I was done with google already 10 years ago, and also pirate everything i can, including live events, and shareholders can just go to…
I'm done with Google
71–80 of 327 posts
Re: I'm done with Google
#72> So I pirate the movie (please don't arrest me, it's google's fault) I really like the frank tone of the article and I wish people in general would just write unabashedly more often when it comes to stuff like this. Writers online love to dance around the idea of "pirating" their digital goods when communicating on the topic: "Ooh my 'friend' may or may not have downloaded 'xyz' movie from 'abc' website, but I don't…
I don't pirate for similar reasons. I just like the UX better. I like all these apps on my tv full of content. Until like 2015 pirating was the better UX so I did that. But now it's a pain in the ass relative to what streaming offers. I always thought if they want me to pay, they gotta make it worth it. And they have. So they get my money.
> And they have. So they get my money.
Sure, as long as that holds. I like the music services as they have all the weird stuff I listen to. I like the book services as they have all the weird stuff I read. But movies/tvshows are a different ballgame; if i'm watching some series or saw some trailer and I want to see it but it doesn't appear in the netflix/hbo/disney/apple in my country, I am not going to wait or not watch it at all.
There are too often new shows that seem interesting (sure, they hardly ever actually are) but are anglo-saxon countries or US only.
Then, in the days of yore, Netflix used to have old movies/shows and people used to hate that. I did not, but they are mostly gone. Why would they not stock ancient content from the 40s-80s? Maybe they do in the US, but here it's almost completely gone.
Re: I'm done with Google
#73The issue here isn't that it's Google, it's that Google is doing what they're told to do. Movie and music licensing has been absolutely destroyed recently and the hoops that you have to agree to are becoming untenable. Recently, I mentioned to a band it was sad they pulled their music off Spotify. Puzzled, they were not even aware that the licensing was pulled, and they had to go yell at their record label (who was u…
With all due respect, I feel like Google is large enough to refuse to be told what to do. If they really cared...
No they are not. The courts have been swift and merciless on this shit for music, video and similar things. Google may seem big but they do depends on the law still.
Re: I'm done with Google
#74I am proud to say I don't use a single google service, and haven't in years. Now, if someone sends me a YouTube link, I watch it (in an invidious instance, of course) and I use some metasearch engines which rely on google to a large degree, hut I don't have a google account, I use no google services, have no google applications installed anywhere. The same applies to Meta and Microsoft as well, and some others. I hav…
I applaud you. I do my best as well using Linux whenever I can and having all my email on Zoho. I struggle with finding a solution for sharing photos via mobile. The whole family is in Apple ecosystem. I feel that if I don't want to spend enormous amount of time on setting up, securing and maintaining systems that I need to use big names solutions.
Re: I'm done with Google
#75I still pirate movies - despite being able to afford them now - just because the experience is so much more pleasant. There's a file, you can open a file with the media player. Simple. No crapware, no phoning home to the internet. Feel zero guilt about it.
Unfortunately it looks like the kind of person who prefers a file over an app with a magical cloud is becoming more and more rare as apps erode the very notion of such concepts. It's like trying to explain to your aunt that "the fediverse is like email" when email itself might as well be a Google service for most people.
There's way too much gnashing on teeth on HN about what the masses prefer, or what's popular.
I'm a technical user. On a website full of technical users. We really should stop considering their needs over our own even in recreational discussions.
Re: I'm done with Google
#76Tech in general has become very unreliable and user-hostile.
Just the other day I gave up trying to cast a zoom meeting from my phone to my Roku express box. I experienced very laggy video, no audio no matter what I tried o both zoom and Roku, and myriad errors when I tried to update the software on Roku. In the end I just gave up.
From apps that demand an internet connection to do functions that should have nothing to do with connectivity, health apps that no longer sync with the ihealth app, my health monitoring device that has stopped syncing with my phone for no reason, my MiFi that randomly asks me login before continuing to access the internet…
I get the sense these are the way things are set up to be. When consumer tech works, it’s great, but the reliability is pretty bad because it would eat into profits to spend on improving reliability.
Re: I'm done with Google
#77It's even worse on youtube. I used to save songs/videos on youtube playlist but they randomly started vanishing. Google doesn't even provide the name of the content it removed so we can search it again. Even worse, some songs actually got replaced by another version (i think due to copyright issues).
The result is I started downloading everything I loved and "liking" the content to track what I already have. There's still some duplicates but overall I retain all the videos I want. [Don't need YT premium now]
After that I downloaded mp4 to mp3 converters and stored the result in a cloud [Don't need Spotify Premium now].
Movies, TV Shows, Games, Mobile Apps, Books, Research paper are all piratable. OTT pulls episode out of air frequently and I don't like someone telling me what I should watch. [Don't need Netflix, OTTs now].
Steam is an exception since I think they really earn their 30% cut.
From the money I save, I buy/donate it to actual content I consumed and liked or software that actually help in ownership such as VLC, archive.org, overpriced merch etc. I'm supporting the revenue starved pirate community this way. Also, This means the money actually reaches the developers instead of a fat cut by the middlemen.
Paying for what you like instead of what you consume means you're supporting great work rather than spraying all works with equal money.
Re: I'm done with Google
#78I get why DRM exists, but good for you for doing what is necessary for your Aunt. Good thoughts and wishes to her.
Re: I'm done with Google
#79The issue here isn't that it's Google, it's that Google is doing what they're told to do. Movie and music licensing has been absolutely destroyed recently and the hoops that you have to agree to are becoming untenable. Recently, I mentioned to a band it was sad they pulled their music off Spotify. Puzzled, they were not even aware that the licensing was pulled, and they had to go yell at their record label (who was u…
That's the funny part about corporations. Because of the large internal hierarchy, even if majority of Google employees thinks that these antics about control over user are a bad idea, everybody perceives there is an expectation not to bring it up internally.
They can bring it up internally all right; last I heard, Memegen is still a thing at Google.
But it's not the majority, especially not the majority of the engineers, who makes decisions like that.
(And if you'e so annoyed you'd rather leave than shut up, welcome to today's IT job market.)
Re: I'm done with Google
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honest question, what's the difference between a pricing and service problem?
"Piracy is a service problem" means that most people pirate because they don't have access (or difficult access) to the product/service they want. They would gladly pay for it, but they can't, or can't be hassled to. I don't know if it's been backed up by real data, but services like Steam and Spotify tend to confirm this intuition.
Spotify confirms that piracy was in fact a pricing problem. With a Spotify subscription, you get way more music for a far lower price than under the previous “buy it to hear it” model a la iTunes or CDs. And artists make way less money now from recorded music than they used to.
Studios only agreed to the Spotify pricing model because the alternative was rampant file-based piracy. They figured that getting something is better than nothing.