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Comment by srswtf123 | Hacker News Reader

Have you tried consuming less media overall?

I'm at the point where not only are the various set-top boxes and smart devices trash, but the content is as well.

I don't want to watch recycled stories from my childhood, but darker and grittier. I imagine good content exists, but honestly I just can't be bothered to hunt it down anymore, and then wade through the literal sea of ads required to watch it.

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Can only talk for me, but I watch maybe an hour of TV at most a day maximum - generally two episodes of a light comedy before bed each day. On top of that I'll watch one movie or documentary a week - I don't think that is excessive. But when I do want to watch this, I just want it to work. I use chromecast and since changing broadband provider and getting a new router it has misbehaved loads. Watching some last thing TV has become a chore - getting it to play first time, and then pausing or skipping is now a pain. Ordered a new router which should fix things - but a working tool to consume (however much or little you do) makes life simpler. I don't want to battle technology for my limited video entertainment.

Finding great stuff is hard - but the less you watch the longer the good stuff lasts! The Office USA has been great for wind down entertainment.

Underrated comment. Sorry, this is a little provocative, but an effective end game here is to wean yourself off of Media Consumption As A Hobby, and find other things to do that don't involve getting your eyeballs milked by media companies. Simply finding another milking machine that doesn't (yet) bombard you with ads is a halfway solution.

Books continue to exist, for example.

Books can be ads or filled with ads.

The Criterion Channel is very good.

This is definitely my experience as well. I'm constantly just watching the good stuff from the past, because the newer stuff is absolutely awful.

I can’t tell if this is just an artifact of getting old or new stuff is worse than old stuff. After all, my parents still like stuff from their youth that I don’t like.

Other languages can help. It s easier if the next language is english, but I always come back to French when Im fed up of the trash. It s so different, has its own little world and self reference, and it gets me going for a while.

I imagine every language has the same unique stories and content that will never be translated well enough.

For Darker and Grittier content...try HBO Max. They have some of the darkest shows such as The Night Of, Watchmen etc.

Unplugging completely is the way to go! Sometimes the only way to win the game is to just not play at all.

Vimeo has a bunch of great content.

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