1) I finished the series Hacks. I was very ambivalent about the show's first season, and was not enthusiastic about the second either. But I definitely get that in order to end where we did in the last season the two characters had to start poles apart. So I felt like the final season was a huge payoff to viewers who had stuck through the show all the way through. Would definitely recommend.

I was reading a good article (about TV shows on the tech industry) that included this: "the show is uniquely skilled at depicting the complicated mix of emotions that animate creative partnerships, and makes a strong argument for the idea that your true soulmate is the person that you most love making stuff with." It was talking about a show I loved, Halt and Catch Fire, but it applies equally well to Hacks. The fact that both shows featured female partnerships is a real bonus.

2) I had wondered a while back why Disney was partnering with Max to do a bundle (whereas Hulu + Disney + ESPN was all in-house, so an obvious option). Apparently, it's because bundling is very successful in keeping people subscribed. "Two years ago, only 10 percent of every new subscription for a major streaming service was for a bundled offering…Now, bundles account for a third of all new subscriptions, and 28 percent of all subscriptions, double the share in 2024."

I am definitely part of those stats. I had rotated on and off Disney a few times and only used Hulu once, back when we tried out its Live service. So even bundling wasn't much of a draw, except that then we got a $7 monthly rebate from using the Amex card to subscribe. Now that made it worthwhile since between the $7 and the bundle discount we were getting Hulu for free.

Later we added ESPN because it was the only way my partner could watch hockey. But during the off-season, subbing in Max instead was useful. We wanted to subscribe for at least a few months a year anyway to see shows only they had.

So far we're not bundling anything else –- we get free Peacock via our internet provider and we get PBS Passport, both for the shows and to donate to our local station. But during our summer months we want to get other services since that's when my partner has time to watch things. Thus our current 2 months with Acorn. We rotate Apple, Netflix, Prime and Britbox every year or so as well.

It makes sense to me that small streamers with limited content would benefit from bundles. But many of them already offer very cheap deals such as 1.99 or less per month for 2 months. In 2 months I could likely watch everything I want on them even with a bundle. But for larger streamers, I could see it.

Right now we're on an annual subscription for Paramount+, our only one (not counting PBS). We chose it because we had daily viewing on it between Daily Show, Colbert, Trek shows and an assortment of other shows or movies. Now though, other than 2 final Trek seasons and Daily Show, there's not a lot of reason to re-up when the subscription runs out. And if they did a bundle with HBO Max and Discovery+ (which will now be in-house), it still won't be a draw for us because we've yet to subscribe to Discovery at all, and Max doesn't have enough additional content to make an annual subscription worth it.

Chances are we'll just go back to rotating when something new comes out, and try to catch up with Daily Show either via YouTube or just when we get the subscription (they usually only make the last 2 seasons available though).

I notice that the article likens the bundling effect to how cable made its profits. However what I have always wanted to bundle is shows rather than networks (or streamers). So maybe paying a monthly fee for 20 different shows, and adding new ones when I've finished other ones. That would definitely work for me, given how I watch TV.

3) I was commenting over on Pillowfort about Tumblr's latest move to make commenting more prominent on the site. As I said there "As a totally anecdotal point, I rarely follow Tumblr links anymore because so often I'm blocked from seeing the linked content. But when I do get through I'm often surprised how little response I see the posts getting." So I'm wondering if this move is because, between the repeated exodus of people and the blocking of content to visitors, that the site traffic is actually in sharp decline. One way to make it more obvious people are active and to encourage them to speak up, is to surface comments more prominently.