While we’re all trying our best to adhere to social distancing, lockdown, and potentially even quarantine, there’s certain saving graces that are helping us pas the time.
That’s right, I’m talking Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime… everything! If we didn’t have these streaming services the idea of staying home all day would be a lot less easy to swallow.
Most of us are perfectly happy to either pay for these services, or borrow the logins from family or friends. There’s no judgement here, we all do it.
However, there’s now a petition to make these services FREE for the next few weeks.
The Change.org petition explains that the organisers want these services to be free to encourage people to stay at home: “During a worldwide viral pandemic, social distancing and personal quarantine is vitally important to stem the risk of spreading disease. As a result, right now millions of people worldwide are keeping themselves at home in order to prevent community spread of the COVID-19 virus,
“While this is a heroic and necessary challenge, it also runs the risk of boredom and isolation, which can lead to depression, among other factors. Many people are turning to their streaming services to alleviate their monotony. The problem with this is that many people cannot afford these membership fees, especially in a time like now when many people’s economic livelihood is already strained.”
They continue that they would like the payment holiday to last for 60 days, and to include per-movie rental fees.
They added: “If people can watch as much as they want, whenever they want, this will help alleviate the stress of home isolation, as well as encourage people to stay home. This is a responsible community health strategy,
“Many other media markets have done similar ideas. This is an easily manageable path of assistance for these corporations, one specifically which only they can provide,
“I call upon every one of these companies that can help make an involuntary homestay more comfortable and therefore more successful to do their part to lift our sorrows and stresses of the quarantine.”
The petition has amassed an impressive 78,000 signatures at the time of writing.
Hey, everyone loves a freebie!
You can sign here.
Featured image credit: Netflix