Team-BHP - What on earth is Hotstar doing? Is the subscription worth it anymore

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 5525046)

Are you guys continuing with your Hotstar subscription? Without HBO & F1, I see no reason to. Hotstar is weakening its base at a time when other players are coming out with top-class content.

I got Hotstar as a package from my cell provider (Airtel) - 1 yr unlimited screening! I guess this expires during Jul 2023 and post that it’s curtains for their app on my phone! As you rightly summarized Hotstar is just throwing dirt hoping to keep the base viewers active!

Quote:

Originally Posted by NiInJa (Post 5525395)

Hotstar is total crap now, but I have to keep it for my kid and some series' (House of Dragons) which I would have happily got from utorrent 10 years back :D

It's a shame that I used to watch all time favourites like Terminator 2, Predator, Independence Day on Star movies at cheap cable prices back in the day. They are simply not there on Hotstar.

As for uTorrent/Torrents, you can still access and download whatever you wish. I regularly use it for downloading foreign shows not available in India / classics, etc. After installing utorrent, use HMA-Proxy and browse to 1337x.to

Search for content and download.

Warning: Utorrents /torrents have always been a risky affair, so exercise caution and be alert. Some firewall/antivirus tweaking may be required if prompted.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 5525046)

Till very recently, Hotstar used to brag about:

- IPL rights

- Showing Formula 1 races

Are you guys continuing with your Hotstar subscription? Without HBO & F1, I see no reason to. Hotstar is weakening its base at a time when other players are coming out with top-class content.

One word - No

Hotstar has become a bully by introducing forced ads in their lowest tier. The content is now boring and with HBO gone, they have lost their USP. I am with them only for the Premier League. I will be switching to an alternative source after the current season. Same for SonyLiv. I will continue with Netflix for some more time because I am in the middle of a few series'. As soon as they introduce their low tier ad filled subscription nonsense, I am out.

Hotstar comes bundled with my Vi connection, so don't have to pay anything! I still use it to watch Cricket matches mostly. Also, I'm yet to see some of their popular shows like Homeland,Billions,Americans,etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 5525046)

Are you guys continuing with your Hotstar subscription? Without HBO & F1

I didn't renewed my subscription last month. Put 500 more and subscribed to F1 TV :D Apart from this I am subscribed to YouTube Premium, Amazon Prime and Sony Liv respectively.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheRandomGuy (Post 5525216)

Off topic, but how good is the Ken membership? I really love business news and well researched articles like these. I read every finshots article on the day, and looks like Ken is the next level from finshots.

But, at 3000INR per year, seems a bit excessive. What is your opinion on this?

I guess some sort of account sharing is the way to reduce burden of the high cost.

you don't need to pay anything, use https://12ft.io/, this site will give you free to read version of same article, it works due to Google crawler.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheRandomGuy (Post 5525216)

Ken is decent but nothing extra ordinary. Have its membership and while the articles seemed really good initially, after sometime you realize it is regular stuff packed with extra chat maasala. Surprisingly, Finshots does a fabulous job despite being free!

I'll probably try Economic Times Prime membership next.

Being a football fan, I will keep using Hotstar until it streams the Premier League matches. I do not need to pay for the subscription too since it comes bundled with my jio fiber connection; as does Sony liv and Voot. so Jio is keeping my football needs covered. :p

Never even bothered with Hotstar, HBO, etc. as I have never watched cricket.
Moved off Netflix as they, much like Crunchyroll, started removing what I liked and region-locked a lot of stuff.
Prime Video still remains as a side-effect of Prime subscription and I use it once in a while.

For most of my episodic media consumption, I use Muse Asia on YouTube.

Basically given up on OTT due to excessive explicit content. I am here for a good story and not biology chapter 9.

Anime is what fuels my ICE

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 5525046)

Till very recently, Hotstar used to brag about:

- Top-class content & shows from HBO

I only use to subscribe to Hotstar because of HBO only. I am planning not to renew it after subscription time gets over.

Very true Hotstar has lost its charm among the English content viewers. I have the subscription as it comes with my Airtel monthly pack but have not even opened the app in months. I did watch some really good series like Prison Break, Last man standing, How I met your mother, True Detective and Sopranos etc. but there is hardly any thing new on this platform which interests me. Netflix is not offering much either but it still has some content that I like and doing repeat watch.

Wish I could give up Hotstar subscription. But family won't allow, as they enjoy a few Tamil language shows on the platform.

And of course, son won't permit it, due to all those Marvel shows and movies!

Oh man, I feel like such a weirdo here. I have had a Hotstar subscription for a long time and I've never watched a single sports event including cricket or F1. I was running out of patience watching the first episode of GOT and never watched another episode. Did not care for any of the other HBO content either.

Whatever I need - it's still there. Marvel, Star Wars, and lots and lots of old animated movies like Bambi, Winnie the Pooh series, Timon and Pumbaa, etc.

And there are still sitcoms like How I met your mother, Malcolm in the Middle, and Modern Family to rewatch to get through a cloudy day.

The complete collection of National Geographic shows are still available. Countless series like Cosmos, Earth Moods, and anything that ends like Wild Secrets are very much rewatchable.

So, I won't be missing anything that has left Hotstar. Only wish they would reduce the price since they won't be paying for IPL/HBO. And they need to improve their mobile/web experience when compared to Netflix/Prime.