Speaker 1: It's Thursday, so it means it's time for tech talk.
Speaker 1: I could do it with my mouth if you'd like.
Speaker 1: It's time for tech talk. Mark Saltzman joins us. Mark,
Speaker 1: of course, is the host of the techt Out podcast Machines.
Speaker 2: Are Getting Smarter. This is tech talk. There you go
Speaker 2: to you my sky net are Hey, is it someone's
Speaker 2: birthday today? It is? Hey, happy twenty ninth dear.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you Mark, you remembered.
Speaker 2: Yes, of course.
Speaker 1: Hey, we've we all spend probably way too much money
Speaker 1: on streaming services because we lose track of which accounts
Speaker 1: we have and which ones we signed up for, or
Speaker 1: we signed up for the free and then didn't cancel
Speaker 1: when they started charging us. How do we how do
Speaker 1: we trim back some of our streaming costs?
Speaker 2: Right? Well, ironically, cord cutters were looking to save money
Speaker 2: a couple of years ago by canceling their cable and
Speaker 2: signing up for streaming services. But now it can cost
Speaker 2: you more for streaming services. There's so many, and you
Speaker 2: know that they keep going up in price or they
Speaker 2: want more money to get rid of ads. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I wrote an article on five things you can do
Speaker 2: to lower your costs with streaming services. Some are kind
Speaker 2: of no brainers, others might be a little hack if
Speaker 2: you will. The first thing is to consider a lower tier.
Speaker 2: For example, Netflix Premium is as much as twenty five
Speaker 2: dollars now, and that lets you watch in four K
Speaker 2: quality and on multiple devices and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: But for seven ninety nine, so less than a third
Speaker 2: of that, you can go with what's called the standard
Speaker 2: with ads plan if you really don't mind ads here
Speaker 2: and there. They're shorter and less frequent than cable TV ads,
Speaker 2: but there's ads nonetheless, But for under eight bucks a month,
Speaker 2: you may opt for that, and that's most of the
Speaker 2: same content as well, including games if you like those
Speaker 2: Netflix games, which are getting kind of popular. So yeah,
Speaker 2: just consider a lower tier or a service that charges less. Generally,
Speaker 2: Apple TV, which I think has really high quality content,
Speaker 2: may not have the selection of a Netflix or Amazon
Speaker 2: Prime Video, but really good quality. That's like under ten
Speaker 2: bucks a month, and that's with no ads, so you know,
Speaker 2: maybe be a bit selective. The second thing is to
Speaker 2: take advantage of any promos or bundles that you may
Speaker 2: hear about with your mobile carrier. I know T Mobile
Speaker 2: offers some discounts on services like Apple TV, Door Dash
Speaker 2: I think with their Dash pass plan, which is like
Speaker 2: an annual thing, they'llt a for Hbo Max for you,
Speaker 2: which is good. So just do your homework. Just go
Speaker 2: online and look for any deals or ask the company
Speaker 2: like your bank, your mobile phone provider if they offer
Speaker 2: any discounts or freebs with streaming services. Chances are they do.
Speaker 2: There's some really good ones out there. Another one is
Speaker 2: so generally, if you really like a service, when you
Speaker 2: pay annually, you do save compared to paying monthly. But
Speaker 2: why not pay by month binge what you want to watch, Like,
Speaker 2: make a list and binge that and then cancel it
Speaker 2: after a month or even okay, even if it's two months,
Speaker 2: it's still going to be less than a year. If
Speaker 2: you're finding that you're not watching anything on I don't know,
Speaker 2: Disney Plus, for example, then maybe it's time to cut
Speaker 2: that as well and just go month by month. And
Speaker 2: on that note, another tip is to split the service
Speaker 2: with your good friends, like maybe you will subscribe to
Speaker 2: Netflix and your best stee will go with Apple TV
Speaker 2: and just go to each other's home. You know, sharing
Speaker 2: is scaring and just binge things together on somebody else's account.
Speaker 3: Yes, you're watching more watching the same stuff anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, right, it's fun. There's ways you can do
Speaker 2: it remotely, but I think it's more fun to just
Speaker 2: you know, cut along a couch with a bowl of
Speaker 2: popcorn and take advantage of each other's service. You both
Speaker 2: don't need it, if you if you think about it, right,
Speaker 2: if you're willing to share with a good friend or
Speaker 2: a partner that doesn't live with it.
Speaker 3: Gary, this is this is why I keep trying to.
Speaker 2: You guys should do it.
Speaker 3: Hancel my subscriptions, and then we can watch TV together
Speaker 3: all afternoon, every.
Speaker 2: Afternoon, because that's that's exactly what you want to do
Speaker 2: after spending all day together.
Speaker 4: It's an all night.
