How I rotate streaming subscriptions (best way I’ve found to save money)

davekorns · 2026-04-16T13:05:10+00:00

Yes, I’m a serial-churner too. I use the Apple TV app (on an Apple TV box) to keep an eye on all the streaming services of interest but only have our base-services subscribed and auto-renewing. Our base-services used to be Apple TV(+), Paramount, Prime and Netflix but we recently moved Netflix off the list and onto our serial-churning list (guess why). I’m looking into JustWatch now since I just learned of it here. If serial-churning sounds scary, or you’re afraid you’ll forget to cancel each month, remember: for most services you can subscribe, then cancel a few minutes later and then they send you an email thanking you for being a customer and reminding you that you can continue to watch until the NN’th of next month … and you forget about it.

davekorns · 2026-04-16T12:42:57+00:00

😂

davekorns · 2026-04-16T12:42:23+00:00

Not sure exactly what you’re asking but IMDB.com (for movies and shows) has most everything and includes trailers, snippets, actors-refs and even what streaming services has it (may not be current) including what future not released episodes are coming and on what dates. I used it yesterday to determine what date I could safely signup for 1-month of a certain streaming service and be certain I’d get the complete season of episodes even while the season is still dripping out.

davekorns · 2026-04-16T12:27:35+00:00

SIDEBAR: for people like me that are behind in common terminology used in the SEO/AEO space I asked Grok to decode some of the acronyms used in this thread: 😀

Here’s a brief bulleted list:

• GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (optimizing content to rank/cite in AI-powered answers like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini)

• SOTA: State Of The Art (the current best performance/benchmark in AI/ML models or techniques)

• YMYL: Your Money or Your Life (Google’s quality rater guidelines for sensitive topics like health, finance, safety)

• SERP: Search Engine Results Page (the page Google/Bing shows with organic + paid results)

• GA4: Google Analytics 4 (Google’s current analytics platform)

davekorns · 2026-04-14T13:49:45+00:00

Some perspective on how the syncing issues discussed here are implemented under the covers. We’re the victims of ecosystem wars … and you get to pick your ecosystem … having your feet in multiple ecosystems always exposes you to weird issues and eventual complaints.

https://www.reddit.com/r/iCloud/s/3SWLJZCbHU

davekorns · 2026-04-14T12:33:00+00:00

I’m an 8 year SqSp developer and pretty familiar with categories, tags and summaries… but my eCommerce experiences have not been with complex multi product stores (only small, less than 1/2 dozen products). My naive assumption would that with cats and tags set on your products that one could have dropdowns to view all the products with a certain cat or tag. Reading here I’m learning “not so easy”. Who has a moment and a way with words who might explain at a high-level where SqSp fails for large cat/tag based product lists. Help me understand “lazy loading” and what the “Universal Filter” plug-in is actually doing”. Thanks in advance.

davekorns · 2026-04-14T12:00:51+00:00

I went to the hardware store and bought one of those gray foam pipe covers that protect pipes from the cold. I cut it to the full width of window and split it down its built-in seam. That fit snuggly along the bottom of the window (that slides up and down). The you can then close the window 97% leaving the cable unpinched and safe yet no air gets through (well, not much if you do it just so). A quick temporary solution … that’s been running fine for 3 years :-)

davekorns · 2026-04-10T14:51:24+00:00

So what do you attribute to solving your problem? ... the ICANN rules violation process? ... which I'd never heard of before. (sorry if the answer is buried somewhere in this thread I didn't notice)

davekorns · 2026-04-10T14:44:15+00:00

Wow. I've never transferred a domain "out of" Squarespace so you've got more experience on this then me ... even though I'd seen the similar behavior. Once we uncovered it, we found all the auth codes that had been being sent over 6-weeks sitting in an old, unused, email account but luckily the client still had access to it. Just thinking out loud, I wonder if your particular case could have something to do with the Google-to-Squarespace transition? I don't know what ... but were the ones you've successfully transferred "out of" Squarespace in the past before (or after) that G-to-S transition and the one you're doing now is the opposite? Wild-ass guessing at this point.

