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The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021

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Re: The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021

#371

Post by OroPla »

heaney-555 wrote: post #48
OroPla wrote: post #25

I am still happy with my decision to never get entertainment subscription services. I buy CDs (that I rip) and BDs (that I let someone else rip, since that's a science in itself). This guarantees me access forever and I get to sell down the line, if I feel like it. It is way cheaper long term.

>It is way cheaper long term. How few songs do you listen to, and movies/shows do you watch, for this to possibly be true?

As you age, you have less need to grow your collection. You'll also forget about stuff from decades ago and can watch everything again without remembering much of anything.

Similarly, as you age you'll have less time spending on entertainment. The initial investment might be higher, but it will eventually be cheaper. And you'll curate more instead of mindlessly watching whatever crap there is.

Don't just look at the next decade. Look at the entire rest of your life and keep in mind that inflation made a thirty cent school meal go up to five dollar over the course of someone's life. Your money will continue to lose value, so you'll have to pay more and more for streaming. And you can never stop without losing access to everything and being left with nothing.

Re: The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021

#372

Post by ak6te »

bookofjoe wrote: post #311
icantevenhold wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbh just recently I found the full extended version box set of LotR on DVD just lying on the street together with ~dozens more decent movies. I could probably fund my viewing habits entirely out of found stuff. As for music; my dad ripped his whole CD collection many years ago, many thousands of CDs; more than I could listen to in a lifetime probably. Plus I buy music on bandcamp to support a few artists I really lik…

Percent of HN users who've ripped CDs: Significant Percent of non-HN users who've ever ripped a CD: Negligible

This is going to vary by age range, right? For anyone over the age of ~35, the percentage has to be way, way higher than the full population, regardless of technical capability.

Re: The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021

#373

Post by tyingq »

axegon_ wrote: post #184
tyingq wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do seem to make it easy to push people over any moral objection to piracy. Often more because of fragmentation than price, but pushing the price makes it easier. And the platforms (Jellyfin as one example) make sharing what you have with family/friends easier now also. I don't have a great view, though, whether this is even visible to the streaming platforms. I suspect they don't really lose much notable revenue…

I'm not fully convinced here. Objectively it's a lot easier than it was 15 years ago and that is partially because now more people have the skills to expand the ecosystem and the resources to focus on creature comforts. Since 2022 and the last 2 years more than ever, I decided to cut ties to all cloud providers and host everything myself for 4 reasons: 1. I have 0 trust in software companies to have the ability to pr…

I meant "easy for a non technical person to use". Things like limewire were dead easy back in the beginning. The isps were not paying attention, so you did not need a VPN, there was no setup or anything it worked right after you downloaded it. So it spread in a socially viral like way very quickly. And was being used by fairly non-technical people without assistance.

Re: The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021

#374

Post by jerf »

BizarroLand wrote: post #351
OroPla wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once your collection is built, thirty years down the line, you'll add less than five CDs per year. With streaming however, you'll end up paying a whole lot more than $5000 for the next 30 years, thanks to inflation. If you started this journey at 20 years old, you'll only be 80 after 60 years of streaming, but you might get to live until 110 and get to pay for yet another 30 years, which you may not be able to afford…

There's also an interesting side effect of owning limited media that streaming advocates overlook. When you own 3 albums, you'll listen to them more often. You will put more effort into memorizing them. You'll listen to the tracks that were not designed to be radio hits by a committee but were instead the songs the band came up with on their own. You get way more out of your investment when you invest mentally and em…

"You'll listen to the tracks that were not designed to be radio hits by a committee but were instead the songs the band came up with on their own."

And amplifying that, we see more and more "built for streaming" music, which is not the sort of music I want to listen to. I have phrased that carefully; it is a personal opinion and I won't criticize anyone who discovers that actually, yes, generic AI rock that is pumped out by the hour is something they find some use for. I could see someone who wouldn't want to "listen" to that with intentionality finding it useful to code to or as background noise in their life or something. But it's not what I want, and unless the streaming services do something about it it is what is going to dominate their platforms over time.

