Hacker News Reader

Comment by philistine | Hacker News Reader

What you’re describing is data hoarding. I pirate a ton too, but you know what I do with a movie or TV show after I’ve watched it?

I delete it. Poof, gone. But it’s still in the most important dataset I have. My memory. To help with the metadata of my own memory, I write down a list of the films I’ve seen. I only keep the movies I really love and want to rewatch (Robocop). That TV show I just finished that was great but I won’t rewatch. Boom, gonzo.

Your piracy is an excuse for data hoarding, which is a problem.

View on HN

I am 100% against hoarding, but data hoarding makes a lot more sense to me.

I was looking for an album by a small punk band called Straighten Things Out called "Dawn Of A New Hope". Loved this album; listened to it all of the time on Apple Music (where I discovered it). Went on a walk one day and tried to load it...and it was gone.

I can't even find this album on eBay, and you can find everything there!

"Milo Goes To College" by The Descendants, a more well-known pop punk band, was removed as well. Randomly, without warning. The Descendants are often credited as the "fathers" of Pop Punk; basically any mainstream pop punk band you've heard of cites them as an influence. This album basically started this genre...and it's gone.

Fortunately there are enough vinyls of this record that make it easy to find when I one day build my epic vinyl collection.

Had I saved these to my iTunes Library or ripped them to a NAS of some kind, I'd still have it. (Fun fact: Milo Goes To College _was_ in my Google Play Music Locker, which Google sunsetted when they launched YouTube Music, so I lost that "copy". I'm also going to guess that it was in my iTunes Music Library as well, which still exists as cloud storage, but albums that you add to your iCloud Music Library from Apple Music are pointers to tracks in the streaming service which can go away at any time.)

*Yells at Google for a good 15 minutes*

...I'm a tad surprised that worked as well as it did:

1. https://vk.com/wall-112927118?w=wall-112927118_185 ("Download")

2. http://metalbootlegs08.blogspot.com/2016/10/descendents-milo... ("Official Website")

Oh, also - *hands you a vacuum cleaner that tends to eat things in case they disappear later* - maybe go wandering/exploring? These types of sites are incredibly fun yet even more transient.

You can still find some downloads on OLD blogspot aggregators but many of those links point to archives on Mediafire and Megaupload, both of which are no longer around.

piratebay might still point to trackers that have copies, but bittorrent isn't as popular as it was in the past

> Mediafire and Megaupload, both of which are no longer around.

Mediafire is still up https://www.mediafire.com/

> piratebay might still point to trackers that have copies, but bittorrent isn't as popular as it was in the past

Most music pirates have moved on to using Soulseek (a P2P network) it seems. Releases not found on bittorrent can most likely be found on SLSK.

http://www.slsknet.org

(Just to clarify, those were interesting links at the time I posted them.)

>> "Milo Goes To College" by The Descendants, a more well-known pop punk band, was removed as well. Randomly, without warning.

Politically incorrect music tends to get sent down the memory hole.

...because of a few songs that were not politically-incorrect when recorded in 1982 and were later altered by the band themselves when they grew up and realized what they did.

it's still an important album that i like to listen to.

Out of curiosity, can you point me to a specific song that involves 'not okay' parts?

> I can't even find this album on eBay, and you can find everything there!

i hope that discussing secondhand sales in the context of piracy might not be off-topic. if it is on topic, discogs.com is a decent source for most secondhand recordings. if you visit [1] you'll see there are two different sellers offering copies there, as well as price histories. i have not found many releases not listed on discogs.

[1]: https://www.discogs.com/release/6768123-Straighten-Things-Ou...

That small punk bands are a sensible target for data hoarding isn't surprising, but you know one I found out that's surprising?

Riverdance. Yeah, the Eurovision pause show from 1994 which became a huge hit and started a decade-long fad of various rhytmic dance ensembles touring the world and actually doing really well. Fantastic commercial success, of course. They did many CD releases, and there are a lot of differences between the recordings: the cast of performers, whether they have stepping noises mixed in, even the track listing. But you can only get the last of them on streaming services.

Yup, all of the niche genres that have (relatively) smaller listener counts don't make enough from the streams to make paying for older releases worth it. Sucks.

Music is meant to be played endlessly. Go and get those records and spin them as much as possible.

