Bonum Certa Men Certa

Don’t Use Disney Minus. (Disney “Plus”)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on May 13, 2024

Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer.

When I was a child, we had video tapes. When parents wanted their children to watch Disney movies, there were tapes and there was the movie theater. That was it. That was all we had.

But it worked.

Disney was a business, and in business to make money, but it wasn’t the obscenity that it has turned into today.

Walt Disney banned alcohol from his parks. He said, “It would lead to a certain element frequenting our parks that you’d really rather not have.” Today, they sell alcohol (almost certainly at obscene price points, because captive audience). Nothing says “$6,000 vacation” like watching some drunk people get into a brawl at Disney, I guess.

Their creativity is gone, they’re morally bankrupt, the freaks and weirdos have taken over and even better yet, Communist China gets to approve the scripts because they’re a “more important market” now than Americans.

The asset Disney has is a massive back catalog from when they were….more.

Practically every release they’ve made lately has been a box office bomb, something unthinkable for a major Disney release when I was a child. There have been huge layoffs at divisions like Pixar, and even at their parks and management. The morons that run the company even managed to screw themselves by picking a fight with the government of Florida and losing badly.

When you went to the parks, it was at a relatively “high” price, but it wasn’t thousands of dollars a week like it is now. When you went there back then, society had not yet collapsed, and there weren’t drunken people in their parks, and a lot of perverts that, in modern times, you just have to “pretend not to see there” as you watch your children like a hawk.

But Disney is exploitative in other ways. They have pushed for “forever copyright” laws, and although they haven’t quite gotten them, they’ve more or less accomplished everything they’ve wanted due to widespread political corruption in the United States.

Their more recent scheme is “Disney Plus”, or as I like to sometimes call it “Disney Minus”.

With Digital Restrictions Malware, they’ve taken everything from you that you used to have, including the ability to make copies, or even just have a copy, and they’ve slowly been dialing up the cost per month, and stuffing it with ads.

Like most things you “stream”, as soon as you quit paying them, no matter how much you paid them, you lose everything. This means that your subscription turns into a “curse”. It keeps taking more and more.

When Disney Plus was new, Disney only charged $8 and there were no ads, ever. This wasn’t a long time ago, only five years. Today, the “ad free” tier is $20 a month, and it just keeps getting more expensive.

According to some people on Reddit, even the ad free tier has a few ads.

The $9.99 tier with ads has become so overrun with ads, that some people on Reddit have taken to complaining that every five minutes, there’s a minute and a half full of ads.

When you pause the video, the pause screen is another ad, and that’s with the intro ads of course.

So it’s clear that the only purpose of the $9.99 version is to annoy you into paying for the other half of the cost, to avoid having your evenings and weekend free time being filled with ads.

Disney Plus is so nasty that my credit card company would reimburse me for most of it, and I still don’t use it.

I read an article today that says that very soon, Walmart will make money on Disney Plus, by selling Disney your shopping history at Walmart so they can figure out what ads to play. Of course, the reason that this targeted advertising works so well is because Walmart never forgets what you buy, and Disney never forgets what shows you watch.

So they can ink a deal and trade lists, and figure out how to burrow into your head, and sell you stuff, and put you deeper and deeper into debt. They want to know what makes you tick, so that you spend beyond your means on products advertised on Disney Plus.

When you run ads, you are psychologically manipulating a person. You might make them feel like dirt for not having a thing, or make them think they’ll be very happy if they buy a thing, but then they buy the thing and they’re no happier than they were.

As one person on Reddit put it, it doesn’t matter how many times you run an ad for a $60,000 Ford truck, if I can’t afford the truck. Advertising will only make you feel bad.

Back to Disney Plus, back to more ads.

The truly horrible and dark part of this is that people using Disney Plus as a babysitter are plopping their kids in front of these ads while Disney Plus (the bait) trains them to be a “consumer”.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia, Shutdown in Pakistan, What Next?
It seems possible that in 2025 alone Microsoft will have laid off over 50,000 workers
What Matters More Than "Market Share"
The goal is freedom, not "market share"
Credit Suisse collapse obfuscated Parreaux, Thiébaud & Partners scandal
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
UK Media Under Threat: Cannot Report on Data Breach, Cannot Report on Microsoft Staff Strangling Women
The story of super injunction (in the British media this week, years late)
Under the Guise of "MIT Technology Review Insights" the Site MIT Technology Review Posts Corporate Spam as 'Articles'
Some of the articles aren't even articles but 'hit pieces' against Free software and some are paid advertisements
Brett Wilson LLP Has Track Record in Scam Coin Cases (e.g. Craig Wright and More), Now It Works for 'Crypto' Scam Purveyors
But wait, it gets worse
Will Brett Wilson LLP Handle Its Own Winding Up Petition or be Struck Off for Overt Abuse of Process?
Today we sue not only the first Microsofter
Ubuntu Becomes Microsoft GitHub, Based on Decision Made by British Army Officer
You're hopeless, Canonical
 
