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

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

#501

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.

Are there any products or tools for managing this kind of thing?

I generally want my lists of books/films/music playlists whatever that I've seen, reviewed or marked as "to watch" to be managed seperately from any one particular vendor, and owned by me.

There seems to be some movement towards this with e.g. smart TVs that will search all your apps for shows, and sites that will tell you where a specific film or show is available, but I've not seen anything either super geeky, or super easy to use.

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

#502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are there any products or tools for managing this kind of thing? I generally want my lists of books/films/music playlists whatever that I've seen, reviewed or marked as "to watch" to be managed seperately from any one particular vendor, and owned by me. There seems to be some movement towards this with e.g. smart TVs that will search all your apps for shows, and sites that will tell you where a specific film or show…

I don't know if this is what you're asking specifically, but I use justwatch.com to see where I can watch stuff. Sometimes (it happened to me last night) one of those weird internet channels has what you're looking for...

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

#503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I cannot speak for OP, I have noticed that some people seem to view non-straight orientations as inherently sexual. To those people any reference to having a same sex spouse (or that you date members of the same sex, etc.) is equivalent to mentioning that you engage in BDSM. I do think most people would be weirded about about a kids show having characters that mention they are into BDSM would be weird and inapp…

I agree with this to a point but I think a lot of this has to do with the overt sexualization of pro gay demonstrations. Pride parades contain a lot of heightened sexuality. One of the drivers of my point of view (which for me is relatively new) and my aversion to letting my kids watch gay shows was I accidentally drove passed a pride parade with my young kid a while ago and he saw several men walking with their rear…

Honestly, I agree with you. (And I'm a lesbian). In my opinion, if we want to be accepted members of the community, we need to hold ourselves to the same standards as any other community members. It's also, unfortunately, a bad cycle: The boring gays like me start staying home and being quiet but then there's nobody around to say 'uh, maybe there should be a public and private distinction in acceptable behavior and attire'.

If we expect people to trust us with their kids, we need to be trustworthy around kids.

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

#504
post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 'wr…

I think your personal experience actually captures my concern: "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"

Kids are very malleable at a young age and they build themselves based on the rolemodels and influences they are exposed to. I take this into consideration when deciding what they can watch. As to your question on do I apply the same concerns to depictions of straight romances, to a point but very much not to the same degree. I am biased in that I would prefer my kids be straight, generally for selfish reasons such as wanting my kids to have kids of their own but also for general reasons such as its just an easier life for a straight kid than a gay one. I am not advocating for gay kids to have harder lives, its just unfortunately the facts on the ground. I don't let my kids watch anything that is openly sexual though, gay or straight. I know the furries question is a throw away but it does raise a point. I think a lot of sexual fetishes (not including homosexuality here) are due to exposure to them via media. No one wakes up and thinks I'm a sexual [insert animal of your choice]. They are exposed to it via media and it sparks a flame [the nurture component]. I try to limit my kids exposure to media that I think could influence them in ways I prefer they not be influenced.

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

#505
post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently forgot to cancel a one month free trial for a HTC Vive marketplace (yes, even they got some bullshit monthly sub going), and they locked me into a year long commitment. I’ve turned very sour to these monthly renewals and accounts I can’t keep track of anymore.

I’m now using virtual disposable card for any subscription to a service I'm not sure to use more than one month. If I forget it that means I don't use it and the subscription will end itself. If I somehow still need it after the first month, I usually get a email reminder or a message about payment processing failure and I can fix that with a non-disposable card.

what do you use for the disposable card?

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

#506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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's the fragmentation and lack of ease of use that does it. If I had a NAS and Jellyfin setup, I'd have a catalog of basically everything available to stream; I wouldn't have to look a dozen different places to see if anyone has it available; I'd not have to worry about the streaming rights switching to another service in the middle of a show I'm watching; I'd not have to search through a bunch of different services to find where exactly I purchased it; I wouldn't have to learn a bunch of different inconsistent crappy, buggy interfaces; previous purchases wouldn't mysteriously disappear.

Throw all that on top of not being forced to watch the same ad for Rings of Power the thousandth time in a row, a much broader library of content, a better library of subtitles, and no performance issues.

I'm happy to pay for things that deliver usable experiences. Concretely, I'd gladly pay $200/month for a good streaming service that avoids the pitfalls mentioned. But I'm not going to pay money to subject myself to abusive practices and terrible experiences.

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

#507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know I'm not going to change your mind, but this viewpoint just seems so strange and morbidly fascinating. What exactly does "exposure to homosexuality" even mean? These shows and movies aren't depicting gay sex. They aren't trying to convince straight kids that they are gay. They aren't even advocating politics. What specific content do you object to? My kid is Disney movie aged, and we've watched em all--it's exh…

Each of us is an inexperienced parent; we can all only do what we think is right. What I think is right may differ from you, and that's completely ok. My main objection to this really started when I saw the short "Out" listed prominently on my kids Disney+ account. Its an animated kid friendly short detailing how to come out to your family. While I don't think that watching a show like this will turn someone gay I do…

> My main objection to this really started when I saw the short "Out" listed prominently on my kids Disney+ account. Its an animated kid friendly short detailing how to come out to your family.

I hate shit like this. It's just pandering to progressive parents who will sit and watch that with their kids. No kid under 9 or 10 is concerned with coming out (or at least they're a very tiny population), and in middle school liking childish things (like twee Disney shorts) is cringe as hell, so they're not watching it. It's all about parents being able to give themselves backpats, which is stupid. Or Disney employees who want to pack themselves on the back for being progressive enough.

Like just from an audience standpoint, it doesn't make sense?

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

#508

As I've gotten older, I think my morals have gotten more defined. I no longer think that piracy is acceptable. Someone spends time and money to produce something, and I think they get the right to sell it however they like. My choice, of course, is to pay for the content, or just not to consume it. I don't believe I have an inherent right to consume any content I want for free. The counter argument is usually that a…

I'm curious whether you use an ad blocker. The same reasoning could apply: the website has posted a price (some of your time, attention, and compute resources), and the choice is whether to pay the price or not engage in the transaction.

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

#509
I wouldn't put Games / Software in the same category as media. I wouldn't pirate software (can you even still pirate games with everything being online / server-side?), but I do "pirate" Spotify / Youtube (with ad-blockers). I still pay subscriptions for Netflix / Hulu / Disney+ / Amazon Prime but already cancelled HBO and Paramount+ and will consider cancelling more.

I do occasionally "pirate" old foreign content that just can't be bought anywhere but it's too much of a hassle (Docker with VPN kill-switch, finding a "legit" torrent tracker, etc.); might consider using it for mainstream content as well if the streaming services keep diluting available media or keep bumping up prices to an unreasonable level.

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

#510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

There was definitely a lot more junk (mislabeled or fake content, viruses, keyloggers, ...) shared on those networks. Even the Kazaa client itself was riddled with dubious adware. Also legit content was of much poorer quality overall.

Today even public trackers are pretty clean. Cryptominers are trivially caught by Windows Defender. Effective ransomware campaigns are targeted at entities that can pay millions, not random individuals.

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