6 ms·

These are mostly non-sequiturs, with some plausible cases. For example - I don't think subscription licensing for media is moral, and I think legally it's a ri

These are mostly non-sequiturs, with some plausible cases. For example - I don't think subscription licensing for media is moral, and I think legally it's a rife place for some serious case law. Simple example - Recording shows for personal consumption (time shifting) is absolutely allowed under current copyright law. If I subscribe to netflix for a month and record every show I want to watch to my personal NAS... I'm not breaking the law at all. I'll then happily stop paying the subscription after a month. Moral? Probably not. Legal? Sure. But... what if I really do want a moral way to consume netflix content at a later date for a non-recurring, non-changed-at-their-whim cost? Well - sucks to be me because there's literally no way to buy it. I think that's also fairly immoral. I'm literally being held captive to a subscription for eternity, with no way to negotiate the deal, and the real loss of any catalogue item at any time with no recourse. Moral? Fuck no. Legal? Sure. So... Where is the middle ground? Because I'd really, desperately like to see a better middle ground. Where I don't have to feel like a thief, and also don't feel like I'm getting extorted to watch some shows. This mostly also holds for many saas companies. It's especially obvious in cases where the product used to be a stand-alone binary that I could install, but is now a packaged saas product, that's arguably worse (adobe photoshop comes to mind - but lots of companies are moving this direction). I used to be willing to enter a deal where I got a static item in exchange for a fixed cost - but the new deal is... I get ephemeral products that change price/features/capabilities at any moment and with zero recourse. And companies aren't doing this because it benefits the users - they're doing it because it's LITERAL rent seeking behavior. They know that profits are higher with this strategy. So again - is stealing it moral? I would say no. But I don't think that in any way invalidates that the subscription model is hands down abusive to customers. Personally I've moved to self-hosted and open source everywhere I can.

bestnameever 4y ago
> But... what if I really do want a moral way to consume netflix content at a later date for a non-recurring, non-changed-at-their-whim cost? Well - sucks to be me because there's literally no way to buy it. I think that's also fairly immoral. I'm literally being held captive to a subscription for eternity, with no way to negotiate the deal, and the real loss of any catalogue item at any time with no recourse. Moral? Fuck no. Legal? Sure. > So... Where is the middle ground? Because I'd really, desperately like to see a better middle ground. Where I don't have to feel like a thief, and also don't feel like I'm getting extorted to watch some shows. Most content can be purchased outside of Netflix at some point, on DVD or another medium.
- thot_experiment 4y ago
  Sure but buying a DVD isn't great either as it has a real destroying the earth cost for something that can be delivered to me using a negligible amount of energy digitally. I don't think there's a way of getting movies/tv shows reasonably in 2022, though I don't mind paying for, and do pay for subscription services such as Netflix, I just pirate the content anyway because it's a much better user experience. At least it's still mostly possible to buy a set of *.flac files when you want some music.
  - bestnameever 4y ago
    > Sure but buying a DVD isn't great either as it has a real destroying the earth cost for something that can be delivered to me using a negligible amount of energy digitally. I Then buy the streaming version. If it is available by DVD, then you can probably find it available to purchase digitally.
    - thot_experiment 4y ago
      Really? Just as a litmus test, the last movie I pirated was a 10bit 4k rip of "The Matrix" which comes in at about 40gigs. This is about the level of quality I'm looking for in a file I buy, sorry if I was misleading w/ my mention of DVD. Practically speaking this is similar to having a *.flac of a song, as it enables me to transcode to lower quality versions for use on different devices from a high quality master. Is this something I can pay for?
      - bestnameever 4y ago
        Yes, you can purchase or rent the physical copy.
    - Too 4y ago
      Please enlighten me where I can buy a streaming movie that can be watch without login, transferred to another service or transferred to another of my devices.

bestnameever 4y ago

> But... what if I really do want a moral way to consume netflix content at a later date for a non-recurring, non-changed-at-their-whim cost? Well - sucks to be me because there's literally no way to buy it. I think that's also fairly immoral. I'm literally being held captive to a subscription for eternity, with no way to negotiate the deal, and the real loss of any catalogue item at any time with no recourse. Moral? Fuck no. Legal? Sure. > So... Where is the middle ground? Because I'd really, desperately like to see a better middle ground. Where I don't have to feel like a thief, and also don't feel like I'm getting extorted to watch some shows. Most content can be purchased outside of Netflix at some point, on DVD or another medium.

thot_experiment 4y ago
Sure but buying a DVD isn't great either as it has a real destroying the earth cost for something that can be delivered to me using a negligible amount of energy digitally. I don't think there's a way of getting movies/tv shows reasonably in 2022, though I don't mind paying for, and do pay for subscription services such as Netflix, I just pirate the content anyway because it's a much better user experience. At least it's still mostly possible to buy a set of *.flac files when you want some music.
- bestnameever 4y ago
  > Sure but buying a DVD isn't great either as it has a real destroying the earth cost for something that can be delivered to me using a negligible amount of energy digitally. I Then buy the streaming version. If it is available by DVD, then you can probably find it available to purchase digitally.
  - thot_experiment 4y ago
    Really? Just as a litmus test, the last movie I pirated was a 10bit 4k rip of "The Matrix" which comes in at about 40gigs. This is about the level of quality I'm looking for in a file I buy, sorry if I was misleading w/ my mention of DVD. Practically speaking this is similar to having a *.flac of a song, as it enables me to transcode to lower quality versions for use on different devices from a high quality master. Is this something I can pay for?
    - bestnameever 4y ago
      Yes, you can purchase or rent the physical copy.
  - Too 4y ago
    Please enlighten me where I can buy a streaming movie that can be watch without login, transferred to another service or transferred to another of my devices.