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[-] fubo@lemmy.world 237 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Remember, streaming only has a business model as long as it has a better user experience than piracy. That's why iTunes took off in the era of Napster. When a streaming service's user experience drops below that of digging up pirate treasure off a shitty ad-ridden torrent site, that service is not long for the world.

[-] Weslee@lemmy.world 115 points 1 year ago

I cancelled Netflix and prime and went back to piracy a few months ago, it's been a nice blast from the past

In addition to piracy, I've also been checking out DVDs from my local library. It's kinda fun.

Surprised myself because I half expected I'd miss the convenience of Netflix, but I haven't missed it even a little.

"Was I a good streaming platform?"

"No."

[-] Peaty@sh.itjust.works 52 points 1 year ago

The benefit of the library DVD is it takes away the "What will we watch tonight?" conversation. You're going to watch the DVD.

[-] AliasWyvernspur@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It just switches the question to the library: "What will we borrow tonight?"

Source: experience from my Blockbuster days.

[-] 0110010001100010@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

lol I remember those days. Standing there trying to decide what movie to rent. Good times...

[-] Peaty@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

Yes but you have that discussion somewhere else. By the time your ready to be watching something you have made that choice

Checking one out is fun, too. It feels like an event vs. just watching anything out of boredom

[-] Rozz@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago

Shows are harder to come by though

[-] Peaty@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

That depends on your library

[-] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

You can also buy used DVDs. Just got a stack of studio Gibili movies for a fraction of the price they cost when they were new. Still haven’t watched all of them, but some I have watched more than once.

[-] epyon22@sh.itjust.works 26 points 1 year ago

It was nice when you could actually watch almost everything on it. Once everyone else started taking peices of the pie it just feels like cable with more hoops now

[-] DoomsdaySprocket@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

Every time I open a streaming service now, the things I want to watch are locked into an extra subscription. I generally end up just walking away rather than watching anything, and when I do dig around and find some thing else that is available on “my tier,” it absolutely wasn’t worth it.

Forget even piracy, I’m just not watching anything anymore. When streaming makes my chore list look more attractive, they’ve definitely fucked up.

[-] freeman@lemmy.pub 15 points 1 year ago

The only reason I keep Netflix is kids.

We don’t really watch it otherwise.

Even my in-laws are now pirates using hacked amazon fire sticks that are being hawked around their retirement community.

My mother in law is like “I get every streaming service and channel for 1 dollar a day, isn’t that great”.

I’m all “if it’s simple and works for you yeah, absolutely. “

[-] proudblond@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

We’re about to cancel Netflix despite my kids’ protests and start rotating. My husband just wanted to watch the new Castlevania and then we’re cutting and running — for a while at least. It’ll end up on the rotation again at some point.

If streaming services ever make us sign up for more than a month at a time, we’ll be hard-pressed to keep doing it the “right” way.

[-] yeather@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago

This is a great time to teach your kids Internet piracy and internet safety at the same time! Don’t click the pictures of the nice lady and you get to watch your show lol

[-] KnightontheSun@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

"These hot babes are most certainly NOT in your area."

I think this is an excellent notion and allows you to better shape their foray into the subject matter. They will be the cool kids, but you'd have to instill the "no talking about Usenet" type of rule. No boasting.

I have a mini PC running Linux that connects to my TV via hdmi so we can watch anything!

[-] freeman@lemmy.pub 3 points 1 year ago

I have a mini-pc running a plex vm. And all the TVs are Rokus. So can watch anything, including live broadcast tv. And the roku is so simple kids can operate it, and do.

I have a Roku too, which I mainly use for work trips.

What I did at home was get one of those cheap rechargeable wireless keyboards with trackpad for like $10 so that we can browse for what we want to watch from the sofa.

[-] electrogamerman@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

I would change that to:

"Was I a good streaming platform?"

"Yes, during your first year. Then all companies went greedy monkey savage and ruined it"

[-] seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago

The thing that sucks is that a lot of new stuff isn't on physical media at all.

I'm surprised what is, though. One of the movies I checked out was Knives Out.

[-] aesthelete@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It can be:

Step #1: download it (🏴‍☠️)

Step #2: burn it

Step #3: enjoy owning a more lasting copy for almost free

[-] seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago

Well, yeah, but we were talking about going to the library.

[-] Lifecoach5000@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

I’m about ready to do the same.

[-] Weslee@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I bought a raspberry pi, a SATA SSD and usb adaptor, and installed Plex now I'm the new netflix for my family, they send me movies and shows they want to watch and I put them on there, then they connect to my server and watch

It's been really good

[-] b3an@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Netflix will also be raising prices soon. Again.

[-] Malfeasant@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Netflix recently stopped shipping discs, that was all I kept them around for anymore...

[-] MTLion3@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

I’m just always spooked by viruses and shit.

[-] Weslee@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Use yts.mx, if you use any other site, try checking comments first if they have them, if not you can use torrent file viewer to check the download is actually a video file before downloading

Lastly you could try anti virus, but don't rely on it to do your job for you, they can catch most but not always all viruses

[-] seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org -3 points 1 year ago

You can't get a virus from a video or music file. Viruses have to be executable.

[-] dansity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 1 year ago

Paying 0.99 per song was how a better user experience? Music piracy was pretty big till Spotify. No service was even close before.

[-] FlounderBasket@lemmy.world 42 points 1 year ago

Being able to easily purchase a single song from a reputable source in the comfort of your home instead of going out to physically buy an entire album and then rip it to your computer was a better user experience, yes. Most users are technologically illiterate, and trying to pirate stuff just lead to them getting viruses.

[-] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 30 points 1 year ago

Because you were guaranteed that what you were downloading was what it said it was, and was high quality, and would have the correct tagging and album art and all of that.

It's been shown repeatedly that a large part of piracy isn't about cost, it's about convenience. It was easier to pay $0.99 and get what you wanted when you wanted it, than download 8 files off of Napster and hope that one of them was actually a decent bitrate and was the song the title said it was.

Back when eMule was a thing, it was super common to spend an entire day downloading a 700MB video file at 5kb/s, only for it to be Fight Club instead of whatever you thought you were downloading. It's the same thing with music.

[-] AliasWyvernspur@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago

It’s been shown repeatedly that a large part of piracy isn’t about cost, it’s about convenience. It was easier to pay $0.99 and get what you wanted when you wanted it, than download 8 files off of Napster and hope that one of them was actually a decent bitrate and was the song the title said it was.

"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."

-Gabe Newell

Sauce: http://web.archive.org/web/20120307035423/http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114391-Valves-Gabe-Newell-Says-Piracy-Is-a-Service-Problem

[-] dansity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 year ago

Music piracy was big till spotify apprared. iTunes had a limited selection, music remixes, small band stuff were not available. iTunes only had what Sony and some other music distributors supplied. I understand what you are saying but still, piracy was there and iTunes was not primary source. Spotify came and now music piracy is basically limited to high quality audio albums which is a niche market.

[-] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Or, with Napster, the person you're downloading from signs off when you're 40% done with the download.

[-] fubo@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Kazaa/Gnutella era: it says porn on the filename, but there's no previews and it turns out to be CSAM. Thanks for the trauma, now I'm gonna run shred ...

[-] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Meanwhile *arr got off (user experience) and Netflix & co. are ad-ridden too.

this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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