Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

Amazon Prime (because it comes with the service), and Netflix (until anyone on my account gets a "shared password" block, then I'm cancelling it).

seedbox or vps(torrent) in a privacy/legal protected country may be a viable alternative for mainstream movie or tv shows.
https://html.duckduckgo.com/html/?q=country%20internet%20privacy%20law

Literally just YouTube premium, for iOS and iPad to have no adverts.

Edit: and Spotify. The convenience of Spotify is huge

YouTubeTV and Netflix

The one streaming service I whole-heartedly recommend is dropout.tv. It’s the streaming incarnation of CollegeHumor and was bought out by Sam Reich after being cut from IAC. It’s only $6 a month (and less than $50 for the whole first year) and your subscription directly funds the content creators rather than some huge media conglomerate. It’s niche is basically improv/sketch comedy, game shows, and pop culture chats, plus a lot of DnD. It’s worth it for Game Changer alone which is the funniest game show, and maybe just one of the funniest shows, I’ve ever seen. Many of the Dimension 20 campaigns are amazing as well and Brennan is an excellent DM, in addition to having a great cast to work with.

If I sound like an ad it’s because I pay for basically none of the content I consume but couldn’t in good conscience pirate dropout since it’s independent, overall low-cost, and I enjoy what they make so much I wanted to support them. Rant over!

Amazon Prime (with Paramount+ add on), SlingTV, and occasionally PBS Masterpiece

Netflix, HBO and Disney+

Spotify and Netflix. Since they are so far the only platforms that stick to streaming media and are not trying to take over the world. I guess HBO would be fine too.

YouTube, Netflix

Personally pay for:

• Crunchyroll
• Hi-Dive (has some good picks that Crunchyroll doesn't, but for the most part simulcast selection is much smaller and inferior to Crunchyroll. Site and app functionality are also inferior)
• Vudu - Also have bought/curated a large collection of movies/tv series on Vudu, with most of the Movies being shared to movies anywhere (wish there was a similar service for TV series).
• TWiT (This Week in Tech) podcast network club membership (free for most podcasts, but want to support the network)

Others in the family pay for in descending order of usage:

• Youtube Premium (would still watch most without premium, just it's paid for already)
• Netflix [strict instructions to never keep for me, cancel if they try to force it]
• Hulu [primary for newer one punch man seasons, and upcoming new futurama season]
• Prime [...for shopping, but you know, prime streaming is included]

Youtube Premium
I watch youtube near endlessly.

Criterion Channel
Their curration is quite good. They have collections of films together by sub genre, actor, director, film movement, etc. Which makes playlists of movies that teach the topic.

I currently have:

1. Spotify - ease-of-use, can use on mobile
2. Xbox Game Pass - although I don't use the streaming aspect of it
3. Netflix - shared with a spread-out family, although we already got the "one household" notice, so it's probably gonna be on my chopping block sooner or later

And mostly because I've already watched everything I wanted to watch on these, I've recently cut:

1. Hulu and Disney+
2. HBO Max

I use Stremio + Torrentio/Real Debrid on my NVIDIA Shield. Haven't subscribed to streaming services in a couple of years. I do still pay for Spotify.

I paid once for Plex lifetime a long long time ago. One of the most worth things I've acquired in my life.

none

Honestly, none of them.

Spotify: listen through the browser using an ad-blocker. No adverts.

Netflix: shared password with my family.

I have quite a few, as I find streaming services in general to be very much worth my money and to be very convenient. It's when stuff isn't on any streaming site where I personally consider piracy acceptable. While I dislike the fragmentation of streaming services, I will pay for whatever streaming service the content I want to watch is on. I do want to support things I enjoy so long as the price is reasonable, and streaming service prices are all reasonable in my book.

• Youtube Music - I switched from Spotify ages ago due to content it didn't have at the time, but may no longer apply. I recently upgraded to Youtube Premium because I've started using Youtube more often and detest ads.
• Disney+ - I've found that here in Canada, D+ is the best streaming service in terms of quantity of content. We basically get all or most of what is on Hulu in the US.
• Crave - In Canada, this is basically how you get HBO content. I subscribed to watch The Last of Us and have been sticking around to watch older HBO shows too.
• Amazon Prime - This is mostly for the shipping. The fact I get some shows out of this is a bonus. It has fewer shows that I care about.
• Nintendo Premium - For multiplayer and also some DLCs that got included with it. I find this to be the lowest value of the subscriptions I have, especially since I rotate what consoles I'm using and am strongly considering canceling it.
• Dropbox - offsite backup is important and I don't want to manage it myself (nor have the risk that comes with that).
• Some random Patreons and most recently lemm.ee's equivalent.

I'm not currently subscribed to Netflix because I regularly rotate what streaming service I'm subscribed to. When I'm done with what I'm watching on Crave and/or Disney+, I'll unsubscribe to those and maybe resubscribe to Netflix. Rinse and repeat. In the past, I've also used Paramount+ (worst streaming app I've ever used), Dropout (I subscribed for Game Changer and stuck around because of Dimension 20, but haven't had the time, so unsubscribed for now), and Ubisoft+ (I did the math and concluded it was better to subscribe for 2 months to play Far Cry 6 and Assassin's Creed Valhalla than to buy the full games with all their DLC -- I'll totally do it again next time they have a newer release I wanna play).

I make good money and really have no concerns with paying for all these. A couple dozen bucks a month for entertainment is nothing for me and highly worth it, especially to avoid any wrangling with finding and acquiring content. I also feel strongly about wanting to pay any reasonable amount for things I enjoy. To me, piracy is almost entirely about access and not about price. Heck, these days, most piracy I've done is for older games that you literally cannot find legitimately anymore.

Real Debrid