Speaker 2: Together, right, Okay. The last tip is as the no brainer,
Speaker 2: which is consider free services like Pluto TV to be
Speaker 2: You're not going to get like the best the latest
Speaker 2: Hollywood blockbusters or the TV shows that everybody's buzzing about
Speaker 2: at the office water cooler, but there's a lot of
Speaker 2: good content. Pluto TV has not just on demand shows
Speaker 2: and movies, but live channels with an on screen guide.
Speaker 2: There's even like for for those of my age, unlike Shannon.
Speaker 2: They're even like there's classic TV channels like the Three's
Speaker 2: Company Channel, right like it's it's great, like these retro
Speaker 2: shows the Mass Channel and it just plays live TV
Speaker 2: one episode after another with ads, but freeze free. So
Speaker 2: those are a few suggestions.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was the one complaint I have.
Speaker 1: We have Hulu, I believe, with commercials, and as I'm
Speaker 1: trying to make my way through the Bear, this season
Speaker 1: of The Bear got to stop every five or ten
Speaker 1: minutes and listen. I know kids these days don't know
Speaker 1: what commercials are, but that's what commercials are, and you
Speaker 1: gotta you know, you mute it or whatever. You can't
Speaker 1: fast forward it. It's just it's one of the annoyances
Speaker 1: that I thought we were pasted in this world of technology.
Speaker 2: It is annoying. There is a no ads option that
Speaker 2: costs more. Same with me. I was watching, so I
Speaker 2: to me, a no brainer is Amazon Prime, which is
Speaker 2: the service that gives you free shipping on millions of items,
Speaker 2: you know, all the things that you get for Amazon Prime.
Speaker 2: But with Amazon Prime Video, they started adding ads again.
Speaker 2: So now they're like, well, if you pay an extra
Speaker 2: three bucks a month, we'll remove the ads. But I
Speaker 2: still find they are less frequent but annoying nonetheless because
Speaker 2: you are paying for that streaming service. But yeah, there
Speaker 2: are options for no ads. But you just got to
Speaker 2: cough up a bit more.
Speaker 1: Well what are you going to do to celebrate our
Speaker 1: Independence Day?
Speaker 2: Well, we had ours July versus Canada Day, so we
Speaker 2: already did that earlier. I'm just going to enjoy a
Speaker 2: much quieter inbox because most of my work is us facing.
Speaker 2: If you will, Oh, I wanted to just give a
Speaker 2: quick shout out Gary. You may remember last week you
Speaker 2: allowed me to plug a contest for my tech it
Speaker 2: Out Podcasters episode four hundred. The winner, by the way,
Speaker 2: is a KFI fan. Oh great. It was a randomly
Speaker 2: named out of one hundred and forty three entries. Her
Speaker 2: name is Janelle Bautista and she's in is it Tustin,
Speaker 2: Orange County? Tustin? Is that my saying it right? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Absolutely so.
Speaker 2: She was randomly chosen by I use this website calculator
Speaker 2: net It's got a random number generator. She won this
Speaker 2: Asus laptop for being just for listening to the show.
Speaker 2: But she did give you guys a plug in her
Speaker 2: I think it was an Instagram tag. People just had
Speaker 2: to use the hashtag tech it out. So congratsitude Janelle.
Speaker 2: She's listening right now.
Speaker 4: Oh that's awesome, and thanks for giving that away.
Speaker 3: It was July first, eighteen sixty seven that Canada became
Speaker 3: a country. It was in eighteen sixty seven that four
Speaker 3: of Great Britain's North American colonies joined together as a
Speaker 3: new country. Mark, how do you celebrate Canada Day?
Speaker 2: It's similar to you guys. We have fireworks and you know,
Speaker 2: cookouts or barbecues. We just it was kind of low
Speaker 2: key for us this year. We went to a friend's
Speaker 2: place for a swim in a hot tub and just
Speaker 2: a couple of drinks and yeah, just grilling up some food.
Speaker 2: So it's similar, yeah, similar to what you guys do.
Speaker 3: You didn't go to Ottawa to go to Parliament Hill.
Speaker 2: I did not. I did not go to Ottawa with
Speaker 2: Ryan Reynolds and Mike Myers and uh yeah, I have
Speaker 2: some poutine if you know what that is. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: know what it's. Yeah, fries with the cheese curds and gravy.
Speaker 2: Uh No, we did not go to Ottawa. But it's
Speaker 2: only a three four hour drive from where I live actually,
Speaker 2: so not so far well.
Speaker 4: Thanks Happy Canada, Happy late Canada.
Speaker 2: Today, Thank you, and happy fourth in July to you
Speaker 2: and your listeners.
Speaker 1: Mark, thank you, It was always Mark Saltzman. Make sure
Speaker 1: you follow Mark on Twitter or x M a r C.
Speaker 1: Underscore Saltsman. Mark Saltzman great for checking out podcast, of course,
Speaker 1: and the great tech tips that he throws up on there.