Movie lovers across the world are cancelling their Netflix subscription and instead opting for an old school style of viewing instead.
The unexpected reason for cancelling the subscriptions comes as frugal members of the public are opting for cheap and in some cases, free ways, of watching their favourite films and shows.
A shift away from streaming platforms comes as some members of the public found it difficult to justify spending so much on different services.
Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Apple TV+, and Amazon Prime are just five of the many streaming services out there, all with original content.
However, fans are readily fighting back against the “smaller” range of streaming options. Surprisingly, many shared they are headed back to the days of DVD and Blu-Ray.
One user posting to the r/Frugal Reddit page wrote: “How many of you are cancelling subscriptions and going back to DVDs? My mum in particular isn’t tech friendly so has kept all DVDs and loves picking one to watch.
“I still have my DVDs too but got caught out on subscriptions. I personally have decided to cancel all subscriptions for half a year so we can only have six months max of subscriptions. For example, I may have signed up to Stan for three months while watching a TV show I can’t buy then cancel.
“Then a few months later I did three months of Netflix to watch some documentaries and now cancelled and that’s it for the year. Who else is moving back to DVDs? It’s been amazing to not be stuck with decision fatigue and actually own things again. Next year we will only allow ourself three months total for the year for subscriptions.”
People are finding the transition is far easier and say renting DVDs from the library is a free and easy source of new movies.
One comment reads: “I just get free DVD rentals from my local library.” Another added: “I don’t know why I never thought of this. I’ll have to check mine out, thank you!”
A third person has said libraries are a “cheat code” for getting quality movies and television programmes without relying on streaming services.
They wrote: “Library’s the cheat code: no fees, no contracts, and the shelves throw you into shows and movies you’d never pick from a scrolling app.”
Another user shared: “We have a bunch of DVDs but pretty much stopped watching them when we got streaming platforms.
“Then as more and more streaming platforms came around and the options for available shows and films on each got smaller and smaller, we started watching some of our saved electronic films instead.
“Most DVDs and blue ray discs come with an e-copy on the disc that we saved to our home server. Some of our older DVDs don’t have the electronic version so we hooked up one of the gaming systems to our TV and watched a film last weekend.
“We will probably do this more often as the selection on the streaming platforms get smaller.”
A third suggested that DVDs were anywhere between 25p and 50p in charity shops, so you really could be saving money if you want to cut back on subscriptions.