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What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

nmil.dev

131–140 of 159 posts

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#131

Finally jumped ship to a Jellyfin based home server and couldn't be happier. The ui is surprisingly good and polished (especially for the users who don't have to manage the library), video quality is amazing (with bd source files, who would have thought, but even DVD is often better than what modern streaming provides), and I can cache the movies on my phone when needed. It works in ANY browser under ANY os, doesn't…

I find the free version of plex - once I config out all their own streaming junk - is perfectly good.. (and it runs acceptably on my ancient synology) Are there any compelling reasons for me to look in to jellyfin?

I'm perfectly fine with paying for software, so the price wasn't a leading factor in my choice (and I have contributed to Jellyfin).

It just looks to me that Plex (as a company) isn't really as reliable for self-hosting in the long run. So even though Plex has a better client support (for example, on xbox and playstation), I decided against it in favor of something that only I am in control of.

Initially intended to buy a license for Emby, but it doesn't support hardware transcoding on Apple Silicon yet, so Jellyfin it is then.

If you are happy with Plex, there's no reason to switch, IMO. If something goes wrong, it likely won't take you long to connect an alternative to the same media library

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#132

Finally jumped ship to a Jellyfin based home server and couldn't be happier. The ui is surprisingly good and polished (especially for the users who don't have to manage the library), video quality is amazing (with bd source files, who would have thought, but even DVD is often better than what modern streaming provides), and I can cache the movies on my phone when needed. It works in ANY browser under ANY os, doesn't…

I find the free version of plex - once I config out all their own streaming junk - is perfectly good.. (and it runs acceptably on my ancient synology) Are there any compelling reasons for me to look in to jellyfin?

The main reason that finally pushed me to move over was that Plex works local only (no internet connection) for only so long and then you are done for without a beacon/login home I guess. Dumbest "feature" ever but I guess I get why they do it.

We had our power and internet go out for an extended amount of time earlier this year and shortly after I converted us over to Jellyfin vs Plex. Quite easy and painless setup. Mostly just recreated my libraries in Jellyfin and good to go.

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#133
post #73

Can anyone give me an honest review of Kagi? When AI can summarize the web results and search for me, I have stopped using Google.

The perception of Kagi at HN is extremely positive, but in my personal experience the search quality reminds me more of Bing than Google, with Kagi sometimes surfacing puzzling results first. Also, I wasn't thrilled about giving them access to all my search data. As flawed as Google may be, I still believe they have better privacy standards than Kagi.

I personally think their privacy policy is very transparent, and they seem to take it seriously.

https://kagi.com/privacy

obviously neither of us have peeked under the hood at google and kati’s source code, so hard to tell for certain at face value.

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#134
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how they ruined the opportunity presented netflix didn't really ruin it themselves (at least, not completely) - the owner of the licensed content did, by wanting a bigger cut of the pie. Disney, for example, didn't feel they're paid enough, and so stopped licensing the content out to netflix and instead created a competing service. I think this is a regulatory issue, because each piece of content is an effective is…

> The state needs to make some changes to how content is licensed to prevent monopoly. Why? Nobody _needs_ Mickey Mouse. If the price for Mickey Mouse is too high, just don't buy it. Now you could argue that some (much) older works are part of culture, and being exposed to that culture is necessary to function in society. But that then becomes an issue of how long copyright is necessary or reasonable. New works most…

Your system simply makes society worse for the benefit of a handful of companies. So, why? To make society better.

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#135
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The perception of Kagi at HN is extremely positive, but in my personal experience the search quality reminds me more of Bing than Google, with Kagi sometimes surfacing puzzling results first. Also, I wasn't thrilled about giving them access to all my search data. As flawed as Google may be, I still believe they have better privacy standards than Kagi.

Same, I tried it only because its spoken highly here and I dropped it after paying for a year. I was not able to find what I wanted at least 25% of the time, not worth it to pay.

I use Kagi at home and Google at work, and IME Kagi results are much better compared to Google. It's easy enough to jump to Google by adding !g, but I never find myself actually using that... I do however end up doing the reverse, where I'll not find the result I'm looking for on my work computer and then quickly repeat the search on Kagi on my phone. I used to use DuckDuckGo on my personal devices before, and while it was mostly fine, I did have to jump to Google more frequently. In the end sometimes the results were better on DDG and sometimes on Google. I haven't really found any situation where Google results were better than Kagi (I do tend to prefer Google Images results, but I only very rarely use image search, maybe once a month).

