The best next step is canceling all the services and subscriptions except VPN and internet, then hoisting the jolly roger.

I'm done pretending the studios and content creators are good faith operators. I've paid over 6 figures in the last 20 years for movies, shows, books. I'm not paying any more, and I don't feel bad about it at all.

Netflix had a great library, but the industry caught up and licensing and copyright induced fragmentation made streaming platforms more or less equally shitty.

There's no more value add if the apps, content, and curation don't work, or if they start sneaking in advertisements or if the companies are engaging in regulatory capture or other malicious corporate fuckery.

Avast, mateys, time to keelhaul the bastards in charge (or their pocketbooks.)

Yeah, we went from illegal streaming to copyright owners providing easy legal access back to a clustered, region restricted system of legal streaming services. And region restricted, clustered environment was a large part (together with the absence of any legal services) why pirating content was a thing in the first place.

That way lies a resurgence of piracy as a social norm.

Paying for the content is what Apple TV is doing, isn't it? You can "rent" (one-time view) a video for a lower price, or "buy" the video at a higher price (which isn't the same as owning it, of course. It just allows you to watch it more than once). But you're still paying per individual movie.