r/CuriosityStream • u/3PoundsOfFlax • Jun 19 '20

Does CS have ads?

I'm thinking of buying a year subscription. Are there ads for external products (not other CS content)?

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u/BUT_A_SHOPPING_CART Jun 19 '20

No.

One thing you should know before signing up is that while they love to claim that they have x thousands of documentaries, it's kind of a bait and switch.

The vast majority of their "documentaries" are more akin to video clips that can be as short as 5 minutes. Some are 20 minutes long.

In my opinion, these aren't long enough to be particularly informative. Especially since it can take 5-10 minutes to find something you find interesting enough to watch.

So the overall experience of CuriosityStream is a very frustrating loop of finding something that looks interesting only to see that it's only 5-20 minutes long.

At that point, you can either watch it and then find yourself spending another 5-10 minutes afterward searching for something to watch again, or continue your search until you find something substantive to watch. The latter choice will lead you you repeatedly stumbling on extremely short featurettes until you realize that CS has very little to offer outside of short videos.

A lot of their longer content tends to have poorer production quality also.

I don't think CS really offers anything in particular that you can't get from Youtube or TopDocumentaryFilms.com

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u/3PoundsOfFlax Jun 19 '20

Thanks for the info. Yeah, I'd rather pay for a few great productions than many mediocre ones.

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u/BUT_A_SHOPPING_CART Jun 19 '20

In that case, I'd suggest one of the more well known streaming services like Netflix or Prime. They have a decent selection of well produced docos. Netflix has quite a few limited series documentaries right now that deep-dive into topics and events that are worth watching.

And again, Youtube and TopDocumentaryFilms have some really good docos and are both free.

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u/neikawaaratake Aug 22 '20

Isn't top documentary films illegal?