4 ms·

It's disingenuous to call switching libraries "inconvenient". We're talking about opening a new tab or switching an app. A few finger budges for ~2hr of enterta

by dfxm12 7y ago

It's disingenuous to call switching libraries "inconvenient". We're talking about opening a new tab or switching an app. A few finger budges for ~2hr of entertainment. I don't know what to say if you find that so inconvenient, especially compared to the effort it would take to go to a torrent site, find a high quality stream, make sure it has the right special features you're looking for, or what have you, to pirate a movie. If you're looking for an ever growing library of specific movies you want to watch, with the special features you want to consume, it sounds like you just want to buy movies. Netflix and co. were never that and were never advertised as that.

elif 7y ago
The inconvenient part is I have to labor for income to pay for all these services. That's really a bummer because I prefer to not labor. Additionally, I am in 6 countries for 9 months of this year. It is inconvenient that YouTube TV tells me the $35 I am paying them buys me absolutely nothing, despite the app saying "some content and local channels" will not be available, Netflix forces me to stop halfway through a series because I crossed a border. That's not convenient. Piracy just works.
- holy_city 7y ago
  It's my understanding that the issues with international content distribution have to do with regulatory differences across borders, not the streaming services themselves.
  - arghwhat 7y ago
    It has to do mainly with an archaic business model where the rights are given to local distributors that have no purpose anymore. They are the only ones allowed to license the work in a region, so providibg a movie or selection requires separate licensing agreements for every country or region it is served in. Businesses that manage to take fees for nothing due historic reasons need to be eliminated.
  - dvdbloc 7y ago
    Does little to change the point, piracy still doesn’t have these restrictions.
  - mjevans 7y ago
    Segmented distribution, be it to exclusivity silos or regional isolation, doesn't work. My gut prediction is that if a service has a strong correlation to the desired content, E.G. Disney+ for "kids", it MIGHT work out, at least in the short term. HOWEVER, for wider culture, and particularly with different "tv networks" and studios with content libraries split among many services, the friction of not having a single place with everything, of not having a 'streaming store', will drive many to routing around the insanity and accessing the culture they want on terms they're willing to agree to. Short version: * have everything, I mean it. * cost less than basic cable (total) * completely ad free (probably) * offline caching is a must (road trips) * capable of playing on anything I want (DRM free)
  - elif 7y ago
    Regulatory differences are a flaw unique to paid services, though. Piracy has no such flaw.
  - deogeo 7y ago
    > regulatory differences Interesting way of saying "corporate exclusivity agreements", which is what this ends up being in 99 out of 100 cases.
- on_and_off 7y ago
  Ouch moving countries is something I did not touch because of what a nightmare it is for many of these services and because it is not the "common" case. It took me one year to transfer my google account to another country. I am not doing it again.
katbyte 7y ago
> A few finger budges for ~2hr of entertainment. It's more like: check sites 1-5 looking for the movie, can't find it (or it a PPV download, OR the app/site doesn't support 5.1 DDS, its quality is bad) get frustrated go onto $torrentsite, sort by size, download one with most seeders & a larger file size wait 30-60 min and done. Netflix used to make it easier as their app UX and quality are high so it was a one stop shop. Now i just find torrenting easier to make sure its high quality with 5.1.. however i may not be the norm.
- CivilianZero 7y ago
  This is incredibly disingenuous. Before you download that movie you need to make sure it’s not being tracked, make sure it’s the format you want (which may be a lie), possibly setup a VPN (another service you’re now paying for and which are never simple), possibly convert the movie to a file format which your chosen video player can stream to your chosen device (both of which you’ve definitely tinkered with in the past) and if any of these steps are off/not done properly, you have to just go find another valid copy which is not always easy. Also, some of the best torrenting libraries are not free and often require you to seed a certain amount which eats up bandwidth and may just not be an option if you have a data cap/slowdown at certain times of day (most ISPs do one or both of these). Most Smart TVs and Apple TV (or your iPhone/iPad/Mac) let you do a search across all streaming platforms and their library and if it’s available you just click to open the app and start playing. It takes exactly 15 seconds. Piracy is not “the most convenient answer” and considering the shocking lack of familiarity with everyday technology in these comments, it’s laughable that anyone would claim it is. It’s greed, plain and simple.
- thirdsun 7y ago
  Another often overlooked technical detail: Streaming clients and supporting the proper framerate of the content. My projector supports 24p as do most other displays, but good luck making sure that Netflix' and other streaming service clients on various devices actually output 24p and not interpolated 60Hz leading to micro stutter. I understand that many displays have decent interpolation features these days, which hide the issues, but they are still a solution to an unnecessary problem. A bluray or a good rip of it delivers the film in proper fashion. It's a non-issue with pirated content.
bluedino 7y ago
It's a pain to switch on my smart TV. It's also a pain to search every service for a movie.
homonculus1 7y ago
There is considerable mental overhead involved in trying to remember where your choice is hosted, cycling through redundant apps and menu pages, waiting through load times, repeatedly entering the same search terms without a proper keyboard, getting blasted with different promotions from each service, etc. It's a stupid and frustrating experience and every time it happens is a reminder that my interests as a customer rank dead last after all of these companies slice and dice their cultural fiefdoms into separate packages to squeeze a little extra revenue. Calling it a few finger budges is reductive, it's an insulting and tiresome rigmarole of hoops that I have to jump through just because they wanted to squeeze some more money.