Just don't start hoarding terabytes of music you don't enjoy.

I'm sure you can find the former on music peer to peer services ;)

Good thing you have all those "data hoarders" to leech off of when you wanna download something tho...

Great that they are so obsessive. I think its fair if you seed enough and then get off and delete.

He's using usenet, I highly doubt he's seeding the data he holds

He's on usenet, not torrenting. No need to keep or seed anything. OP is hoarding and attributing negative consequences of his own decision to a concept itself.

And who do you think reuploads stuff after DMCA/NTD takedowns?

Im aware some people are busy hoarding data and providing it back to the ecosystem in these cases, but I fail to understand why or how the cost of this personal decision is in any way related to the cost of piracy, or why someone with this hobby would feel the need to complain about it, or publicly associate these costs with piracy itself. That’s illogical.

It’s like mirroring Wikipedia on S3 and then publicly stating or even complaining that using Wikipedia costs hundreds of dollars.

My copy of wikipedia is less than 100GB at the moment.

Okay? And how is that relevant to the core issue at hand... hoarding all of this data is your own personal decision and has nothing to do with piracy in itself. That's the issue. You are obviously free to do whatever you want, but hoarding data and then associating the cost of the hoarding with the source of the data is totally illogical.

Trying to one-up me on some stupid explanatory comparison makes me wonder if you are not simply deflecting responsibility off yourself and actually do hoard pathologically

I'm not complaining about the costs associated with this. I'm living well within my means. If I was concerned about the money I could probably spend more of my time to find the content on sketchy streaming sites like putlocker.

I'm not sure why so many of the replies in this article are trying to interpret my post as some kind of call for help.

My point was that piracy is a service problem.

Again.. You are obviously free to do whatever you want, but hoarding data and then associating the source of the data with the cost of your data hoarding is totally illogical.

Your personal expenses for hoarding data, or the practice of hoarding data, have nil correlation to piracy itself.

To add to this at this point,

> Streaming services still have significant service problems that need to be addressed.

This connection is irrational as well - the name "streaming services" already implies that content is being streamed for viewing and not downloaded for storage.

If you are under a different assumption, or concerning other issues with streaming services, yes, piracy might be a service problem, but on the other hand, there are options available to actually buy and download content that you can also store.

Really, these associations you are seeing are incredibly irrational and this might be a contributing factor to people assuming this would be a call for help. I do not assume it is, data hoarding is not necessarily a problem in itself, but that doesn't make your invalid associations any more valid.

>Your personal expenses for hoarding data have nil correlation to piracy itself.

Yes, that's true. My point was that I'm already spending a lot of money to pirate, and that I would be spending that money to support the creators if something like steam existed. Not once did I say or even imply I was unhappy with that situation, not once did I imply that you needed to spend that kind of money in order to pirate.

I simply said that I spend a lot of money on piracy, and that there's a significant service problem with streaming services. The implication one could draw from that is that if the service problems were improved I'd be giving the money to the creators, instead of spending it on hard drives.

Instead some people seem to think this is some kind of an attack on piracy as being too expensive. Which is a reasonable mistake to make under the circumstances, if I could edit the post to clarify I would. I'd just appreciate it if you weren't so... aggressively misunderstanding. The reality is that I do a lot of other data-archival stuff on that server as well, and have made no claims about piracy being expensive.

> This connection is irrational as well - the name "streaming services" already implies that content is being streamed for viewing and not downloaded for storage.

Since you seem to care about rationality, try giving this a read: https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/A_Human%27s_Guide_to_Words

> My point was that I'm already spending a lot of money to pirate

… okay then. Let’s leave it at that.

> This connection is irrational as well - the name "streaming services" already implies that content is being streamed for viewing and not downloaded for storage.

I remember all the way back to the late 90s, when we were already ridiculing the people who thought "streaming" was some radical new concept that was different/better than downloading. I remember a VC or some other exec hotshot coming to visit a startup I was involved in, insisting he was interested in investing in media streaming, not media downloading. Everyone on the eng team just held their chuckles until he left. There's really no technical difference between streaming and downloading, besides that streaming has an extra deletion step. It's all just transferring bits from one computer to another. "Streaming" is just downloading dressed up in a business suit.

