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Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

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Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#451

Post by bartread »

0x4974h wrote: post #273
SamuelAdams wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My household has one streaming service at a time. We have lists (shared reminder lists in iOS) that we make for whenever a friend mentions a good movie - it goes on the Apple TV list, or Disney plus list, etc. then once enough films build up (can take 2-6 months sometimes) we purchase a subscription and watch all those shows for one month.

This in a few sentences summarizes everything that sucks about the current streaming landscape

It does, and it feels quite high effort to maintain. I'd rather simply disengage and find something else to do. The plus side of all this BS is it might force me back toward more interesting and worthwhile pasttimes than just bingewatching TV shows and films. From that point of view, I suppose, long may the suck multiplication continue.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#452

Post by abruzzi »

I use exactly two approaches. First is I buy movies (and sometimes TV shows) on iTunes. Second, I do pirate. But for me, I only pirate when the movie I'm looking for is not available. The moment I can buy it on iTunes, I do, and ditch the pirated copy that I have. So for me it is entirely about availability. And before anyone says that if I subscribed to a half dozen steaming services I'd have that availability, I'll say that most, if not all the movies that I have pirated are very obscure things that I have never seen on any service--Baby of Macon, Meet the Feebles, Underground, and (surprisingly) most recently Spider.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#453

Post by kudos200 »

tnel77 wrote: post #407
FullMetalBitch wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering how frecuently movies (and third party shows) disappear from one platform to appear in other that seems hellish. It's easier to pirate stuff.

It depends on the movie. Friends might drop from Netflix, but there’s a lot of content being made that’s wholly owned by the streaming service itself that will stick around forever. Especially with Disney.

HBO is removing many: https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/westworld-hbo-max-the-never...

Apparently to make them available on other ad supported networks: https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/23513277/westworld-hbo-...

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#454

Post by scarface74 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #444
scarface74 wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. But those are mostly standard UX issues not underlying video streaming issues. But ChromeCast overall I’ve found to be crappy technology.

> Chromecast... crappy technology. Absolutely 100% agree. Like Bluetooth and USB, it's built to work with a whole pile of stuff out in the real world that the devs didn't have access to for testing / didn't exist yet when it was standardized, so it's got some grabasstical corner cases. ... problem is, it's also got like 36 million users, so it's incumbent upon anything that claims to be a "streaming service" to accou…

Yet I don’t have that problem with AirPlay even with my $40 Roku sticks.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#455

Post by [deleted] »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #318
wonderwonder wrote: post #294

I don't think I would ever resort to piracy, as a middle aged guy with a family, the reward is not worth the risk to me plus I am lucky enough to be able to afford to watch what I want if I really want it. With that said the quality of options available on streaming services has really gone down. I am subscribed to Netflix, Prime, Disney+, Apple, Hulu and HBO Max; and there is nothing to watch. I am likely going to c…

> I am concerned with the channels attempts to front and center homosexuality targeted at kids This is the first I've heard this complaint. Could you share some examples of this type of content and why it's concerning to you? I don't have Disney+ or kids.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#456

Post by dml2135 »

jesuscript wrote: post #52
version_five wrote: post #17

I see no moral problem with file sharing. Personally it's rarely worth the hassle, though I occasionally convert a youtube video to and mp3 for niche songs I can't find on spotify. I'd say it depends on how you value your time and how difficult it is to find what you want. "Piracy" is the legitimate competitor of streaming services. It seems like we have had a period where streaming offered a better product, but havi…

Well interestingly enough, it really is developers that can make a great piracy user experience. Why don’t we?

There are a bunch of open-source projects out there that automate away the hassle of piracy. Just look at radarr, sonarr, etc. Combined with media servers like Plex, you can grab any content you want to watch with one click.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#457

Post by jesuscript »

misiogames wrote: post #300
BonoboIO wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refined like „elegant“?

I mean, alternative services I tested required to download and install some very fishy feeling apps or browser plugins, the whole experience to setup was not user friendly, not the case here, very nice and functional app directly from the official app stores. Also very smooth payment options from crypto to regular bank debits (Non US / EU locations).