by dfxm12 7y ago

elif 7y ago

The inconvenient part is I have to labor for income to pay for all these services. That's really a bummer because I prefer to not labor. Additionally, I am in 6 countries for 9 months of this year. It is inconvenient that YouTube TV tells me the $35 I am paying them buys me absolutely nothing, despite the app saying "some content and local channels" will not be available, Netflix forces me to stop halfway through a series because I crossed a border. That's not convenient. Piracy just works.

holy_city 7y ago
It's my understanding that the issues with international content distribution have to do with regulatory differences across borders, not the streaming services themselves.
- arghwhat 7y ago
  It has to do mainly with an archaic business model where the rights are given to local distributors that have no purpose anymore. They are the only ones allowed to license the work in a region, so providibg a movie or selection requires separate licensing agreements for every country or region it is served in. Businesses that manage to take fees for nothing due historic reasons need to be eliminated.
- dvdbloc 7y ago
  Does little to change the point, piracy still doesn’t have these restrictions.
- mjevans 7y ago
  Segmented distribution, be it to exclusivity silos or regional isolation, doesn't work. My gut prediction is that if a service has a strong correlation to the desired content, E.G. Disney+ for "kids", it MIGHT work out, at least in the short term. HOWEVER, for wider culture, and particularly with different "tv networks" and studios with content libraries split among many services, the friction of not having a single place with everything, of not having a 'streaming store', will drive many to routing around the insanity and accessing the culture they want on terms they're willing to agree to. Short version: * have everything, I mean it. * cost less than basic cable (total) * completely ad free (probably) * offline caching is a must (road trips) * capable of playing on anything I want (DRM free)
- elif 7y ago
  Regulatory differences are a flaw unique to paid services, though. Piracy has no such flaw.
- deogeo 7y ago
  > regulatory differences Interesting way of saying "corporate exclusivity agreements", which is what this ends up being in 99 out of 100 cases.
on_and_off 7y ago
Ouch moving countries is something I did not touch because of what a nightmare it is for many of these services and because it is not the "common" case. It took me one year to transfer my google account to another country. I am not doing it again.

katbyte 7y ago

> A few finger budges for ~2hr of entertainment. It's more like: check sites 1-5 looking for the movie, can't find it (or it a PPV download, OR the app/site doesn't support 5.1 DDS, its quality is bad) get frustrated go onto $torrentsite, sort by size, download one with most seeders & a larger file size wait 30-60 min and done. Netflix used to make it easier as their app UX and quality are high so it was a one stop shop. Now i just find torrenting easier to make sure its high quality with 5.1.. however i may not be the norm.

CivilianZero 7y ago
This is incredibly disingenuous. Before you download that movie you need to make sure it’s not being tracked, make sure it’s the format you want (which may be a lie), possibly setup a VPN (another service you’re now paying for and which are never simple), possibly convert the movie to a file format which your chosen video player can stream to your chosen device (both of which you’ve definitely tinkered with in the past) and if any of these steps are off/not done properly, you have to just go find another valid copy which is not always easy. Also, some of the best torrenting libraries are not free and often require you to seed a certain amount which eats up bandwidth and may just not be an option if you have a data cap/slowdown at certain times of day (most ISPs do one or both of these). Most Smart TVs and Apple TV (or your iPhone/iPad/Mac) let you do a search across all streaming platforms and their library and if it’s available you just click to open the app and start playing. It takes exactly 15 seconds. Piracy is not “the most convenient answer” and considering the shocking lack of familiarity with everyday technology in these comments, it’s laughable that anyone would claim it is. It’s greed, plain and simple.
thirdsun 7y ago
Another often overlooked technical detail: Streaming clients and supporting the proper framerate of the content. My projector supports 24p as do most other displays, but good luck making sure that Netflix' and other streaming service clients on various devices actually output 24p and not interpolated 60Hz leading to micro stutter. I understand that many displays have decent interpolation features these days, which hide the issues, but they are still a solution to an unnecessary problem. A bluray or a good rip of it delivers the film in proper fashion. It's a non-issue with pirated content.

bluedino 7y ago

It's a pain to switch on my smart TV. It's also a pain to search every service for a movie.

homonculus1 7y ago

There is considerable mental overhead involved in trying to remember where your choice is hosted, cycling through redundant apps and menu pages, waiting through load times, repeatedly entering the same search terms without a proper keyboard, getting blasted with different promotions from each service, etc. It's a stupid and frustrating experience and every time it happens is a reminder that my interests as a customer rank dead last after all of these companies slice and dice their cultural fiefdoms into separate packages to squeeze a little extra revenue. Calling it a few finger budges is reductive, it's an insulting and tiresome rigmarole of hoops that I have to jump through just because they wanted to squeeze some more money.