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I don't get this part: > General-purpose computers allow us to own our music and videos--not just watch them until Netflix's contract for our favorite Star War

I don't get this part: > General-purpose computers allow us to own our music and videos--not just watch them until Netflix's contract for our favorite Star Wars movie expires or Apple decides to somehow prevent us from accessing our favorite song in its inventory. You can still buy music and videos to own. Music from iTunes and other download services has been DRM-free for decades. Plus there's always CDs. I bought one from Amazon recently, believe it or not! You can buy DVDs/BluRays for movies and TV shows. This has nothing to do with internet appliances or walled gardens, or whatever else this article is about.

timmahoney 5y ago
I’ve been buying mp3 albums from Amazon recently, which has been great because I can load them into my local MPD daemon for playback. I have a pandora account, which admittedly is how I discovered all this music in the first place, but MPD takes up next to no resources, so I end up using that most of the time!
f1refly 5y ago
Depending on where you live ripping user hostile restricted optical disks is illegal, even the possession of tools that can free you from the digital restrictions may be illegal, making you dependent on your bluray player supporting the disk you bought and leaving you behind should you want to watch the content anywhere besides your living room. In addition, there are now lots of movies and series that are only available if you agree to some streaming service's TOS without the option to own anything at all.