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> This doesn’t mean I don’t watch movies or have fun—it’s just that watching movies requires jumping through a few hoops for me [...] A little bee told me that

> This doesn’t mean I don’t watch movies or have fun—it’s just that watching movies requires jumping through a few hoops for me [...] A little bee told me that VLC + most torrent trackers are still a better UX than most Netflix/Apple TV/Prime video. None of them will crash after 30s of playback because your postcode changed for a week, because you have an ad blocker installed, or because you just plugged in an external display and some DRM magic kicked in. Just find the file, download it and double click.

Aurornis 2y ago
> A little bee told me that VLC + most torrent trackers are still a better UX than most Netflix/Apple TV/Prime video. I can never understand these claims as anything other than mental gymnastics. There is no way you can convince me that it’s better UX to navigate torrent sites, take all the time to download the file, hope it’s a good copy, and launch it in VLC. Most of us have something like an Apple TV or other streaming box plugged into a TV. I can power it on and get to the show I want in seconds. It picks up where I left off. I don’t have to worry about quality or subtitles or torrents. > Just find the file, download it and double click. The idea of just finding torrents, waiting for them to download, then fiddling with everything to get it in my TV is in no way a superior UX to the streaming services. I think these claims are just attempts to justify piracy as being superior UX, but it doesn’t make sense.
- snailmailstare 2y ago
  I wouldn't call VLC friendly UI, but it is the same UI I used when Netflix the DVD service began and the same UI I taught family members. When someone shows me Netflix, every year or two, I have no idea what I am looking at.
- MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
  It helps if the search is integrated into the torrent client (qbittorrent) and if the computer is plugged into the tv (long hdmi cable). The UX benefit is that I figure out what I want to watch by browsing the web, then pick a download (lots of seeds, decent size), and before long I can start watching. Usually I queue up a few options in case my mood changes. It doesn't matter which service owns the rights, or which devices I'm using, or anything. I can watch the downloaded content whenever I want, forever. No trailers or unskippable notices. I'd pay money for this flexibility if I could.
- bravura 2y ago
  Depends. That's true WHEN streaming services just work. But when they don't work, you're SOL with them and they just won't take your damn money. e.g. you live in EU but the account home is the US, or you live in Portugal and the streaming provider thinks you're in Spain, etc
- nullc 2y ago
  One difference is that a little upfront work to download the movie is approximately 500 infinities better than the thing glitching out or stopping during playback either due to the streaming platform or your "99.99%" ISP deciding to have its monthly 5 minutes of downtime during the movie. And then you have stuff like the streaming platform refusing to play because you don't have the absolute latest browser or drivers. Content is also spread across a dozen streaming platforms, and a lot of back catalog is hardly available too.. so what you say works within the confines of the subscriptions you have. I've certainly witnessed people going down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out which platform still has the content they want, getting sent on a goose chase from outdated information, only to just give up and torrent it. Video quality on the torrents is mixed but it's also mixed on the streaming platforms-- both between the platforms and due to bandwidth management on the platforms. With torrents you have file size ~= quality so you have a pretty good idea what you're going to get. Streaming platforms, or at least the ones I'm familiar with (other than youtube) don't seem to give you any direct control of your bandwidth usage. So if you want lower quality to conserve resources you may not be able to get it. I think the instant catalog in streaming might also cause some people to suffer from choice peristalsis. I've seen people just scroll long enough on netflix that after a bit they don't have time to watch a movie anymore. I dunno how much I'd argue that it's superior, but it's certainly different and I think it's easy to understand how someone might prefer one or the other. One test of your conjecture might be: Do people with all-you-can-eat access to a streaming platform ever torrent content that they could just watch on that platform? -- They do.
  - jkubicek 2y ago
    We only use the Apple TV device, and we don't see most of these issues. Quality is good, playback starts immediately and rarely glitches, search spans (almost, Netflix doesn't participate) every service we have access to. It's possible my tastes are too vanilla or I'm blowing way too much $$$ on streaming services, but I rarely have any trouble finding exactly what I want to watch.
- atrus 2y ago
  It's not like that though, especially when you have the *arr software + jellyfin all setup. It's literally a matter of type name -> watch at that point. It definitely used to be like that, and it was enough of a hassle that I would get blurays and just watch them. Of course until I wasn't permitted to watch a legitimate bluray on a legitimate bluray player...
- thunfischbrot 2y ago
  That has not been the experience of the students I know: They get older Amazon Firesticks for free or almost free, use a frontend which might be popcorntime (not sure it its that one, or just looks the same), and have essentially a Netflix-like experience. Some use Usenet accounts, another uses a proxy for torrents, but there's also those who torrent directly. It really was surprising to me–I expected that after the wave of cease & desists along with fines all over the news about 10 years ago few would dare.
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  You are severely behind the times when it comes to modern day piracy :) There are apps like Stremio with the Torrentio plugin (and optionally a direct download server like RealDebrid), that, yes, also work on the TV, which essentially replicate any of today's streaming apps with a nice UI, only you don't have to shuffle between ten different streaming services to find the one want. It's actually superior UX to any of them because it's all-in-one.