I don't use BitTorrent anymore, but when I did my rule of thumb was to have at least a ratio of 1.0, or continue seeding it for a month, whichever happened first. After which I would feel fine deleting it.

My seeding ratio is in the positive! I keep the downloaded file and seed until I hit 2.00, then it's gone.

I have to convert and move the original file for my TV anyway, so sometimes the file will be gone from my library, but I'm still seeding the original for a while afterwards.

Just reached 5.0, more than 12 TB up. Feels great :D.

Exactly, my favorite thing about torrents (and usenet) is the community of making requests for obscure content

I don't pirate, I pay for content, but I like to own a digital copy of music content. So I buy MP3s rather than subscribe to a service. It's probably strange-- and maybe dumb-- but I feel like in the long run I never know what will happen to a service in terms of how it may change in price or quality. If I own a CD or an MP3, I know I have what I want.

It may not be rational. I know some people think I am crazy.

It makes sense but on practical terms it's expensive and uncovenient to buy MP3s.

That is true. But if say Spotify costs $9.99 / month and you buy tracks for $0.99 or album $8.99 (average ~12 tracks, maybe $0.60). After three years you have a pretty big collection, like 600 songs. And it would just get bigger.

I have sirius xm in my car, which is how I learn about new things. But you could hear new stuff via FM or YouTube.

The truth is I don't spent $9.99 a month on average so maybe it is not that expensive.

Where can you buy an album at $8.99? Spotify, if I were a customer, would cost me ~$4 / month. Music streaming at current prices isn't profitable. It makes sense for the average dude to subscribe to Spotify.

Lots of albums on bandcamp are in this price range[1]. Some are even "pay what you want."

[1] Example: https://rubberoh.bandcamp.com

If what spotify is doing isn't profitable then it isn't sustainable, so why sink your time into it? When they go belly up what happens to all the time you invested in it?

> Lots of albums on bandcamp are in this price range

Thanks, didn't know about it and it's an interesting marketplace. Catalog is limited but I found bands that I follow there.

> When they go belly up what happens to all the time you invested in it?

Spotify is just a platform to listening to music, the subscription fee is like paying rent, time is invested in what I listen to. And it will not go belly up, at least not all streaming services, it will just raise subscription fees.

I understood your argument it's better to buy the albums now than to expend all that money on streaming and then later having to buy all of that anyways. But that is a misconception because not everyone is a collector and some are just explorers and like to listen to a new artist/album for a weeek and then move on.

Long ago, computing was about freedom.

"I can organize a music collection the way I want...AND take it with me wherever I go?"

Somewhere along the line "convenience" displaced "freedom".

"Why manage my own collection when I have Spotify or Apple Music?"

I suspect the pendulum will swing back at some point.

Don't get me wrong, I gave up on streaming services a long time ago and started pirating again because streaming services started being incovenient. Buying things is the most incovenient choice because the industry in general give consumers only two choices: A- cheap streaming, B- expensive physical media.

> It makes sense but on practical terms it's expensive and uncovenient to buy MP3s.

I don't identify with this comment at all! How is it expensive and inconvenient?

I prefer to buyt the CD and rip it if possible, as then I have built-in backup. But if not, I'll buy the MP3 online, from amazon usually. Very easy.

I'm starting to do this, bought some albums from bands I hear a lot on bandcamp friday. I like the idea of supporting the musicians more directly, but I still use streaming platforms, as I can't buy every song I hear, and it is easier to discover new music

You're fine, I do the same.

Either that or we're on the same hallway. :)

I do the same thing.

> It may not be rational. I know some people think I am crazy.

It's entirely rational. The availability of music/video on streaming services is very ephemeral.

If you really like something, buy a copy and store it locally.

I don't think this is irrational at all.

Listening "offline" by installing a shitty app is a severe service problem. It punishes me as a customer and doesn't stop any piracy anyway.

Files are just so much more flexible than an app. From my favorite artists I usually still buy CD since there are almost no alternatives. Of course I would prefer a digital download. Some offer it and that is much appreciated.

Data hoarding is not a problem. Collecting and organizing something can bring great joy to people. Think of collectors.

Most of my collection is older stuff, not available on streaming services anymore. Forgotten, almost, in a lot of places since companies can't be bothered to license it anymore.

In an age where a lot of culturally relevant media is not stored on physical copies anymore, preserving what we love for our children is all the more important.