When People Call a Best/Close Friend of Bill Gates a "Serial Rapist"
Good thing that the Linux Foundation keeps the "Linux" trademark ("Linux Mark") clean
Not My Problem, I Don't Care
Context/inspiration: Martin Niemöller
Honest Journalism About the European Patent Office Ceased to Exist After SLAPPs and Bribes to the Media
The EPO is basically a Mafia
Life Became Simpler When I Stopped Driving and I Don't Miss Driving When I See "Modern" Cars
Gee, wonder why car sales have plummeted...
Why I Believe Brett Wilson LLP and Its Microsoft Clients Are All Toast
So far our legal strategy has worked perfectly
EPO Jobs Are Very Toxic and Bad for One's Health
Health first, not monopolies
Response to Ryo Suwito Regarding the Four Freedoms
the point of life isn't to make more money
Microsoft's Morale Circling Down the Drain
Or gutter, toilet etc.
Tech Used to be Fun. To Many of Us It's Still Fun.
You can just watch it from afar and make fun of it all
Links 17/07/2025: "Blog Identity Crisis" and Openwashing by Nvidia
Links for the day
Greffiers and the US Attorney of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft
The lawsuit can help expose extensive corruption in the American court system as well
The People Who Promoted systemd in Debian Also Promote Wayland
This is not politics
Victims of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Alex Balabhadra Graveley, Wanted to Sue Him But Lacked the Funds (He Attacked Their Finances)
Having spoken to victims of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft
Links 17/07/2025: Science, Hardware, and Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/07/2025: Staying in the "Small Web" and Back on ICQ
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 16, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Exclusive: corruption in Tribunals, Greffiers, from protection rackets to cat whisperers
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 16/07/2025: Chip Bans and Microsoft’s “Digital Escort” Program
Links for the day
Revolving Doors: One Day You're a Judge, the Next Day You're an Attorney Paying Public Officials and Working for Violent and Dangerous Microsoft Employees
how the US justice system works
Sharing Code and Recipes
It helps explain the triviality of software freedom
Slopwatch: Noise, Plagiarism and Even Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation
What are we meant to do to prevent a false association or misleading connotations? Game the LLMs? No. Boycott slopfarms.
How Many Women Has Microsoft's Alex Balabhadra Graveley Already Strangled and Where Does That End?
If you too are a victim of this man and wish to share information, contact us
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and Simple Web Browsing with TLS
Links for the day
Links 16/07/2025: Fascist Slop Takes "Intelligence" Clothing, New Criminal Case Against MElon
Links for the day
"We Might Save Somebody's Life"
I follow the example of my father
Why I am Suing the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Alex Balabhadra Graveley, in the UK High Court This Week
Out of respect to the process and to the Court, I shall not share any pertinent details about the case
Links 16/07/2025: China’s Economy Grows Steadily, France Takes Action Regarding Harm to Children by GAFAM and Fentanylware (TikTok)
Links for the day
It is Not About Politics
Beware the people who try to make this about politics
Good Journalism Saves Lives
a shocking number of women die or get seriously hurt every day due to violence from a partner
Recognition of Women's Contributions to Free Software
Being passive is not an option when bad things are happening
Slopfarms Are Going to Perish Because Public Opinion is Changing
Many slopfarms will simply go offline
19 Years of Standing Up for Justice, Equality, and Truth
This week we shall take it up a notch
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: Tmux and OCC25 Working TLS
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 15, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Links 15/07/2025: LLM Pollution and Pushback in Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: xkcd, New Cert, and Alhena Gemlog
Links for the day
Links 15/07/2025: Press Freedom at Risk and New Facebook Blunders
Links for the day
Reboots Should Never be Necessary
"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"
There's Still Hope for the World Wide Web
Let's hope that the trajectory of the Web won't be leading us to over-reliance on Google, nor will it reward worthless slopfarms
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Smolweb and Alhena 5.1.7
Links for the day
The Danes Want GNU/Linux
David Heinemeier Hansson recently moved to GNU/Linux
Cory Doctorow Explains Why Software Freedom Matters, Whereas "Open Source" Misses the Point and Helps Monopolies
It's a very long article
BillPR (EpsteinGate-Bribed NPR) is Turning Into a Partial Slopfarm that Promotes Slop
"I went on a date with a chatbot!"
Two Weeks Passed Since Latest Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, More Expected Next Month
Blaming the debt on "AI" is just self-serving storytelling
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 14, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 14, 2025
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Gemini "Style Sheets" and Switching From Microsoft GitHub to Codeberg
Links for the day