My main issue is that they're now slowly testing the waters to see if they can make you watch ads while still paying for the subscription, and at that point, might as well take advantage of Romania's lack of law enforcement and hit the torrent websites.
About 10 years ago Netflix became available in the country where I was living back then. I was very excited about it, I was on their email list for years, waiting for the announcement. As I got the email that they are available, after work literally the first thing I did was to grab my credit card, and subscribe.
I found 4-6 movies I wanted to watch, but when I saw that they had Godfather 1 and 3 without 2, I had a good laugh. Then I watched all the Archer episodes they had, and tried to find something interesting for 2 more days before I cancelled my (still trial) account.
Though I stopped watching movies some years ago, until than I used to watch them on the same old pre-netflix way.
Of course I have heard that they have spent many billions on content since then, I'm sure they have some interesting stuff... but that came way too late for me.
All of these streaming services have started cracking down on family and friend account sharing to game their stock price. Turns out kicking off the broke college students doesn’t lead to them signing up for ~$80/mo. smattering of streaming services.
For me worse than the can't pay is the lack of options. In the VHS time I had more good movie options than in the current streaming services. I remember when I bing watched Kurozawa or Mario Monicelli's movies. Now it's very hard to find non American cinema. The tech is there, but the System fail us.
My thing is that we are expected to pay in perpetuity for the privilege of accessing content. It's rent, and it is just tiresome.
Yes I understand that we have content available on far more devices than 30 years ago, when all we had was the TV in the living room. But should I have to pay in perpetuity to show my kids Moana?
Screw streaming. I bought a smart TV a few years back. Services discontinued within 3 years. No external commercial streaming boxes work because of HDCP issues. Back to piracy until the TV gives up. Streamers and smart TV people, you had your chance and you blew it. I'm not paying through the nose any more.
Yeah, because you pay for the thing and you still can't watch it!
Last year they brought Andor to Hulu and every time I played it on my brand new LG TV, the video would be completely green while I could hear the audio underneath. It only happened to Andor because apparently they had some super special DRM, which ostensibly would restrict people who weren't authorized from viewing it, but had the effect of also preventing authorized people from viewing as well. So in the end, they can't even satisfy willing customers who have their wallets open. Of course they're going to turn to piracy.
Of course, the rights holders got my money and as far as they're concerned, their DRM move was great for the bottom line.
I started buying Blu-ray discs and ripping them to my computer, where I run Plex. Why? I had a long-time subscription to HBO Max, but a few years ago, I went to watch Westworld, and it was gone from HBO. I ended up buying a season on Apple for the price of a monthly subscription to HBO. I cancelled my HBO subscription. I realized that second-hand Blu-ray discs of shows were selling for dirt cheap. I spent $40 to buy the rest of the seasons of Westworld on Blu-ray.
Clearly, new shows aren't getting Blu-ray releases, so this won't work for you if you care about new shows. My wife and I are so over the dystopian view from modern science fiction that we started focusing on shows from the late 1900s (80s/90s) to get more of a positive outlook from our entertainment. We are now going through Stargate SG-1.
The streaming landscape is now terrible and no different than the incumbent CATV providers that it sought to replace. In 2011, streaming services were the hotness because CATV subscriptions were expensive. In 2011, people were subscribing to 1-2 or 2-3 services because they were all less than $10USD/month. That was still 10x cheaper than the alternative.
However, 15 years later, those numbers exceed or are the same as CATV costs combined with all the streaming/smart device headaches.
All we did was change the pipe. The providers didn't change except for consolidation and erosion of policy, both of which lead to worse outcomes for consumers.
I was trying to watch The Big Short the other night, after checking 7 streaming websites I came to my senses and downloaded the 4k rip off the pirate bay
I was trying to put on a show for background noise this morning. Just two nights ago I was able to sign in with my cable provider and watch it. Now it's telling me there's a network (as in the channel the network is on) authorization error, customer support can't tell me why it doesn't work and they are not authorized to issue me a credit.
So I pirated that too.
And what the fuck is up with Netflix? Why do I have to install a browser extension to hide the games? I don't want games I want to watch The Big Short.
I spent last few days chasing down a Bravo/peacock show from outside the US trying to watch legally, only to find it on watchseries and realize how good the experience has gotten. It's not even released on torrents or nzb. Watchseries UI is kind of peak now. Nuts. Does anyone know how Watchseries manage to stay up?