> data hoarding, which is a problem.

Data hoarding is not a problem. It's a hobby.

Everyone needs a hobby, most hobbies cost money.

Traveling? Cost money.

Woodworking? Cost money.

Photography? Cost money.

Biking? Cost money.

Gaming? Cost money (+ way more time).

Data hoarding is just a hobby like others. Plus data hoarding can have great value, if you choose to hoard good content.

Any hobby can turn into a problem. I'm quick to judge the data hoarders, because I absolutely do not consider myself one, but it can absolutely be a benign hobby. That being said, a 45$ a month electricity bill directly related to the hard drives, that's a lot of dough for making a number go up.

Hard drives can be turned to sleep when they are not being accessed. If you do that, the electricity cost will be very low.

There is a believe that this will damage the hard drives. I am not sure how valid it is.

This seems to suggests that data hoarders mainly derive their satisfaction from actually filling up a hard drive. For me, the satisfaction is from having instant access to organized libraries of music and video of generally far higher fidelity than you can stream with current technology. There are currently no streaming services that can stream UHD 4k movies at a quality that is close to even a normal 1080p blu ray never mind an actual UHD blu ray. I'm very into film and the difference in video and sound quality, which most people will not notice or care about, is pretty significant to me. An uncompressed BR rip is 30-100 GB so even a fairly curated library can quickly outgrow drive space that most people couldn't fathom a sane person using.

I have probably filled at least 60TB of drives in the past year alone since my ISP has been ignoring data caps, and that is besides the large amount that IS deleted, as I do not archive anything that's been lossily compressed after being ripped unless a higher quality version does not publicly exist.

I "hoard" TOSEC libraries for every conceivable console and consumer computer system from ~1970 up to the PS3, but don't archive PC games past the DOS era, because Steam exists as a better service than I can provide for myself, so I use that. There is no equivalent service for music or film or Amiga games.

Any ethical considerations aside for pirating: I agreed with you until the final sentence. There is no problem with choosing to keep a show after watching it, that’s their choice. Why would a data retention strategy that differs from yours be a “problem”?

Only because of the cost, which is only a problem for the person doing it if they find it to be so personally, which the OP seems to, so.

Or maybe I misinterpreted this post and they don't think it's a problem, which is fine then. But if the post is about how expensive it is to pirate... that expense has a lot to do with the data retention policy choice, not just the pirating. Is the point to be made.

This is one of the very first tines I have seen data hoarding described as a problem rather than just a hobby.

It does seem to have aspects that are a bit more troublesome than people talk about. Reddit seems very pro hoarding, this thread seems to see it like physical hoarding.

It doesn't seem to be as much of a problem as this thread would make you think though.

Eh, sending $1200 on a hobby doesn't seem all that problematic to me, especially if one is getting additional utility from it. It's not like the cat is going to go missing behind a pile of hard drives any time soon.

OP Doesn't need to go to rehab, but OP described a problem (expense is growing) and one solution would be to think about the collection in a different way. I think in this case, it is a 'problem' in a practical sense, not a moral one. That being said if OP just wants to vent and doesn't want a solution then there's that too.

An acquaintance of mine I lost contact with used to copy each DVD he rented from the video store, back in the early to mid 2000's.

Then he realized he had a box full of DVD-Rs, nicely ripped using DVDFab Decrypter and processed and RCE-stripped with the latest DVD Shrink, but had never gone back into that box to rewatch any of them, and had never been asked by anyone if he had any of those movies.

It was at that point where he decided if he really liked a movie, it was worth buying to have the original box and leaflet.

People used to keep racks of CD and DVDs years ago and it wasn't a syndrome at all... They're still great for when Internet goes down.

With bandwidth becoming a metered utility and cost of streaming becoming a ridiculously overpriced fiasco, it's more important than ever to be able to be able to buy and own content. Even cloud storage is now yet another costly monthly service set to rise over time, and that's why device makers are reducing the storage capabilities on phones and computers while prices still rise. We need to fight this trend by spending more carefully on devices and services, they often add no new value when updated besides new revenue streams for the companies.

In what sense is data hoarding a problem?

I’ve only ever heard the term used in jest, at least partially, and in particular not ever with the same severity that actual hoarding receives.

