3 ms·

Honestly, given the sheer amount of high-quality video content that's available from free, ad-supported streaming platforms with no DRM to speak of (indeed, you

Honestly, given the sheer amount of high-quality video content that's available from free, ad-supported streaming platforms with no DRM to speak of (indeed, you could easily grab a copy of anything you wanted to keep for the longer term - it's just that you don't even bother with that!), there's very little reason to even pirate nowadays. Why would I want to support consumer-hostile organizations like Netflix, HBO or the Amazon Video division, even with my attention and by engaging with their crappy "content"? I'll just keep watching stuff from the sites that don't pull any DRM crap. (In fact I don't even bother with blocking the ads, they're reasonable enough and they do a tolerable job of supporting creators.)

H1Supreme 8y ago
Can you list one or two? I'm only familiar with the large one's like Netflix and HBO.
rdruxn 8y ago
How is HBO consumer-hostile?
- sliken 8y ago
  They have several channels on the roku, not sure why. It's painful to setup, and it forgets the authorization every few weeks. Since there's not much content I wouldn't run it often, but when I did it would pop up a code and ask me to go to a website to approve it. Said website would bounce through the comcast authentication page... but bouncing often didn't work. When it did work it would take about 5 minutes of futzing around. I couldn't watch it from firefox or google chrome running on my linux box. The client would hang fairly often, I'd end up resetting my roku to clear it. Netflix does it right. Auth lasts a long time (at least a year), the client is generally pretty reliable, and I can watch from Linux, Roku, or Android as I see fit. I can even download episodes on Android if I want to save on bandwidth charges. While Netflix isn't perfect, it does seem way less consumer hostile than HBO.
  - asdff 8y ago
    I wouldn't call that consumer hostile, I'd call it a shitty roku app. HBO go is old school. They aren't going to autoplay bullshit the minute you are trying to think of that movie you were meaning to watch. Their XBOX app looks like it's from 2009, just simple bread and butter search + categories + watchlist. Bulletproof.
thedaemon 8y ago
Yes, please share these mythical high quality, free video streaming services. I know of 1 free service. Pluto.tv But I wouldn't consider it a streaming platform in so much as a TV copy cat.

H1Supreme 8y ago

Can you list one or two? I'm only familiar with the large one's like Netflix and HBO.

rdruxn 8y ago

How is HBO consumer-hostile?

sliken 8y ago
They have several channels on the roku, not sure why. It's painful to setup, and it forgets the authorization every few weeks. Since there's not much content I wouldn't run it often, but when I did it would pop up a code and ask me to go to a website to approve it. Said website would bounce through the comcast authentication page... but bouncing often didn't work. When it did work it would take about 5 minutes of futzing around. I couldn't watch it from firefox or google chrome running on my linux box. The client would hang fairly often, I'd end up resetting my roku to clear it. Netflix does it right. Auth lasts a long time (at least a year), the client is generally pretty reliable, and I can watch from Linux, Roku, or Android as I see fit. I can even download episodes on Android if I want to save on bandwidth charges. While Netflix isn't perfect, it does seem way less consumer hostile than HBO.
- asdff 8y ago
  I wouldn't call that consumer hostile, I'd call it a shitty roku app. HBO go is old school. They aren't going to autoplay bullshit the minute you are trying to think of that movie you were meaning to watch. Their XBOX app looks like it's from 2009, just simple bread and butter search + categories + watchlist. Bulletproof.

thedaemon 8y ago

Yes, please share these mythical high quality, free video streaming services. I know of 1 free service. Pluto.tv But I wouldn't consider it a streaming platform in so much as a TV copy cat.