5 ms·

From a former obsessive media hoarder of over a decade, to my fellow media hoarders, my sincere advice: give up. Just stop. Delete it all and embrace streaming

by brap 2y ago

From a former obsessive media hoarder of over a decade, to my fellow media hoarders, my sincere advice: give up. Just stop. Delete it all and embrace streaming or ad hoc torrent if you need it. All of this hoarding is just not worth your time.

BLKNSLVR 2y ago
It's not worth it obsessively, but casually or with-specific-purpose I believe it is worth the time and effort. It uses 'muscles' that I occasionally need, and would rather not let atrophy - primarily related to the enshittification of all things. In specific scenarios local copies are far more valuable than 'cloud' availability. Having said that, maybe we're quibbling over the definition of 'hoarding', which maybe (hah! definitely!) implies obsessive, and therefore implicitly unhealthy - in which case I agree.
genewitch 2y ago
a decade? no offense, especially if you're a millennial - ten years isn't that long. I have hundreds of compact disks approaching three times that old. "ad hoc torrent" sounds great, but you're at the whims of seeds, and cease and desist letters. This also doesn't take into account monthly bandwidth "caps". There's somethings i have for background noise and visuals that i got on YT - what, i should stream it every time? even at 480p this will eat into monthly caps. What about things where i know i have one of the only full (as in needs no fills) copies of some media from the 1990s? Less than 5% of the stuff i keep is contemporaneous with the download date. If one is just downloading "current" things and then figuring out how to store more of it; then i 100% agree. That's a waste of space and time. Chances are you're paying for the right to stream it, and if you don't care about caps, burn the shareholder money for all i care by streaming it whenever you want to see it. Ideally at 4k. I'll keep downloading and storing stuff i find important - someday when/if youtube deletes some channels i have backed up, or a production company pulls all their content off of streaming platforms, or a different archive with convoluted steps to access content ceases to exist - i'll still have it, with subtitle files, searchable, locally. It happens a lot more often than you think.
- dbtc 2y ago
  You sound less like a "media hoarder" and more like an Archivist.
  - genewitch 2y ago
    that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.
- BLKNSLVR 2y ago
  I'm not an avid youtube watcher, but there was a specific user-made video to a rare version of a song that I used to keep coming back to. It's not on Youtube any more. That version of the song isn't even on youtube any more. I'm fairly lazy / procrastinatey when it comes to things like that, but thank f*ck I yt-dlp'd it (and really not too long before it was taken down - and I don't know why and can't track down why or who made the clip). Maybe I need to do a search to see if other people are looking for it... And if anyone cares to know: The Mountains of Madness CD1 (I think) version Idalah Abal by John Zorn / Electric Masada, and the film clip was a bunch of still of various, mostly fringe, some quite gross/confronting art pieces. For me, it fits beautifully with the phrenetic music. I think there's a big, thick, mental health-related line that separates an archivist from a hoarder. Edit: OK, there are more versions the song on yt, eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swpvDV6Qvik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swpvDV6Qvik, but that custom film-clip ain't. Edit 2: Wrong on both counts, my search-fu ain't what it used to be. It's still there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9jk6lolne8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9jk6lolne8 There was a good couple of years it didn't float to the surface of any unchanged search query. Cool story bro, pity it makes your argument eat itself... sigh.
  - genewitch 2y ago
    one of the reasons i try and remember to download playlists or all videos from a channel in at least 480p dates back when a zen landscaper/lawn maint/mower guy's videos got wiped because people doxxed his clients. He was, to us, the audio-visual equivalent of an anti-anxiety medication. He had a "dingo" style mower, where you stand on an articulating platform; behind something that looks like the things they use to wax/clean floors in markets with tile floors. I hadn't seen many (if any) videos, prior to his, where someone would go "clean up" around either abandoned or neglected properties (like a rental off season or something) - weed-eating the sidewalks and shoveling. It's more common now, i see several different creators doing similar videos now; and things like powerwashing driveways, the carpet ones (those are pretty zen if you like gross, unidentifiable liquids), and a few others. The closest thing i've found to his stuff is Andrew Camarata (@ on YT), but their videos are much louder in general. anyhow, all this to say - it spurred me into action. I started using "home server" stuff shortly after.
antisthenes 2y ago
Nah. You do you though. It doesn't take much to "hoard". Especially these days it's easier and cheaper than ever. Slap 2x20TB drives in your PC and you're essentially a data hoarder already. I do notice that younger generations absolutely love giving up though.
pjc50 2y ago
Obsession is a problem in any activity.
8fingerlouie 2y ago
I would add, stop setting up these huge RAID 6/10 boxes to store all your hoarded media. Media doesn't need additional redundancy, especially not if it's based on good old "naval aquisition". If it came from the internet, chances are high that it can still be found there, and there's absolutely no reason for you to add any redundancy to avoid data loss. If it's by some weird coincidence not found on the internet, fear not, most media is mass replicated onto various forms of physical media, and chances are high that a copy of that can be had for very little money. But before rushing out to empty the local "on sale" DVD/Blu-Ray bins, take a good long breath and consider if you'll ever actually watch said media again, or it's just sentimental value ? Most of the people i know that hoard media will rarely rewatch anything, and simply pile on top of what they already have. Once you realize that you're just collecting digital cruft, it becomes a lot easier to just delete it all. Also keep in mind that the electricity cost of running a harddrive in europe is around €2/month, and with enough harddrives it actually becomes cheaper to just subscribe to one or more streaming services.
- mikrotikker 2y ago
  Problem is to watch all the things you want to watch you may need 5 or 6 subs, so you could add a few more hard drives I'd say.
  - 8fingerlouie 2y ago
    just switch between 2-3 subs, rotate them every 1-3 months.
    - mikrotikker 2y ago
      What a pain when popcorn time makes it so much easier and puts everything in one place.