There was also an instance recently where I was helping out a coworker get set up with something. I had done it earlier in the day, so I told him something like "type in $SEARCH_TERM, then go to the first page and copy the commands from there". He put it into Google, couldn't find the right result, tried a few variations, still couldn't find it. I pulled Kagi up on my phone, searched the same term, and slacked him the page while he was still looking around on Google.

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#136

It's weird. When Netflix came about, I was excited to dump all the bespoke pirating stuff that it replaced. I didn't mind paying for content, in fact, I was glad to. Fast forward a while, and now Netflix seems to be an undiscoverable mess of old and foreign content while charging twice as much. Each IP owner felt it necessary to make their own way worse clone, and still, after paying more than a hundred a month, ther…

greed, as always. It's an interesting Tragedy of the Commons. Though "commons" is a weird word to use for private corporations.

They could have charged $50 a month if everything were truly in one place and always available. Instead they had to cut here and there to dodge residuals. Then cut more here and there to optimize slop over prestige, then cut more here and there to try and save money on licenses, then cut more here and there to try and become the middleman themselves. the cut more here and there to "maximize engagement" and compete with an entirely different business model and medium.

Ultimately the shareholders ruin everything with their short term mentality of companies. They keep rewarding hype over substance and overall health. And of course the consumers suffer in teh end.

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#137
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how they ruined the opportunity presented netflix didn't really ruin it themselves (at least, not completely) - the owner of the licensed content did, by wanting a bigger cut of the pie. Disney, for example, didn't feel they're paid enough, and so stopped licensing the content out to netflix and instead created a competing service. I think this is a regulatory issue, because each piece of content is an effective is…

> The state needs to make some changes to how content is licensed to prevent monopoly. Why? Nobody _needs_ Mickey Mouse. If the price for Mickey Mouse is too high, just don't buy it. Now you could argue that some (much) older works are part of culture, and being exposed to that culture is necessary to function in society. But that then becomes an issue of how long copyright is necessary or reasonable. New works most…

>Why?

I don't really care how streaming shakes down, except for how companies dodge paying creators.

But it's been clear for decades the DMCA and fair use laws needs a huge overhaul for the modern internet works. You make a 45 minute documentary, but some 10 second sample of a VEVO pop song can get your content taken down anyway? All fanart is technically under a gray area as well. All that is something that would benefit from reviewing content licensing.

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#138
post #82

It's weird. When Netflix came about, I was excited to dump all the bespoke pirating stuff that it replaced. I didn't mind paying for content, in fact, I was glad to. Fast forward a while, and now Netflix seems to be an undiscoverable mess of old and foreign content while charging twice as much. Each IP owner felt it necessary to make their own way worse clone, and still, after paying more than a hundred a month, ther…

Corporations care primarily about their position relative to other corporations; you and piracy is not concerns for them. Disney, Warner Bross and similar media corporations fears monopoly of Netflix. You cannot harm them thru piracy, Netflix can.

>you and piracy is not concerns for them.

Sure it does. It's just that piracy is still pretty low right now compared to 20 years ago. Most people are boiling in the pot still.

It'll work or a while, until the frog evaporates. Then it'll all fall apart quickly.

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#139
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks to special backroom deals with the three majors, Spotify only really pays to a small majority in the Top N. It doesn't matter if you only listen to one artist the whole month, your money is still going to Taylor Swift. There is no point in paying for streaming. Just pirate it and give your money to your favourite artists by buying merchandise or vinyl.

> There is no point in paying for streaming Spotify is so cheap that it is worth it for the convenience alone. Not to mention Spotify is legal while piracy is not. However, I agree that if you enjoy music (or any other art/content) someone produces, it’s only fair (and natural) to support them in a more direct way.

I suppose the qualifier here is "there's no moral point in paying for streaming". If you're fine listening to your favorite artist but paying Taylor Swift for your convineinece, cool.

You'll benefit the artist much more by throwing a real dollar at them and pirating their music.

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#140
post #2

We recently did a stock take of all the subscriptions we've ended up with - versus the ones we actually regualrly use - and it was clear we've been wasting money for some time

This year had me reduce my subs to a grand total of Youtube and Discord. And even then Youtube is on shakey ground. Just sucks because Youtube is prety much an uncontested monopoly serving as that middleground between tiktok shorts and high budget TV shows.
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