161–170 of 219 posts
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Required by store ?
This is such a good answer, it puts the entire situation into perspective. About who wants to (and theoretically should) act in favor of consumers.
Buy into their ecosystem and things "just work". Except when they don't.
Its a cross cutting requirement that adds value for the platform.
excerpt 33 of why those platforms will end up dying, and everyone will go back to the old ways. Greed is such a powerful enshittification factor
Enshittification is done because it is so reliable. Customers just keep buying, doesn't really seem to matter how poorly you treat them.
Shrinkflation has gone on for decades and there's nothing stopping it from continuing because what are you going to do, not buy 90% of products in the grocery store? Good luck.
The problem is that businesses reach a sort of escape velocity where you can abuse your customer and they either do not react to it or have no other choice. The entire economy has worked to ensure that every consumer experiences trained helplessness when it comes to consuming, because that's more profitable.
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BitTorrent → Local Media Player App Still the best way to watch movies and shows. Even if we pay $100 dollars every month to streaming services they will never not be too dumb to know how to make a convenient player that isn't hostile to its users.
What is your local app of choice? Do you sync between devices?
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It's interesting to look back at the times when these concepts and sci-fi lit were written. A lot of it was in the postwar period. You had a booming population that offered the opportunity for easy corporate revenue growth. If you wanted to make more money, you just sold your good or service to a person who didn't have it yet. That was simple enough because there were people - a lot of them - aging into your market.…
> So what do you do if you are charged with providing shareholders ever-increasing returns on their investments by selling goods and services? > Growth must be maintained. Value must be created. The futurist never took into account that part. The futurists did take this into account, they just weren't writing utopian fiction. Weyland Yutani, Tyrell Corp, and other Megacorps were the futurists warning us what could ha…
excerpt 33 of why those platforms will end up dying, and everyone will go back to the old ways. Greed is such a powerful enshittification factor
So Cable TV died decades ago when they first put ads onto the service that was sold on not having any ads, right? Enshittification is done because it is so reliable. Customers just keep buying, doesn't really seem to matter how poorly you treat them. Shrinkflation has gone on for decades and there's nothing stopping it from continuing because what are you going to do, not buy 90% of products in the grocery store? Goo…
This is going to be painful for people in a way which I haven’t seen discussed here yet. A year ago I went on vacation with my family, and the kids wanted to watch Netflix on VRBO‘s TV and so I logged in to my account on the tv. And of course I forgot to log it out when I left - so, predictably, the next people decided they hated my taste and went through and deleted all my likes and dislikes, and rated I swear 100 t…
A big part of why marketplaces like Netflix and Steam got so popular is because they provided a low-friction way to consume that was even easier than piracy. It seems like the pendulum is starting to swing in the other direction now- it's often easier to copyright infringe than to watch something the legit way, even if you pay for a subscription that grants you access. Great example of something that's illegal but no…
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That's also rather shit, unless you're using a prescribed browser and operating system. We've rebuilt cable boxes, but somehow they're even shittier than before.
I’ve run homebrew DVRs since the MythTV/Hauppauge era and it’s true My family won’t adapt to anything in the living room with a keyboard and mouse, and getting a reliable remote on any PC based solution is often problematic.
But Windows 7 is gone, and so is the TiVo Slide remote.
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> The solution would appear to be an official android API for streaming content from mobile devices that has resolved these issues or locked out the rights holders. How would you lock out rights holders who hold the rights to content to create such an official streaming API? Such an official API would have to abide by all the licensing rules rights holders impose.
That's a question for lawyers to resolve. IANAL but I have great faith in their ability to impose arbitrary roadblocks to anything as needed. And even if ultimately overturned, just making the bottom line more affordable allowing casting would seem to be the "shareholder value" friendly message. Further, there was already precedent for such behavior on Netflix with some content being downloadable for later viewing an…
They own about 0 rights to the content they stream.
Netflix almost collapsed when major studios pulled their content to create competing platforms. That's why they spent to the tune of 8 billion dollars a year to produce their own content and flooded the service with mediocre movies and a bunch of Korean movies and series. Also that's why you can watch the content they have rights to in every country, download it etc.
That's the same reason why AppleTV is busy creating their own content etc.
If streaming platforms dare to go against rights holders, the lawsuits will hurt even Google.
As for AI: it doesn't hurt the rights holders yet. The moment it does, you'll see lawsuits.
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I’ve run homebrew DVRs since the MythTV/Hauppauge era and it’s true My family won’t adapt to anything in the living room with a keyboard and mouse, and getting a reliable remote on any PC based solution is often problematic.
The hands-down best DVR experience I had was a TiVo Slide remote (the top slid back to reveal a small but fully functional keyboard) paired to a PC running Windows 7 Media Center with a four-tuner InfiniTV Cablecard adapter. Obviously it's been a few years, but that was just smooth all around once I got it set up. Very high WAF. But Windows 7 is gone, and so is the TiVo Slide remote.