I still have streaming services, mostly because my family uses them. I’m slowly getting back into the self hosted ways. But it’s also pushing me to just stop watching altogether. I’m finding better ways to spend my time than in front of a tv. Or rather, I guess I’m spending it more behind a computer screen. Haha
I actually think pirating encourages a healthier approach to watching TV/movies. I've fully made the switch to pirating instead of subscribing to any streaming services, and it's led to me thinking more critically about what I want to spend time downloading and watching rather than just flipping mindlessly through endless amounts of readily available garbage on a streaming service.
I do still have Kanopy though, which is great for me but obviously depends on your library.
Black markets are usually the result of failed markets, and i think its no different here. Copyright is a monopoly so there is no competition. Sure different streaming services compete with each other, but they essentially sell different products. It'd be like if only one resturant was allowed to sell hamburgers. There might be other resturants but they arent really in direct competition.
It's no longer as convenient with dozens of streaming services; the streaming bitrate is also subpar, and audio is compressed to the point it feels flat. If you want to be mindful about what you are watching, it will be really hard with Netflix, Prime, and Disney compared to your own media server. When I had a streaming subscription, I was constantly shocked by what was popular in Poland and what people were watching. It took me some time to accept that I am not their target audience.
> When I had a streaming subscription, I was constantly shocked by what was popular in Poland and what people were watching. It took me some time to accept that I am not their target audience.
Great place to stream cartoons and anime for free, no account. It feels like they have almost everything, as I found anime as far back as the 1970s on there.
When I discovered Food Wars was split between two streaming platforms, I hoisted the sails.
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[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 108 ms ] threadI found 4-6 movies I wanted to watch, but when I saw that they had Godfather 1 and 3 without 2, I had a good laugh. Then I watched all the Archer episodes they had, and tried to find something interesting for 2 more days before I cancelled my (still trial) account.
Though I stopped watching movies some years ago, until than I used to watch them on the same old pre-netflix way.
Of course I have heard that they have spent many billions on content since then, I'm sure they have some interesting stuff... but that came way too late for me.
Maybe I'm getting old, lol
That way, I'd happily use any service to watch whatever cause it would be convenient, instead of piracy.
And it would be a reason for them to really improve their recommendation systems.
And that doesn't even actually list the movies, which are even more fragmented.
Yes I understand that we have content available on far more devices than 30 years ago, when all we had was the TV in the living room. But should I have to pay in perpetuity to show my kids Moana?
And I think he was largely correct, although the term _service_ seems like it now has to do a lot of heavy lifting as it now encompasses:
- Availability by Company
- Availability by Global Region
- Stream Quality
- Advert Policy (why does the lowest tier need to be ad supported? What am I paying for aside from being upsold?)
- Quality and availability of captions, audio description and any other media accessibility options
[1] https://www.escapistmagazine.com/valves-gabe-newell-says-pir...
Now the audience is used to that pricing and doesn't like pricing relative to the price of the content.
Last year they brought Andor to Hulu and every time I played it on my brand new LG TV, the video would be completely green while I could hear the audio underneath. It only happened to Andor because apparently they had some super special DRM, which ostensibly would restrict people who weren't authorized from viewing it, but had the effect of also preventing authorized people from viewing as well. So in the end, they can't even satisfy willing customers who have their wallets open. Of course they're going to turn to piracy.
Of course, the rights holders got my money and as far as they're concerned, their DRM move was great for the bottom line.
Clearly, new shows aren't getting Blu-ray releases, so this won't work for you if you care about new shows. My wife and I are so over the dystopian view from modern science fiction that we started focusing on shows from the late 1900s (80s/90s) to get more of a positive outlook from our entertainment. We are now going through Stargate SG-1.
However, 15 years later, those numbers exceed or are the same as CATV costs combined with all the streaming/smart device headaches.
All we did was change the pipe. The providers didn't change except for consolidation and erosion of policy, both of which lead to worse outcomes for consumers.
I was trying to put on a show for background noise this morning. Just two nights ago I was able to sign in with my cable provider and watch it. Now it's telling me there's a network (as in the channel the network is on) authorization error, customer support can't tell me why it doesn't work and they are not authorized to issue me a credit.
So I pirated that too.
And what the fuck is up with Netflix? Why do I have to install a browser extension to hide the games? I don't want games I want to watch The Big Short.
I do still have Kanopy though, which is great for me but obviously depends on your library.
Now I'm genuinely curious
Great place to stream cartoons and anime for free, no account. It feels like they have almost everything, as I found anime as far back as the 1970s on there.
When I discovered Food Wars was split between two streaming platforms, I hoisted the sails.