by brap 2y ago

BLKNSLVR 2y ago

It's not worth it obsessively, but casually or with-specific-purpose I believe it is worth the time and effort. It uses 'muscles' that I occasionally need, and would rather not let atrophy - primarily related to the enshittification of all things. In specific scenarios local copies are far more valuable than 'cloud' availability. Having said that, maybe we're quibbling over the definition of 'hoarding', which maybe (hah! definitely!) implies obsessive, and therefore implicitly unhealthy - in which case I agree.

genewitch 2y ago

a decade? no offense, especially if you're a millennial - ten years isn't that long. I have hundreds of compact disks approaching three times that old. "ad hoc torrent" sounds great, but you're at the whims of seeds, and cease and desist letters. This also doesn't take into account monthly bandwidth "caps". There's somethings i have for background noise and visuals that i got on YT - what, i should stream it every time? even at 480p this will eat into monthly caps. What about things where i know i have one of the only full (as in needs no fills) copies of some media from the 1990s? Less than 5% of the stuff i keep is contemporaneous with the download date. If one is just downloading "current" things and then figuring out how to store more of it; then i 100% agree. That's a waste of space and time. Chances are you're paying for the right to stream it, and if you don't care about caps, burn the shareholder money for all i care by streaming it whenever you want to see it. Ideally at 4k. I'll keep downloading and storing stuff i find important - someday when/if youtube deletes some channels i have backed up, or a production company pulls all their content off of streaming platforms, or a different archive with convoluted steps to access content ceases to exist - i'll still have it, with subtitle files, searchable, locally. It happens a lot more often than you think.

dbtc 2y ago
You sound less like a "media hoarder" and more like an Archivist.
- genewitch 2y ago
  that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.
BLKNSLVR 2y ago
I'm not an avid youtube watcher, but there was a specific user-made video to a rare version of a song that I used to keep coming back to. It's not on Youtube any more. That version of the song isn't even on youtube any more. I'm fairly lazy / procrastinatey when it comes to things like that, but thank f*ck I yt-dlp'd it (and really not too long before it was taken down - and I don't know why and can't track down why or who made the clip). Maybe I need to do a search to see if other people are looking for it... And if anyone cares to know: The Mountains of Madness CD1 (I think) version Idalah Abal by John Zorn / Electric Masada, and the film clip was a bunch of still of various, mostly fringe, some quite gross/confronting art pieces. For me, it fits beautifully with the phrenetic music. I think there's a big, thick, mental health-related line that separates an archivist from a hoarder. Edit: OK, there are more versions the song on yt, eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swpvDV6Qvik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swpvDV6Qvik, but that custom film-clip ain't. Edit 2: Wrong on both counts, my search-fu ain't what it used to be. It's still there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9jk6lolne8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9jk6lolne8 There was a good couple of years it didn't float to the surface of any unchanged search query. Cool story bro, pity it makes your argument eat itself... sigh.
- genewitch 2y ago
  one of the reasons i try and remember to download playlists or all videos from a channel in at least 480p dates back when a zen landscaper/lawn maint/mower guy's videos got wiped because people doxxed his clients. He was, to us, the audio-visual equivalent of an anti-anxiety medication. He had a "dingo" style mower, where you stand on an articulating platform; behind something that looks like the things they use to wax/clean floors in markets with tile floors. I hadn't seen many (if any) videos, prior to his, where someone would go "clean up" around either abandoned or neglected properties (like a rental off season or something) - weed-eating the sidewalks and shoveling. It's more common now, i see several different creators doing similar videos now; and things like powerwashing driveways, the carpet ones (those are pretty zen if you like gross, unidentifiable liquids), and a few others. The closest thing i've found to his stuff is Andrew Camarata (@ on YT), but their videos are much louder in general. anyhow, all this to say - it spurred me into action. I started using "home server" stuff shortly after.

antisthenes 2y ago

Nah. You do you though. It doesn't take much to "hoard". Especially these days it's easier and cheaper than ever. Slap 2x20TB drives in your PC and you're essentially a data hoarder already. I do notice that younger generations absolutely love giving up though.

pjc50 2y ago

Obsession is a problem in any activity.

8fingerlouie 2y ago

I would add, stop setting up these huge RAID 6/10 boxes to store all your hoarded media. Media doesn't need additional redundancy, especially not if it's based on good old "naval aquisition". If it came from the internet, chances are high that it can still be found there, and there's absolutely no reason for you to add any redundancy to avoid data loss. If it's by some weird coincidence not found on the internet, fear not, most media is mass replicated onto various forms of physical media, and chances are high that a copy of that can be had for very little money. But before rushing out to empty the local "on sale" DVD/Blu-Ray bins, take a good long breath and consider if you'll ever actually watch said media again, or it's just sentimental value ? Most of the people i know that hoard media will rarely rewatch anything, and simply pile on top of what they already have. Once you realize that you're just collecting digital cruft, it becomes a lot easier to just delete it all. Also keep in mind that the electricity cost of running a harddrive in europe is around €2/month, and with enough harddrives it actually becomes cheaper to just subscribe to one or more streaming services.

mikrotikker 2y ago
Problem is to watch all the things you want to watch you may need 5 or 6 subs, so you could add a few more hard drives I'd say.
- 8fingerlouie 2y ago
  just switch between 2-3 subs, rotate them every 1-3 months.
  - mikrotikker 2y ago
    What a pain when popcorn time makes it so much easier and puts everything in one place.