I don't go in for super deep relationships with the musicians, reading about their histories and stuff, but I do enjoy the way that the music I like most on first listen often pales quickly and the tracks that I initially didn't like very well become my favorites.

Re: The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021

#375

Post by basscomm »

wiether wrote: post #362
bakies wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're $20-50 for complete series on dvd on Amazon right now. That's 14-35 new shows to get every year for the same price. I believe it's cheaper. This is why so many companies push subscriptions. If DVDs made them more money than they'd be pushing you to buy them.

Are you really buying and watching DVDs in 2026? I bought some complete series in DVD in the past but, even putting aside the inconvenience of having to manage discs in the player, there's the quality issue. I got my 1080p copies on the high seas and that's just a whole different experience.

> Are you really buying and watching DVDs in 2026? > I got my 1080p copies on the high seas and that's just a whole different experience.

There's _a lot_ of stuff that has only ever been available in SD (or equivalent). Some of it was shot on film that could maybe be remastered, but that costs money. Some of the older/less popular stuff wouldn't be profitable if it was remastered (assuming remastering is even possible).

> even putting aside the inconvenience of having to manage discs in the player

You're allowed to rip media that you bought

Re: The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021

#376

Post by robocat »

BeetleB wrote: post #257
psim1 wrote: post #221

One of the highest-value streaming subscriptions you can get is PBS Passport. You get it with a $60 donation to either a PBS TV or NPR radio station. The donation is tax-deductible and the PBS subscription is rich with high-quality content for both adults and children.

I've gotten it many years, but rarely watched it, because my login keeps "expiring" on Roku. If I don't watch it for, say, a month, I'll need to log in again. It's terribly inconvenient. Hope they fix(ed) it.

Unavailable outside US/Canada.

See "Is Passport available outside of the U.S.?" section of: https://help.pbs.org/support/solutions/articles/12000096220-...

  PBS is not a producer, but rather a distributor of programming.
Some details that imply workarounds might be difficult (although I suggest instead better to Google for how to access):

https://help.pbs.org/support/solutions/articles/12000096659-...

https://help.pbs.org/support/solutions/articles/5000694871-i...

Re: The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021

#377

Post by ok123456 »

tuna74 wrote: post #280
ok123456 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am still happy with my decision to use torrents for the past 25 years or so. It is way cheaper long term.

Yes, and you don't support the people making the media either!

Culture is a sewer.

Re: The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021

#378

Post by upboundspiral »

ok123456 wrote: post #377
tuna74 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and you don't support the people making the media either!

Culture is a sewer.

But by torrenting you are participating and engaging with that culture...

I get it, the big brands etc aren't very palatable. And some things get lost with no way to purchase because the companies don't care. But for things that are readily available I find it just as easy to buy if for a few bucks on ebay / local library sale / etc.

Re: The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021

#379

Post by ok123456 »

upboundspiral wrote: post #378
ok123456 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Culture is a sewer.

But by torrenting you are participating and engaging with that culture... I get it, the big brands etc aren't very palatable. And some things get lost with no way to purchase because the companies don't care. But for things that are readily available I find it just as easy to buy if for a few bucks on ebay / local library sale / etc.

> But by torrenting you are participating and engaging with that culture...

I'm not participating in the part of the relationship that normalizes destroying general-purpose computing. They want us dead.

Re: The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021

#380

Post by hokkos »

dijit wrote: post #112
heaney-555 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is way cheaper long term. How few songs do you listen to, and movies/shows do you watch, for this to possibly be true?

buy 13 songs a month, every month, for a year, and see how big your library is. Remembering that a song at full price on itunes store is $1~ and a monthly subscription to spotify is $13 There is a compounding effect, so buying my library as it is today will cost me about $300~, but that's because I've accumulated 300 songs over the course of about 12 years. (300/12) is about $25 per year. So the delta is $131... for…

In my last.fm account it says I have listened 122.000 different tracks, I would have gone mad listening for the 300 same songs for 12 years, it would be like torture for me.
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