Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? • Hacker News Board

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

#491

Post by Too » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC

josephg wrote: post #166

zug_zug wrote: post #141

I disagree that we're at peak monetization (see what the price of a premium cable package used to be) Since you mention Spotify I'm super happy with it. It's basically everything I ever wanted consistently. Can recommend new music better than any person I know, and I can feed it any song that I and somebody else like as a radio station and get a pretty decent list of songs we both don't mind. Granted I don't listen t…

I’ve been a Spotify premium customer for years. For music discovery, they’re incredible. But I really hate two things about Spotify: 1. Sometimes music I have in playlists disappears, for licensing reasons. I understand the reasoning but it makes me irrationally angry 2. There’s still no way to remove playlists from the home screen. No, spotify, I still don’t want to listen to your Dad Jokes podcast. I feel like some…

Nr 2 is just bizzare. I pay premium to not get ads and as a thank you I am constantly bombarded with other ads, ehum…sorry…suggestions, for bad podcasts. Wtf.

Otherwise Spotify is one of things I am happy to pay subscription for. Sure it sucks a bit when some good songs go away, but it’s rare and there are thousands of other songs that I like and never have time to listen to anyway, it all just works, has great suggestions and is super convenient otherwise, outweighing the few negatives.

Hoarding mp3s and syncing to devices just in case one out of thousand favorites go away simply isn’t worth the time anymore. For nostalgia reasons my old teenage mp3 collection is enough and can double as providing local music needs in case of a zombie apocalypse.

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

#492

Post by y-c-o-m-b » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

I have Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and Prime TV. I will search through all of those before resorting to the high seas. If I didn't have a family though, I would cancel all of those services because it takes me less overall effort to download from torrents.

It's amazing how ridiculously easy it is to pirate these days. I didn't know jack shit about anything other than a handful of torrent sites and qBittorrent until recently. Yet it took me only 15-30 minutes to set up a full media-server stack for the whole thing.

Here's my full stack:

- ProtonVPN at $120 for 2.5 years of service, approx $4/mo

- qBittorrent: torrent download client. Free

- Jellyfin Server (PC) + Jellyfin Roku Channel (Roku device): similar to Plex media server, it's like a Netflix-style UI for your local content. Free

- Sonarr: searches for TV shows and can automatically download them into qBittorrent. Free

- Radarr: searches for movies and can automatically download them into qBittorrent. Free

- Jackett: search indexer so you can search all your favorite torrent sites through one service. Integrates into Sonarr and Radarr. Free

EDIT: Oh I use Spotify for music since that one is reliable and all the music I want is there. Plus they have offline download options.

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

#493

Post by xen2xen1 » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

hocuspocus wrote: post #256

ergocoder wrote: post #77

It is still cost-benefit thing for me. When I was young, I did it a lot with Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Movies, MP3, and etc. Because I didn't have money. I don't pirate anymore because I make money. In this day of age, piracy has increased risk with malware that mines bitcoin or locks your disk for ransom, so the risk is much higher and effectively lowers the benefit.

> In this day of age, piracy has increased risk with malware that mines bitcoin or locks your disk for ransom, so the risk is much higher and effectively lowers the benefit. I don't think that's true at all, rather the opposite in fact. Piracy feels much safer now than it was 20 years ago.

Limewire and Kazaa weren't safe?

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

#494

Post by FullMetalBitch » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:40 PM UTC

subpixel wrote: post #440

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.

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…

If you are in a lenient country you'll be fine with a public tracker, and it's easy to deploy sonarr and some torrent client to download things automatically.

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

#495

Post by FullMetalBitch » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:42 PM UTC

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.

Besides what other have said it's a matter of time netflix starts to delete cancelled series because they are a waste.

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

#496

Post by browningstreet » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:43 PM UTC

SamuelAdams wrote: post #48

terabytest wrote: post #10

I'm not going to speak about my personal practices, but I find the current landscape of streaming services unusable and unsustainable from a customer perspective. I share a Netflix and Prime account with my parents, and support for that is soon going to end. I don't feel like either of those services provide enough value to me to consider paying for them entirely by myself. The content is mediocre at best, finding an…

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.

https://www.justwatch.com/ automates this.. great service

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

#497

Post by FullMetalBitch » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:44 PM UTC

gorjusborg wrote: post #398

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.