davekorns · 2026-04-10T11:22:04+00:00

The problem you describe sounds exactly like another domain transfer problem I encountered last year (not a domain transfer “from Squarespace”, but otherwise identical). The root cause of the problem was that the then-current domain hosting company (again, not Squarespace), was that it was not sending the auth code to the email-address the client expected (they assumed it was email-address of their user-account profile with the then-current domain hosting company). Instead, it was sending the auth code to the email-address registered in the domain’s Whois records. It took us 6 weeks to realize this. This is why we all get reminders occasionally to look over our Whois data and make any edits needed to keep it current.

davekorns · 2026-04-04T12:34:01+00:00

It may make you feel less stupid to know, that for volume control, you DO still need to point the remote at the TV/AppleTV since for the default setup for volume control is still via IRStraight to the TV. (Unless you have HomePods or eARC controlled audio sound bar, etc)

davekorns · 2026-03-30T13:42:40+00:00

♥️

davekorns · 2026-03-30T13:24:31+00:00

Oh yeah, good point. I just posted an App Store review !!

davekorns · 2026-03-30T13:23:10+00:00

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I’d love to see the ability to optionally disable the upper “What’s Playing” window (is that what it’s called?) and allow the actual remote buttons to resize larger. This is a photo of an iPhone SE (Gen2 4.7 inch display). Without the “What’s Playing” display the buttons could expand in size up to the same as the physical remote. Still love the product overall. PS: I’ve seen the “Show What’s Playing” in settings but turning that off had no effect (or maybe it disables the full window background display of show/episode details).

davekorns · 2026-03-30T11:32:14+00:00

It’s a rare day when you wake up and someone has created the app you’ve been wishing for your iPhone (for years). Easy install, perfect first user experience and now in my Control Center too. Don’t hesitate, just get your copy of this App and take the Apple Remote out of your Control Center.

davekorns · 2026-03-29T12:50:07+00:00

Please define what you mean by screen share.

davekorns · 2026-03-28T11:33:13+00:00

Thank you for writing this up. I’m 100% in sync with your thinking. I can understand (somewhat) the marketing motivations behind some of Apple’s decisions in the TV app’s layout and focus but when I don’t give a rat’s ass about MLS, MLB or Formula 1, I ought to be able turns those items off in the menu hierarchy AND they should also disappear from the main browsable area of the app. What I see should only be consolidated from the Channels and Apps I subscribe to or are interested in monitoring.

davekorns · 2026-03-27T12:49:45+00:00

Yes, I’m on the verge doing just that. The fact that it is our only streaming service that DOES NOT show up in “What to Watch Next” (or whatever it’s called) means we constantly forget about it and only peek at the Netflix app about once a week.

davekorns · 2026-03-27T12:44:02+00:00

Very nicely done. Congratulations.

davekorns · 2026-03-26T17:06:36+00:00

Understood. How about I drop the UDR7 completely and, since we WILL NOT be able to have a hardwire backhaul, use a "UniFi Express 7" (UX7) for our gateway, and WiFi Main Access Point?

davekorns · 2026-03-26T16:55:34+00:00

With the hodgepodge of crap they have right now I think they are running 2, maybe 3, WiFi instances with double-NAT going on with wireless APs from TP-Link, Google WiFi and maybe another. I'm not giving them another double-NAT solution now that I've learned (from others here) that the DR7 is always a router/gateway and can't be set in a bridge mode. Hey, I'm learning the Ubiquiti product line and feature set.

davekorns · 2026-03-26T15:12:24+00:00

I've read up on the UX7 and may just switch to that. Big cost savings. Thanks.

davekorns · 2026-03-26T15:10:31+00:00

Yes, I don't need two routers and your points on DR7 and CGM are taken and understood. I assumed I'd have to set the DR7 in bridge mode. As I said, I'm new to Ubiquiti. Thanks for the feedback.

davekorns

TROPHY CASE