Breaking Up With Disney
The things I left behind in 2024, part 1
Like many US-Americans, everything I watch on television now comes from Internet streaming services rather than cable or satellite. As these services have proliferated (and increased in price) over the years, my spouse and I have added and subtracted them as we see fit. In 2024, one service we said goodbye to was Disney+.
I first signed up for Disney+ in 2020, when they offered a deal with Fortnite where buying any avatar skin would get you three months of service. I wasn’t really interested in playing Fortnite as I dislike first-person shooters, but the game itself was free, and I calculated that buying the lowest-priced skin available would save me the equivalent of two months of Disney+ streaming ($7.99/month at the time).
Even at full price, Disney+ seemed like a good deal, as they had a lot of programming we were interested in; not only all the Disney movies but also Pixar, Marvel, and nearly every episode of The Muppet Show. As my spouse is an audio engineer, we have a good setup for watching films at home, which I preferred over going to movie theaters even before the pandemic. We got caught up on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and enjoyed creative new series like WandaVision (which a friend of ours had a small part in) and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