I do the same thing as the parent commenter, I pay for service, but will move from one service to another based on content and what I've watched. Funny that the proliferation of streaming services has just decreased the duration of my subscription to any one of them.

I said in another comment I pay for some services too, but if my online experience have taught me anything is that I can't trust them to be around, or be good forever.

I used House of the Dragon as an example, I watched it on HBO max but I also downloaded it and shared it online. One of my favorite shows (Future Man) is now on D+ but I am not going to delete it from my collection.

It all comes to: "I don't trust others with the data I care for"

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

#498

Post by ravenstine » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:46 PM UTC

wintermutestwin wrote: post #423

ravenstine wrote: post #347

Open to it? I practice it when I find it the appropriate response to the market. I will usually pirate video under one or more of the following conditions: - I already own or owned a copy of the film at some point in my life - The film or show isn't available for streaming or even purchase - The streaming quality is vastly inferior to the format I can pirate - The film or show can be streamed but with no option besid…

>"free with ads" I am learning to despise Amazon for this crap. As someone who still finds massive value in AMZ, they have poisoned the well and I feel that it is just a matter of time before I flush this company out of my life.

Yeah I feel the same way. Though I've yet to be truly scammed by their regular storefront as others have claimed, their catalogue is becoming increasingly useless to me. Way too much crap from Alibaba being sold on there under fake sounding brand names (OFTEN IN UPPERCASE FOR SOME REASON) and with thousands of reviews that don't sound legit. At this rate of decay, I don't see how Amazon isn't destined for some kind of correction.

Same goes for YouTube, despite being a very different kind of service. Their search is now virtually useless, everyone is using codewords to get around their draconian content policies, the number of ads that appear on the YouTube smart TV app is completely absurd, their web interface is full of bugs, old content is now difficult if not impossible to surface in many cases, and the overall kind of content now is repetitive and PG rated in all categories. Though I doubt that YouTube ever made a profit (or at least a sustained one), it just seems like the status quo is neither a good one nor one that can be sustained even by The Google.

All of these companies seem in trouble long-term, really. The one thing Amazon really has going for it is AWS. Yeah, The Google has their own cloud stuff, but let's face it, enough people have learned their lesson that anyone in their right mind wouldn't be hosting a new web service through them.

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

#499

Post by Mezzie » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:48 PM UTC

wonderwonder wrote: post #477

Mezzie wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the right to parent your kids any way you want, but I want to gently say that if you have a gay kid, this isn't going to make a difference. I knew I was gay (or at least same sex attracted) when I was 5 or 6. And one reason I knew this is that 80+% of movies I watched ended in male + female romances and I didn't get why I didn't like that, so I started searching online. Which is to say if you have a gay kid…

I 100% agree with you, I think that the vast majority of people are gay because they are born that way. I wish gay people nothing but happiness. I think that sexual confusion can arise though when kids are exposed to new ideas / concepts and I just want to delay that exposure as much as I can until they are older (at least middle school). Its just a personal parenting choice; I could be wrong and am ok with that. If…

I'm not sure what you mean by 'sexual confusion' unless you mean the gay version of me trying desperately to make myself like men? Or something like my sister who thought she was bi for a while because I was the only decent role model she had and I was gay. The reason I mention how young I was is because having romance shoved in my face constantly made me aware by the time I was a kindergartner that something was 'wrong' with me. Now, you do say 'he' and male kids get more of an opt out there, but as a girl child? It wasn't great. Also, what do you fear about the sexual confusion? Do you think your child will be hurt/taken advantage of?

I guess to me the defining line is how are you treating straight romances? Because tbh my thought is that children's media in general goes way too hard into romance and I agree with you that in general prepubescent childhood shouldn't be the time for that - I get major ick from all the het stuff we push on kids and I don't think the answer is 'push our (queer) stuff onto them too!' Like why does The Lion King need a romance? (Also do you worry about things like that turning them into furries?) Basically, are you consistent or do you single out homosexuality?

(Also thank you for engaging; it's hard to have conversations about this that don't devolve into name calling. There are pretty legitimate reasons to not want a kid to turn out gay if there is a nurture component: It severely limits their partners and/or opens them up to abuse from culture around them. It's obvious why a parent wouldn't want that for their child.)

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

#500

Post by wikfwikf » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:56 PM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #312

jesuscript wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's probably easier and faster to explain and setup someone for torrent than to signup for netflix

This is far from true.