Frugal

For videos, how about just …. Not?

People used to be glued to the tv, the “idiot box”, consuming whatever media offered by a few dominant companies and on their schedule. Despite “free” (with ads) broadcasting we all opted for expensive (with ads) cable and let them drastically raise prices. We had a brief renaissance with streaming, lead by Netflix, but they’re becoming “the new ComCast”. Ever increasing prices, shittier service, hostile to customers.

Video is no longer the only option to decompress after work and they keep making it worse. It’s time to just say no

Not streaming and finding a different way to enjoy your time. Honestly, at this point, I'm getting less interested in things I enjoyed as a younger person and more wanting to do models and tabletop things I can now afford to buy.

for streaming movies/shows just find something on fmhy or if you want to set up your own server download the stuff off like 1337x and put it on jellyfin.

For music you can do the same with soulseek/nicotine+ and navidrome on a server. OR sign up with Qobuz. I use Qobuz and I like it. artists get paid more on there than spotify and since I don't care about podcasts it's not an issue.

Yarrrrr.

Check out Bloomee

With regards to Spotify, assuming you are able to build a reasonable library by other means, I've been massively impressed by Navidrome.

Run it through a free Tailscale tailnet, and you can access it wherever you like (as long as the accessing device is in your tailnet). Run it through a reverse proxy on a VPS and you don't even need your accessing device to be in the tailnet.

So I now have Symfonium on my phone, and Feishin on my desktops, all accessing the same library.

The only part of that that has to cost any money (aside from buying music, that is), is the £5 I paid for Symfonium.