Therein lies the issue I have with modern streaming. When Netflix was the only game in town, things were mostly fine. Then I saw content I was actively watching disappear from the service, and research showed that this was due to licensing issues.

I saw the writing on the wall. Copyright holders were gearing up to make their own Netflix competitor streaming service. Which is exactly what they did.

When it all started, I dusted off my tri-point hat and got to work building "my own Netflix" and honestly, it's been amazing. A royal pain in my arse sometimes, but mostly amazing.

I have had the (dis)pleasure of dealing with some of the more recent streaming services, shortly before everyone started cracking down on "asking sharing" bullshit. I live in the same house as one subscriber, but I run my own network, and have my own Internet IP address, so I'm not in their "home" and can no longer use the service because of account sharing restrictions and related bullshit. Anyways.....

One thing that always grabbed me is that my own service puts all my recently watched shows that have new episodes front and center as soon as I open it up.... New streaming services either have that info halfway down the page, with the top of the page dominated by ads for new shows to watch, or whatever popular.... Meanwhile, I mainly just care about the show I've been watching and I want to watch what's new.... What a pain in the ass.

On top of that, I would have to memorize what service has what shows/movies, and if it's anything pre-streaming that's not part of a large franchise, like Star wars or Star Trek, or whatever, I usually have to look it up, or bounce between different services frantically searching for what I want.

No thanks.

The MPAA needs to take notes from the RIAA.... I subscribe to one music service and I never have any trouble finding what I want to listen to. ... Key takeaway: I subscribe to a music service.

I do not subscribe to any video streaming services.

Pretty much every film with the smallest amount of popularity can be easily, freely torrented in high definition. Netflix has good OG anime, not worth the price of subscription but still, whilst other platforms don't even offer that. Why give them money? Learn to use the interwebs!

Reminder that your local library likely has many great DVDs. Not just the classics either. I was surprised to see my library had Dune part 1&2 and many others.

Arrr, me hearty! Batten down the hatches and prepare to set sail, ye scallywags!

No, you can't. It's $14.99 and in a few years you're going to lose access to it. Fuck you. Give us money.

...fuck you.

There was a time when almost everything was on Netflix. As a consumer, having all my content in one place for $10/mo is awesome, but according to capitalism, it is a problem that needed to be fixed.

Or pirate for 0€.

Everyone wants to run a subscription service, until they have everyone on a subscription. Then instead of celebrating that they won capitalism, they go and start with the exclusive extra addons and upgrades. Because unfortunately no company in the history of companies has ever said that's it, we're making enough money, let's relax.

On your 13 PAID streaming services.

I think we should be able to co-op a digital library... Say, the Internet archive seems to be just that!

Why is it under constant attack? Oh yeah, greed.

Why aren't we able to digitally host a communal library where each owner can "buy in" access by contributing a library?

Like a digital replication of each piece of physical media owned by a person?

You can get it for free in your local public library.

Premiumize, Torrentio, Stremio.

The Holy Trinity.

Or even better, "even though you pay for the ad free subscription, this video is only available with ads".

The Last Of Us season 2 being on a different, new subscription service is very much the last straw.

If its not on Roku, Pluto, Tubi, YouTube, then I'll probably find something else interesting enough to watch.

I go to theaters sometimes, funny enough.

Streaming becoming cable 2.0 is one of the biggest disappointments in the entertainment industry.

Yo ho! Yo ho!

DVDs are dirt cheap, plentiful as fuck, don't have DRM bullshit to have to deal with, last for decades when stored properly, and still look pretty damn good with deinterlacing. Plus, they don't run any of the risks associated with piracy. Am I allowed to copy my DVDs onto my hard drive? That may be a legal gray area. But can they see that I copied my DVDs to my hard drive? Of course not. And I'm not making my ISOs and MKVs available to the world for download.

Spend 4 bucks on a used DVD. Give her the ol'

dd if=sr0 of=~/Videos/Movies/Title.iso

And keep the disc for basically forever. Copy it again if something happens to your file. EZPZ. Plus, it's cool to own a physical thing imo.

One last thing: DVDs come with subtitles. I have a hard time understanding spoken words. I like to read my movies as I watch them. Makes it easier to know what's going on without cranking the volume to 11. Speaking of which, the menu for the Spinal Tap DVD is excellent.

🏴‍☠️