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I'm done with Google

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Re: I'm done with Google

#81

Post by Hamuko »

usui wrote: post #16

> 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…

>spytify automatically records mp3 files with metadata tags while you personally use Spotify

I prefer pirating my music off YouTube.

  yt-dlp -f bestaudio https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=XXX
This nets you a bunch of *.webm files with Opus data inside them. YouTube's bestaudio is usually about 130 kbs Opus, which should be close to transparent. You can then use mkvextract to turn them into more usable *.opus files.

  mkvextract input.webm tracks 0:output.opus
The downside is that you need to tag your downloads manually after that. It's less of a problem for me since I use beets for my music library, but can be a pain if you don't have an automatic way of doing it.

Re: I'm done with Google

#82

Post by usui »

22289d wrote: post #51
usui wrote: post #16

> 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.

I agree with this approach and your approach does not have to conflict with what I described (and I'm not saying that you wrote this as a rebuttal, either).

What we come to is that for one person, dealing with the pains of content management and organization is not worth the cost, monetary or otherwise. For me, it is worth the cost, it's just not primarily monetary.

Having said that, I use Netflix although that may change in the future. It helps with content discovery. Still, by no means is it my go-to method for content organization or full retrieval. I compared the colors side-by-side to Inception in Netflix compared to a downloaded version and for some reason it was way off to the point it hindered my enjoyment of the film. The massive blue tint was that noticeable.

Re: I'm done with Google

#83

Post by leehuffman »

yellow_lead wrote: post #21
usui wrote: post #16

> 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…

Even a hardcore pirate like me tried to do the right thing when it comes to music - I got Spotify. But when I moved to Taiwan, I tried to switch my payment location to get regional pricing and they refuse to accept my Taiwan debit card. Now I pirate music or use Vanced (YouTube).

[flagged]

Re: I'm done with Google

#84

Post by mindcrime »

gleenn wrote: post #28
gundamdoubleO wrote: post #10

I'm always reminded of Gabe Newell's quote on piracy[1]: >Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem And by in large I still agree with it. For me I've only ever turned to piracy when the legitimate service has become a complete mess of red tape and user frustration. [1] https://www.escapistmagazine.com/valves-gabe-newell-says-pir...

Honest question, what's the difference between a pricing and service problem?

Here's an example:

I believe in supporting those who create media, and don't mind at all paying for streaming services that provide quality content for a fair price. As such, I happily subscribe to Amazon Prime (with several "add on" channels), Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max. Then one day I decided, "hell, I think Peacock TV has some stuff I might want to watch." So I signed up for a paid account, like any other good law-abiding citizen might.

A couple of days later I finally got around to logging in and trying to watch something, only to be met by some bizarre error message. Which led me to find out that Peacock doesn't support playback on Linux. Which sent me down a rabbit-hole of trying to find some kind of way to make it work nonetheless. After a couple of days of futzing around with everything I could think of short of running Windows in a VM (and including going as far as running Android in a VM) I gave up and cancelled my paid account.

What makes it all the more galling is how their support lines lie and say "We're always working to add support for more platforms" when the reality is, there have (from online accounts I've read) at times in the past been workarounds that let Peacock work on Linux... and they have systematically identified and blocked all of them. It would be one thing if any other major streaming service had a similar policy, or if Peacock had a position of "we don't officially support Linux, so it might work or it might not". But this is different. It's an active, hostile, intentional effort to block Linux users.

Anyway, that's what I'd call a "service problem". As far as I can tell, there is no amount of money I can pay Peacock that will let me use their service. So not a "pricing problem".

In conclusion, I will now return to using Bittorrent or other mechanisms to pirate any Peacock content I find interesting. Fuck 'em, I tried to pay the fuckers and they didn't want to play ball.

Re: I'm done with Google

#85

Post by jonathanlydall »

isatty wrote: post #8

Isn’t the actual problem still nonsensical anti piracy DRM/requirements pushed by studios and that any distributor will have to try to implement to sell the movie in the first place? I’m not justifying the absolutely garbage user experience here though. Personally: I refuse to buy digital movies on any platform because it’s deceptive marketing. You can never actually “buy”, only rent. So I go for that option if I rea…

I would be far more inclined to pay to watch recently released movies on iTunes, except that for the first few weeks the considerably more expensive “buying” the movies is the only option and rental only comes much later, essentially they want to charge you extra for earlier access. Screw that, I’ll pirate instead until they stop that crap.

Re: I'm done with Google

#86

Post by Karsteski »

f1refly wrote: post #49
gleenn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, what's the difference between a pricing and service problem?

A service problem is when the media mafia refuses to sell me files that I can keep. I'd like to open some website and pay 15 bucks for a movie (the same as I'd buy for a recent bluray in a store) where I'm then allowed to just download a .mkv that I can throw on my nas. Major streaming sites refuse to serve me content with resolution higher that 480p (I think?) because my computer obeys me and not them. Sure looks gr…

I think it's 720p but yea, it's why I will never pay for Netflix and I often pirate stuff that's available on there despite having access to my mother's account. I've not pirated games since I was a teenager, because Steam is such a good service, and I'm happy to pay for games. Meanwhile I constantly bring up how much better my media consumption experience is because I pirate high quality movies and shows instead of the drivel that online media providers offer

Re: I'm done with Google

#87

Post by transcoderx »

choeger wrote: post #44

I said it before, but I'll repeat myself: For digital possessions, we need a clearing house. Everyone offering music, videos, etc. for sale or long-term rent, needs to register a digital copy in a standardized format with said clearing house. Every sale has to be registered there as well. Whenever the seller disables DRM or does locks out the buyer in any other way (not supporting new or old devices, closing down acc…

* cough * Blockchain * cough *

Re: I'm done with Google

#88

Post by supriyo-biswas »

manholio wrote: post #31
indrora wrote: post #9

The 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…

> The issue here isn't that it's Google, it's that Google is doing what they're told to do. Nice try. One of the largest tech companies of the world, which in most countries other than USA holds basically a monopoly on mobile computing, is not being pushed around by the creative industries. Remember when Youtube became a thing and the media companies wanted it gone? Google fought with them and created a technology st…

This is definitely not the case. If anything, Google is reportedly afraid of making any business changes[1] that may potentially come up as being anti-competitive, even at the cost of becoming obsolete in their existing markets.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/21/technology/ai-chatgpt-goo...

Re: I'm done with Google

#90

Post by di4na »

rapht wrote: post #58

There's a language issue which has not been tackled by regulators and which is actually the mere definition of what happens when I choose to "buy" or "purchase" something. This is because until recently (by the timescale of "buying things") there were no intangibles to be bought or sold. An intangible is mostly a right to something - in other words, it's paperwork. But some things are both tangible and intangible, i.…

There are multiple cases going through the courts in multiple countries around this.

The one i have in mind is in France (UFC Que Choisir vs Steam iirc) but i know there are others.

From time to time, someone look at these, read the judge opinion, realise how much it would change the web economy out there, write a panicked piece... Then swiftly erase it from their memory because it is a tad too big to think through.

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