Well it's costing this guy $45 a month apparently.

$45 a month is a pretty cheap vice as far as things go, though.

You could easily be spending $45 a month just on streaming services.

Or he could spend $10 on the tracker, $10 to run a normal computer without 30 drives, and still watch all the same stuff for half the price.

Maybe there are better usenet services that don't get holes punched in their collections as much, but generally on usenet you get missing episodes over time.

My interpretation of your original post was that you were saying spending $45 a month on this project illustrated that he has a problem.

Is that accurate?

How does the fact that he could be saving money support that?

My interpretation of OPs post is that they felt they had a problem. I assumed that problem was the amount of money/time spent installing and upkeeping those drives.

I have a much longer list of content that I want to watch on streaming services - and never care about rewatching - that I don’t even bother with pirating anymore.

As far as $45. I spend less than that on streaming services.

- Netflix $7 (T-mobile discount)

- HBO Max - Free - bundled with AT&T fiber

- Amazon Prime Video - I would have Amazon Prime anyway. But let’s attribute $6.00/month to it.

- AppleTV+ - it’s part of a bundle. But let’s attribute $5/month to it.

- Disney/Hulu no ads bundle - $14

- Paramount Plus - $10/month - no ads

Besides, I travel a lot and it’s much more convenient to use streaming (unlimited data) than trying to maintain hardware. My Plex server has been down for a year.

Admittedly- my wife and I do have the AMC Stubs+ movie pass ($50) because we actually enjoy going to the movies as part of date night.

So you have different preferences than OP. OP mUst HAvE a Pr0Blem!!1!

According to the numbers you just posted, you are spending 42 a month on streaming services which, while it is strictly less than 45, I wouldn't say it's meaningfully less than 45.

What point are you trying to make?

> Besides, I travel a lot and it’s much more convenient to use streaming (unlimited data) than trying to maintain hardware. My Plex server has been down for a year.

That server does a lot of other stuff. Controls zigbee devices, runs a small intranet search, handles internet archiving workloads...

The hard drives are the main power cost though.

How many drives do you have in your server? Or do you just have very high power costs? I thought drives consume ~7-9w unless they're very high RPM. Maybe consider upgrading to a few high density drives? Hard drive costs have corrected recently after the Chia craze last year.

My estimate is that it's idling at ~250w. I'm admittedly fudging the details a bit, right now archive-team-warrior is using a lot of CPU because it's archiving telegram, and that's pushing the number up.

Calculating it again the actual number is a bit lower than that, and it wasn't in US dollars.

With a Kill A Watt (or similar, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_A_Watt) meter, you don't have to estimate power usage, you can measure the actual power usage.

I've got one, but it's being used for other stuff.

Like all "problems", it's only a problem if it has negative consequences for you. Drinking alcohol isn't a problem until it is. Collecting old newspapers isn't a problem until it is. Hoarding data isn't a problem until it is.

This post seems a bit tongue-in-cheek, but if it's costing the OP more money than they'd like to spend on it, then it is a problem. Or maybe it's not.

It's not, I'm living well within my means. If I was concerned about the money I could probably spend more of my time to find the content on sketchy streaming sites like putlocker.

[re-parenting this comment under OP]

I don't think what you were describing is a "problem" at all. And it looks like you don't view at it as a problem, either. Not sure why so many of the replies in this article are trying to interpret your post as some kind of call for help.

I hate the phrase "Data Hoarding" because the word hoarding has negative connotations that don't apply to collecting digital media. When you look at actual hoarders, their homes are disgusting, filled with trash, and not navigable. On the other hand, there are no negative effects of data "hoarding", besides maybe the cost of buying and powering hard drives. Most hobbies have monetary costs and don't carry negative connotations. It's no more of a problem than stamp collecting. We don't call people Stamp Hoarders.

Even data "hoarding" can be a problem for someone if it begins to consume their life. Sure, the physical consequences aren't as severe as hoarding old junk in your house, but it could possibly become a physical and mental problem for someone. Sure sounds like that is not the case for the OP, as it all sounded like a bit of a joke to begin with. But I'm sure you could find someone for whom data hoarding is a real problem that negatively affects their life if they feel compelled to constantly seek out stuff to archive and begin filling their house with storage media.

