Just a couple of days ago I was talking to a friend who told me a little about what was going on at home. They said their spouse did a lot of streaming but could never remember what app anything was on. It’s been a while since I wrote about this problem, and I thought it was time to bring it up again.
Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?
Four years ago there were more streaming apps than there are now. Some have gone away. Some have merged with other apps. But the world of streaming is shrinking, and that should make it easy to remember where things are. Yet, it doesn’t.
Luckily things are a little bit better. If you have an Apple TV it aggregates most of your apps into one list so you can see what you were watching. Netflix is pretty much the only app that doesn’t let Apple do that. If you have a Roku, and you subscribe to apps through The Roku Channel, then you can do much the same thing. Of course this only helps you if you’re using a streaming box or an iPhone. The problem is still there, and it’s still real.
The solution back then, is the solution now: JustWatch
I’ve been using JustWatch for years now. It’s an app for Google and Apple devices, and is also available via web browser. It does an amazing job of telling you if any movie or show is available on any of the services you watch. If you have the app loaded on your streaming box or phone, it will even launch the right app for you and in some cases even start the show. It’s the search engine we didn’t even know we needed.
JustWatch keeps getting better, with the ability to sync up lists between devices, set up lists of shows you want to see, and it even lets you see whether specific episodes are available. It does a great job, and it’s free. And you all know what that means. I’m not the first one to say it…
When it comes to the internet, if you don’t pay for the product, you ARE the product.
I did a little bit of digging to try to figure out how JustWatch manages to do a great job, for free,only a few ads on their site. You won’t be surprised at all by what I found.
First of all, if you do want an ad-free experience, you can upgrade to JustWatch Pro for $2.50 a month. That’s not a lot to pay and you get a completely ad-free experience. On the other hand, it doesn’t take away from the big issue with JustWatch.
Like every other app, JustWatch is harvesting data about you. This is especially true if you have a free account, but it’s probably true even if you don’t. With nothing more than your IP address they can probably link you to a whole bunch of data about your demographics. And they can tie that to the searches you make. So guess what they do with that data?
That’s right, I knew you’d guess. JustWatch, the service, is just the appetizing part of things. The real engine driving the company is JustWatch Media. The whole point of JustWatch Media is that they act as an ad placement agency. They’ll place ads all over the web on your behalf, including video ads on socials and YouTube. They’ll take the data that they know about you and sell it in a way that helps them make money. In this case it looks like what they do is say they can deliver “people who like Big Trouble in Little China” which probably implies that they’re GenX males.
So?
JustWatch is hardly the only company to do this. There’s no evidence that they’re selling off your specific personal data, just using it to sell ads that reach you. As far as I know they’re at least as harmless as most social media, and probably more so. They probably know a lot less about you than Microsoft and Google do, and let’s be honest we all ignore their massive harvesting of our data.
So I’m not saying to stop using it. “Just” the opposite. It’s a helpful app and I use it all the time. But let’s say I’m never surprised when I use it to find out where Fast Five can be streamed and I get ads on my socials for auto accessories. It’s just how the world works.
