Considering the precipitous decline in Oscar viewership over the last decade, it's safe to say Hollywood's death grip on American film and television is all but broken these days. The jump in the most recent Oscars viewership has more to do with tabloid antics (i.e. "the slap") than anything else, and even then it was still the second worst year on record.

Eh for awhile my Apple TV was starting to seem like the asymptotic limit of how easy it could be to watch what I wanted at the price of subsidizing a bunch of empty suits in Hollywood.

Then at some point everyone with an IP catalog started launching a streaming service and at the rate it’s going I might re-learn how piracy works because I value my own time enough to be pretty much over trying to figure out if my show du jour is on Disney Plus or Viacom Prime.

I think we're both seeing a generational difference here. Those of us who remember those times know in our bones how much better things are...even if you don't want to look that hard. That was 15+ years ago. A lot of HN probably wasn't around to remember.

I don't want this to be a "kids today don't know how good they have it" post, but that's playing a role. However, that attitude is probably what's going to keep driving things to get even better.

Yeah but that’s illegal

I bought fan subbed Dragonball Z movies off of eBay when I was a kid in the early 2000s. I still had dialup, downloading wasn't an option.

> Before high speed internet was affordable

For years before that, people were sharing fansubbed anime on VHS. There were networks of fansubbers and distributors sending tapes through the mail.