461–470 of 641 posts
I just reduce consumption, because 1.) that's better for you anyway 2.) most media is drivel and always has been 3.) can't be arsed to do illegal shit for such a petty reward
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> 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.
That's Apple's style and it probably works better for an application like this (there are a lot of problems for which dictatorship is the solution in the technical space... I wish we had a streaming service dictator to solve the Chromecast problem from the other direction).
Music is a non-issue with services competing on features rather than exclusive content. I pirate games that cost more than ~$20 and don't provide a demo. If I enjoy the game then I'll usually buy it after an hour or two, especially indie games. I'm done with movie/TV streaming services. Their business model and user experience is garbage while piracy provides a significantly better ease of use, overall UX and content…
However, pirating a game to try it out as a demo before buying seems very legitimate. I have truly spent 30-60 bucks on one game to realize I won’t play it more than a few hours.
Technically, this loophole can be fixed on Steam if they have a 15 day return policy no questions asked. That seems very reasonable, but they don’t. Their early-access stuff is a huge money sink. Game pass is a step in the right direction, but their library is limited.
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My experience is that the learning curve for piracy has increased quite a bit. IIUC you need some private tracker to reliably source things, something that takes time and connections most people don't have. Despite being strongly motivated to find and watch things that are inexplicably unavailable to me (especially new foreign cinema) I usually just wait, and then sign up for a trial of whatever service has it a year…
> My experience is that the learning curve for piracy has increased quite a bit. IIUC you need some private tracker to reliably source things, something that takes time and connections most people don't have. Only if you want rare and older stuff (and even then, only sometimes). Anything mainstream, a public tracker is more than enough.
I have a significant legitimate media library (>1TB), I have the Plex/Kodi infrastructure to stream it to my TV, but going one step further and mixing in piracy is a step I'm not willing to take.
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…
This approach is starting to make a lot more sense to me: I suspect we may have reached the point where, based on my own consumption (i.e., anecdata), this could be cheaper than maintaining subscriptions to multiple different services.
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Not at all. I do the same thing, and the key is to cancel the subscription immediately upon signing up. You keep the one month you've already paid for, and don't need to worry about recurring cost.
Still sounds stressful and like a chore. I would feel "forced" to burn through as much of the backlog as possible during that month, even if I don't feel like watching something from it right now.
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> 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.
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…
If you do want to avoid all the Pride stuff/gay characters (I mean I'm gay and I agree it's annoying and wish they'd cool it in kid's media) can you VPN or set your location to somewhere that censors the content? China or the Middle East, etc. Usually that's why it's such a small part in Disney productions; they cut it for other countries.
I never stopped pirating, I watch movies once a week at most. All my friends rely on streaming services, every few weeks we have a movie night, 50% of the time we can't find the movie we plan on watching even though they have 4 or 5 services, and when we find the movie we have another 50% chance of it not being available in OV. Even when it works flawlessly, and even if you pay for the "Uber+ 8k topmaxi over resoluti…
That can literally be an SNL bit. So funny.
Though I might have a way above average disgust reaction to popular culture, the relevance/tldr is that some reaction to high prices and uncertain availability and other friction of subscriptions will be to consume less, rather than pirate. I wonder what the proportions are, and how they've changed over time?