One option that exists for the price-averse is going for the low-subscriber streaming services. This doesn’t give you the popular shows everyone else is watching, but it’s suitable if your goal is to just entertain yourself with something distracting for a while.

I was briefly subscribed to Shudder, a niche horror flick service that doesn’t cost much and has a few decent items on there.
Crunchyroll is relatively cheap for anime, has been buying up other properties to give itself a large library. That said, there are accusations that the money doesn’t ever reach the original creators. HiDive is another anime service with some weird options.
There’s free services like Pluto TV, usually ad-supported (but hey, a lot of the paid options are giving ads)

Haven’t read it, but there’s also articles out there about other options, should people decide the major entries are too expensive, and they don’t want to go for piracy. Knowing your options is always good.