Give a hint as to what it is please.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#458

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

JeremyNT wrote: post #348
c1yd3i wrote: post #301

I pirate everything. Haven't subscribed to a service like Spotify, Netflix, etc. in many years. I can listen to my music in CD-quality and bring it anywhere. Same with any movie, TV show, etc. And I know that no one is selling what I find interesting as analytics data. At the same time, I want to support creators, and I'll donate/use services like Bandcamp to directly support folks I appreciate. I have a $100/mo "don…

The challenge with this is actually supporting creators for complex works that are published by these companies. Take a TV show for example - hundreds of people work on these things. There's no real way to support the show when you pirate something. TV shows don't have patreons or kickstarters. Piracy is quite attractive because of how hostile the copyright holders are to end users. Sticking it to the megacorps that…

> TV shows don't have patreons or kickstarters.

I wonder why not. If you're already doing payroll for the production of a TV show, it should be trivial to express each payout as a percentage (this particular gaffer gets 0.56%, etc).

It would then be easy to encode that in software somewhere (smart contract?) such that when payments come in, they get split up and disbursed accordingly.

If you coupled the addresses of these contracts with the content itself (as metadata on the file or in a lookup table somewhere, keyed by CTPH) consumers could then be choosy about whether they're supporting content which transparently supports all of its creators vs content that just lets a middleman soak up the profits.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#459

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

kevincox wrote: post #330
samwillis wrote: post #51

No, but we are at the point where we are going to start cancelling subscriptions. There is more content than we will ever watch. First of the chopping block is Netflix, there just isn't enough really good content to justify it anymore. What we are considering is subscribing for maybe 1-2 months a year, bundle the things we want to see on it then. From our perspective the two most valuable subscriptions are AppleTV+ a…

> without the free shipping we probably would cancel the video subscription. Amazon has never made sense to me. Living in Toronto the regular free shipping usually arrives in 1-2 days anyways. Is this wildly different in other cities? My partner pays for prime and I usually just order on my account anyways since there is little difference. Even if there is I rarely need something urgently.

Prime is free shipping _both ways._ Non-prime returns cost money. [1]

That makes buying much more risk-free. I haven't paid for return shipping on an Amazon purchase for years.

I don't know that I return enough to compensate for the ~$120 annual cost (I guess it's going up to $140?), but it does get me faster (and more to the point, deterministic) shipping as well, _and_ the other benefits like Prime Video.

Overall I find it still makes sense. But you do you.

BTW, your partner can probably share the Prime shipping benefit with you, if they aren't already sharing it with someone else, and if you live together. My wife can buy things on Prime with our one subscription.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html%3FnodeI...

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#460

Post by jsmith45 »

ryandrake wrote: post #443
wonderwonder wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been several times, generally during pride month where gay focused shows have been the top items displayed on my kids accounts when they login. Adult accounts are fine. They are animated and kid friendly shows so they encourage children to click on them. Really don't want my kids watching an animated show telling them how to come out. Another is a large number of recent Disney movies feature LGBTQ main cha…

I know I'm not going to change your mind, but this viewpoint just seems so strange and morbidly fascinating. What exactly does "exposure to homosexuality" even mean? These shows and movies aren't depicting gay sex. They aren't trying to convince straight kids that they are gay. They aren't even advocating politics. What specific content do you object to? My kid is Disney movie aged, and we've watched em all--it's exh…

While I cannot speak for OP, I have noticed that some people seem to view non-straight orientations as inherently sexual. To those people any reference to having a same sex spouse (or that you date members of the same sex, etc.) is equivalent to mentioning that you engage in BDSM. I do think most people would be weirded about about a kids show having characters that mention they are into BDSM would be weird and inappropriate.

Of course mentioning that you are not straight is no more inherently sexual than mentioning that you have an opposite sex spouse, or that you like people of the opposite sex romantically.

Honestly, I think a large part of the issue is use of the phrase "homosexual" in many places where "homoromatic" would be better (and people equating the word "gay" with homosexual, rather than homoromantic). In plenty of circumstances discussing who you find hot or who you are sleeping with would be inappropriate, while mentioning who you are dating, or married to would not be inappropriate.

For example, I probably should not know who my boss is sleeping with, but it would not be weird to know who they are married to, if not married, to know their long term dating partner. The fact that most people sleep with those they date, and that their romantic orientation tends to align with sexual orientation is not really relevant.

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