I would say it would have to be costing enough money or time to be negatively impacting OP's life before we could accurately call it a problem.

It's one thing to be over budget for it, but the budget just may not be realistic for the project and cost expectations have to be adjusted or the project downscaled. That's not a problem really it's just a normal part of budgeting.

The problem comes in if OP were missing work to work on this thing, or neglecting personal relationships. Or so over budget it was putting them financially in the red, leading to risky loans to pay for or borrowing from friends/family or whatever else.

Problems are things that have real negative externalities, imo.

When it causes undesired effects like spending more on hardware than you probably should.

> spending more on hardware than you probably should

Should is a tricky word. What is OPs income? What's the rest of their budget look like. What standards are you applying to their spending habits? What hardships do your models forecast for OP as a result of their hobby?

If you know what OP should do, presumably you have this data and can provide your numbers.

Using a lot of resources so that one person has a bunch of digital information they'll never use or see again. It's a bit of a waste don't you think?

I'd argue the only problematic data hoarders are the ones who've gone put of the way to monetize it (corporates). They tend to collect too much, literally sell to some of the most problematic groups on the planet (whether they realize it or not).

I've yet to see a pirate who isn't basically a library.

For the record, I don't require libraries to necessarily have to play nice with the Publishing Industrial Complex to be legitimate.

Long live the Signal! May it spread far and wide! Fnord!

data hoarding is hoarding, but it might be a better way to get the dopamine hit one gets from hoarding in a way that doesn't take over and ruin one's life.

imagine this same person was someone who in the past might have hoarded VHS recordings or newspapers. How much space would that take up. A significant amount, to the point where we see the houses of hoarders and the hoarding has really damaged their ability to live. While data hoarding does take time and money, it doesn't have to take over one's physical space in the same manner.

So, while hoarding can be a problem, it really depends on the damage its doing to one's life. If one spends hours a day searching for content, neglecting one's life/family/job and putting them at risk, that's bad. If one has things automated, and its just a question of money they spend on it, then its just a question can they afford it. If they can, its just a hobby, not a sickness, as its not damaging to one's life.

Now, even with what I said, it can be hard for the person themselves to understand the effect it might be having on their life, perhaps until its too late (you think you are on top of things, but things unravel quickly).

I rewatch things all the time. If I’m doing side work at night and just want something on the background I’ll put on a movie or show that I’ve seen before.

Beyond that, hard drives are cheap! I have a single 18 TB disk in my main computer that runs Plex. It lets me and my kids watch content from anywhere with an Internet connection.

18 TB hard drives are about $300.

A single terabyte can hold at least 500 hours of 1080p video. A few terabytes is plenty to keep a large library of rewatchable content AND download new stuff frequently (and delete it when you need room)

After 4tb dlof data I started to get weirded out by running too big disks.

Resilvering might take ages. So long that raid2 might be mandatory.

I haven't calculated the right risk factor but I still only use 4tb disks

Eh I recently switched to two 14tb disks of different manufacturers. One is usually in standby and once a week I do a rsync to it. Btrfs on both for checksums.

Good enough for me, I assume it's way more likely that a PSU failure fries them all, in which case no variant of raid would have helped anyways. For important stuff I have an off-site Backup, but that's only around 800gb anyways and growing a few gb per year.

A rebuild of a 160tb raid 6 array of 12 18tb disks for me takes around 3.3 days.

> Beyond that, hard drives are cheap! I have a single 18 TB disk

Fair warning: It is very dangerous to make statements like this in a public forum like this.

You run the risk of someone spotting it and making a seemingly-innocent reply along the lines of, "Oh, you should at LEAST have TWO disks set up as a mirror so you don't lose all your movies when (not if, but when) the disk dies." And then someone else will say, "LOL u noob, RAID not a backup!" Another participant will assure you that no data is safe unless it's stored at on at least a 5-disk ZFS array. And then someone else will jump in to point out that even ZFS is not safe if you're not running ECC memory. And course you can't just have ONE of these ECC-enabled 5-disk ZFS-breathing monsters, because every component ASIDE from the disks is a single point of failure, so you'd better have TWO just to be safe. Which means you'll need a UPS because sudden power loses are _awesome_ if you like having your platters scribbled all over by a browned-out disk controller. And what exactly is your disaster recovery plan in the event of a fire or flood, gotta have some infra running in good health off-site in case something like that happens. And so on.