Aurornis 2y ago

> A little bee told me that VLC + most torrent trackers are still a better UX than most Netflix/Apple TV/Prime video. I can never understand these claims as anything other than mental gymnastics. There is no way you can convince me that it’s better UX to navigate torrent sites, take all the time to download the file, hope it’s a good copy, and launch it in VLC. Most of us have something like an Apple TV or other streaming box plugged into a TV. I can power it on and get to the show I want in seconds. It picks up where I left off. I don’t have to worry about quality or subtitles or torrents. > Just find the file, download it and double click. The idea of just finding torrents, waiting for them to download, then fiddling with everything to get it in my TV is in no way a superior UX to the streaming services. I think these claims are just attempts to justify piracy as being superior UX, but it doesn’t make sense.

snailmailstare 2y ago
I wouldn't call VLC friendly UI, but it is the same UI I used when Netflix the DVD service began and the same UI I taught family members. When someone shows me Netflix, every year or two, I have no idea what I am looking at.
MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
It helps if the search is integrated into the torrent client (qbittorrent) and if the computer is plugged into the tv (long hdmi cable). The UX benefit is that I figure out what I want to watch by browsing the web, then pick a download (lots of seeds, decent size), and before long I can start watching. Usually I queue up a few options in case my mood changes. It doesn't matter which service owns the rights, or which devices I'm using, or anything. I can watch the downloaded content whenever I want, forever. No trailers or unskippable notices. I'd pay money for this flexibility if I could.
bravura 2y ago
Depends. That's true WHEN streaming services just work. But when they don't work, you're SOL with them and they just won't take your damn money. e.g. you live in EU but the account home is the US, or you live in Portugal and the streaming provider thinks you're in Spain, etc
nullc 2y ago
One difference is that a little upfront work to download the movie is approximately 500 infinities better than the thing glitching out or stopping during playback either due to the streaming platform or your "99.99%" ISP deciding to have its monthly 5 minutes of downtime during the movie. And then you have stuff like the streaming platform refusing to play because you don't have the absolute latest browser or drivers. Content is also spread across a dozen streaming platforms, and a lot of back catalog is hardly available too.. so what you say works within the confines of the subscriptions you have. I've certainly witnessed people going down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out which platform still has the content they want, getting sent on a goose chase from outdated information, only to just give up and torrent it. Video quality on the torrents is mixed but it's also mixed on the streaming platforms-- both between the platforms and due to bandwidth management on the platforms. With torrents you have file size ~= quality so you have a pretty good idea what you're going to get. Streaming platforms, or at least the ones I'm familiar with (other than youtube) don't seem to give you any direct control of your bandwidth usage. So if you want lower quality to conserve resources you may not be able to get it. I think the instant catalog in streaming might also cause some people to suffer from choice peristalsis. I've seen people just scroll long enough on netflix that after a bit they don't have time to watch a movie anymore. I dunno how much I'd argue that it's superior, but it's certainly different and I think it's easy to understand how someone might prefer one or the other. One test of your conjecture might be: Do people with all-you-can-eat access to a streaming platform ever torrent content that they could just watch on that platform? -- They do.
- jkubicek 2y ago
  We only use the Apple TV device, and we don't see most of these issues. Quality is good, playback starts immediately and rarely glitches, search spans (almost, Netflix doesn't participate) every service we have access to. It's possible my tastes are too vanilla or I'm blowing way too much $$$ on streaming services, but I rarely have any trouble finding exactly what I want to watch.
atrus 2y ago
It's not like that though, especially when you have the *arr software + jellyfin all setup. It's literally a matter of type name -> watch at that point. It definitely used to be like that, and it was enough of a hassle that I would get blurays and just watch them. Of course until I wasn't permitted to watch a legitimate bluray on a legitimate bluray player...
thunfischbrot 2y ago
That has not been the experience of the students I know: They get older Amazon Firesticks for free or almost free, use a frontend which might be popcorntime (not sure it its that one, or just looks the same), and have essentially a Netflix-like experience. Some use Usenet accounts, another uses a proxy for torrents, but there's also those who torrent directly. It really was surprising to me–I expected that after the wave of cease & desists along with fines all over the news about 10 years ago few would dare.
satvikpendem 2y ago
You are severely behind the times when it comes to modern day piracy :) There are apps like Stremio with the Torrentio plugin (and optionally a direct download server like RealDebrid), that, yes, also work on the TV, which essentially replicate any of today's streaming apps with a nice UI, only you don't have to shuffle between ten different streaming services to find the one want. It's actually superior UX to any of them because it's all-in-one.