Netflix is already iffy in terms of content/quality, without some blockbusters, then it's really kind of b-films and bad tv, the occasional great show.
Disney et. al. may not produce enough content to warrant $15 themselves.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
They should take note however, that we are 'done' with commercials.
And based on your operating system and browser. Even FullHD is hard (might still be impossible even) to get if you run a free software stack. Netflix wants you to run the heaviest DRM stack possible (even though their content is available in 4K from your local friendly neighbourhood torrent site).
Finding the right Usenet server and the correct alternative block accounts, and then just the right search provider. Ugh. But it’s magical once everything is setup.
Various usenet providers provide you with picture-by-picture guides on how to setup Sonarr and Radarr.
There are single-click Usenet and Torrent clients with VPN integration. Just upload the ovpn file as provided by your VPN provider and you're done.
This is all either single click or explained thuroughly and easy to understand on-site or in the products FAQ/Installation Guide.
Once you have it all, you can share Plex with others, which is even more easy than all of the above. Your friends and family have access to all the movies for very low cost (up to free).
Unless you have a block account on a separate network, most files you download will have missing articles.
Most articles are out of date and slightly wrong. Having to piece together bits from various places.
Single click installers are good when they work for your platform. For most people I agree that’ll be fine. On some NAS boxes, totally not.
Do you use sabnz? Radarr? Sonarr? Couch Potato? What’s an API key? Auth?
For technical people it might not seem complicated. It is miles away from being approachable for a large majority of people.
I'm new to all of that Sonarr/Radarr/Ombi stuff, but I torrented for along long time. It took me some time to set it up, granted I had to make it work with my torrent client and trackers that where already in place.
But before people can start with that they have to inform them self about usenet vs torrent, VPN yes / no and what provider, Plex/Emby or Jellyfin etc. It's a huge time commitment.
Then get it to work on your TV and phone.
Even if there is a guide to just tells you what is best, I doubt it can be done in the time most people want to invest.
Piracy was more complicated in the past and lots of people, even people with 0 technical knowledge did it. The only reason people stopped is because Netflix and friends made the legal alternative easier.
If piracy once again becomes easier than legal streaming, people will simply switch to piracy. It's as easy as that.
Now you also have to explain your non-technical guest how to use a VPN, pay for it and make sure it’s always running before starting popcorntime.
These are all things that are fun to "us" technical people and I don't mind doing them for myself but if you have to choose between relying on someone else to keep your setup running or just paying someone and have a hands off solution most people will do that. Don't forget that this is very biased community here, it makes comments like this sound a bit like the dropbox vs a pile of shell scripts post.
My wife uses plex without any problem and she can't stand technology. But besides an issue which comes up every couple of years it's as simple as click and play.
And you're 100% right most people would rather pay someone to take that off their hands. But if things get to the point where you need 15 $10/month subscriptions and can only buy certain shows from one of the 15 mobile apps which have varying levels of compatibility with casters, more people will start looking at other options.
If you set it up for someone it'll work very well but if you have to do it yourself, or ask someone else to do it for you and they don't already have their own setup and offer it to you it's not really an option for most people who don't like to tinker with these things in their free time.
I think we can agree on that it's great for people who'd like to tinker and maybe offer it to their family members, maybe even with something like http://plexrequests.8bits.ca but for "normal" people it's not really an option.
While legit streaming servers are a bit easier to use, illegitimate streaming websites are only just barely behind that and also contain pretty much every tv show or movie you could ever want to watch. The only real downside I see is the usual lack of closed captioning support. If my choice is to pay money for 4 different streaming services and having to hunt around through each one to find what I want to watch, versus clicking one extra link and closing a pop-up ad for an unlimited catalog, the choice doesn't seem that hard.
Or you don't want to have to weed through half a dozen ad-filled sites that claim to have the film, but don't, and end up with a 200 MB rip for your trouble.
Netflix is easier and quicker. Next comes kodi with an addon. Trying to watch a full series on demand from your cable company. The experience is so much slower to navigate between shows.. this is before we talk about ads.
Storage costs continue to decrease, while 1080p is good enough for most people.
A 4 TB drive is less than $100. 16TB drives are available.
Combined with h.265, that can hold a decent amount of movies and tv shows.
These costs continue to decrease, while capacity continues to increase.
On the other hand, we see little investment in US broadband deployments or upgrades, and these capacities continue to increase in price, without any benefit.
Additionally, the majority of the US that does have broadband, has nothing close to symmetric upload ability.
Maybe I agree with you!
I think affordable internet could be the straw that breaks the camels back.
If you are being charged for every byte transferred, it makes no sense to transfer the same data over and over again, because you enjoy watching it.
Store it once locally, and consume at will.
The whole idea of streaming is kinda dumb when you think about it, it is basically a poorly implemented remote file storage. It is really a product manifestation of IP laws, not technological possibilities.
Probably wasteful from an energy perspective, too.
Systems already exist to easily mirror between computers and tvs. I once installed an app called "popcorn time". This had a small button in the corner that I clicked on to find out what it did. All of a sudden, the movie was playing on my television through my blu-ray player. If I can do this on accident, a healthy portion of the less tech-inclined can do it on purpose.
That was once upon a time, when television was the only source of in-home entertainment. If you wanted more you needed to go to your local Blockbuster. Plus in 95% of America you have no choice between different cable providers. Now you have quite a lot of variety - I know literally no one my age who pays for cable. One or two subscriptions seems to be typical and will run you $20-$25 a month. Others share logins to these services with their friends. I don't see people paying $60 a month for entertainment any time soon, but I'm prepared to be proven wrong.
People also need to have internet and a lot of people have the two bundled. If people switch to all streaming services, the cable cartel will raise internet prices and finagle with their caps to gouge even more.
If they already have the streaming apps on their TV, installing the Kodi-app as well isn’t really very hard.
Especially with geo-ip restrictions still abundant, many places in the world plain old piracy is by far the easiest option.
Also: Why would you assume anyone use their PCs to hook up to the TV these days anyway? It’s not the 1990s anymore.
Very few, but they can get a portable drive via sneaker net, plug it into their TV (basically any TV made in the last decade) and have enough content to keep them going for months. Some of the slightly more advanced ones might be able to use a PC to copy shows from one drive to another for friends. Torrent streamers are a minority of pirates.
They’re going hard on the content gating and distribution channel diffusion. Literally to the point where Plex+Radarr/Sonarr has become the go to for content I’m already paying for through my cable/Netflix/Prime/HBO subscription.
Plex works on all my devices no matter where I am. Netflix doesn’t even do that anymore. Not to mention their latest B.S. of making un-skippable commercials so prevalent on these pay services.
I’d be fine paying for every channel I watch individually if they’d stop creating their own little fiefdoms of varying viewing experiences each of which is designed to turn the profit screws a little further. Plex puts it all in one place on all my devices and doesn’t fuck me with a commercial every time I rewind 30 seconds to see something I just missed.
> They’re going hard on the content gating and distribution channel diffusion. Literally to the point where Plex+Radarr/Sonarr has become the go to for content I’m already paying for through my cable/Netflix/Prime/HBO subscription.
I'm a longtime Plex+couch potato/sonarr user and wonder what you get from radarr?
Also not to mention having to click ten different apps and manage which app has which show - it can quickly get annoying