Of course if you dig far enough into these admonitions and suggestions, the good news is that you won't have the time to watch any of those movies.

My only fear is that your absolutely fantastic comment is too far down the tree to get the attention it deserves.

Thank god I have an ECC memory stick and a mirrored/striped 4-disk ZFS array.

Weight off my shoulders!

why would data hoarding be a problem? it can be a perfectly legitimate hobby, has massive communities and also acts as digital preservation, think the biggest hoarder on the planet archive.org

I hear about people who stopped hoarding when they discovered the hybrid middleground: debrid services, which cache torrents and usenet so they can be directly downloaded / streamed. you pay roughly the same per month as you would for the basic Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, etc. packages but on just one subscription, i.e. all the content for the price of one. the quality and reliability is better too (4K, 10bit, 7.1, atmos, CDN..)

> really love and want to rewatch (Robocop)

You mean Dredd 2012.

"Are you ready?" "Yes." "You don't look ready." Absolutely the best performance of Olivia Thirlby, although of course Karl Urban was great, too.

Bitches leave.

After all, if you want to watch it again -- you can always pirate it again!

(The one complication is that I pirate using private BitTorrent tracker sites where I need to do some amount of seeding to stay on good terms, under conditions that vary from site to site, and can be hard to keep track of as I try to recover storage space).

But yeah, I'd say the cost of OP is not in the pirating, it's in the hoarding.

You say that, but a lot of older shows become increasingly hard to get copies of the longer from the air date you get (legally or pirated)

I have not had that experience as a pirater of TV shows, I can have pretty much always been able to get anything I ever wanted that I ever could before, through the sources I use.

But certainly there is no guarantee, that is true.

(I don't use usenet as a source, myself).

Yeah, it's probably a natural effect of using usenet with its built in retention. Definitely once you get past 10 years (typical retention is ~3000 days), things drop off a lot because no one re-uploads them.

The data is currency though, in the pirate economy.

Only if you can transfer/exchange it, no?

Good pirates seed forever.

Sharing content you enjoy feels good - piracy reinforce social bonds !

> Your piracy is an excuse for data hoarding, which is a problem.

Not OP, but I’m guilty of this.

However, I also rewatch anything I like and love introducing people to things they haven’t seen. It’s great being able to share a large library of curated content.

Same. I keep the previous episode of a show until i get the next, to remind me what shows im watching and where im up to, but typically dont hang onto anything. These days the cost of downloading something again is less than the cost of hanging onto it just in case i maybe want to rewatch (usually years later).

You are exactly me. Right down to (Robocop). But I still haven't figured out how to hit that delete button. As much as I know I need to. I'm sitting on 30TB now of stuff I'll never ever ever watch again. But I just can't delete it.

Don't delete it. Just disconnect the drives and shove them in a cupboard. Do it slowly. Move from everything is in my library all the time to I move movies to drives I keep disconnected.

>I only keep the movies I really love and want to rewatch (Robocop).

I absolutely love that Robocop is the specific movie that you felt needed to be mentioned. :)

IT'S THE PERFECT FILM!

I’d buy that for a dollar!

> Your piracy is an excuse for data hoarding, which is a problem.

Your fake concern an excuse for busy-bodying, which is a problem.

I mean, what's wrong with data hoarding? People always say you should have backups, but when you make some proper ones it's suddenly "hoarding" and "a problem" smh.

Who is claiming that you must have backups of pirated content?

People. It's written right there.

How is it that? OP is the one that shared. No one is forcing him to post here.

Did OP ask if it was a problem?

Did OP state it was a problem?

Not that I see - AFAICT the only people declaring it a problem are the busybodies latching on to OP spending the same amount on this hobby as they would dining out at a decent restaurant once a month.

> Did OP state it was a problem?

The title ascribes it to "piracy" costs, which is incorrect. GL with whatever.

The title is > Tell HN: I probably spend more on piracy than if I just paid for content

That doesn't say it's a problem. It's a statement of fact. You are projecting a problem onto it.

I pay more for dinner out than I would if signed up for HelloFresh to be delivered to my house.

What if I like eating out?

What if neither cost has any meaningful impact on my bottom line?

Is that a problem too?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com