per-studio services, price hikes, and pricing tiers that created needless feature lock-outs. As a consumer I get dicked around in every sector in which I'm forced to participate, but this is one sector where I have an option to withdraw from the dicking.

that's the fun part, basically none of the money you pay actually goes to the people who made the thing.

like 95-100% of the money that the crew of a movie or TV show makes is paid to them during production. There might be a handful of crew, typically writers, actors, and directors who get residuals, but that's typically a very small fraction of the total amount they got paid.

Your money goes to the studio who produced the film/show in order to recoup their investment. and in my experience, the studio doesn't actually give a shit about the creatives who made the thing you love. They'll get rid of them for someone cheaper at the first opportunity, and a lot of them are trying to get rid of them for AI right now.

This 100%.

It has been a weird journey for me, from "Netflix is elevating all of these great comedies!" To Netflix is buying competitors to keep every creator vulnerable.

That said, Dropout, Nebula and Curiosity Stream all seem pretty ethical toward creators. I think the combination of all three costs less than Netflix. (Though I've been on the Netflix boycott for awhile now.)

Also, I can't get over Dropout's ad series encouraging users to share a password to let someone try DropOut. Boss move.

I only maintain 2-3 streaming services at a time

This is the way. Unless their prices fall of a cliff, I'll only ever be doing 1-2 services at a time. There's always plenty to get caught up on