Comment by kat_rebelo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kat_rebelo | Hacker News Reader

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i primarily torrented initially because i was broke. i was a super early netflix adopter (back in the DVD by mail days). for awhile netflix, hbo, and amazon prime were all i needed to watch 80% of the stuff i wanted to, and it felt fair to pay what i did.

with more content being paywalled behind the proliferation of superfluous streaming services, consistent rate hikes, and a huge drop in quality of content i've eliminated everything except prime (which i keep mainly for the two day shipping). i don't want to declare myself as a bellwether, but i got into netflix early and i got out early as well (cancelled my subscription Dec of 2021).

at the end of the day, torrenting is always the best value proposition. you can possess the files you download, they are not subject to being randomly taken down, and there are plenty of options for streaming them to multiple devices in your home. i download some really weird obscure stuff and i have never had an issue not being able to find subtitles. sometimes quality can vary but for most things you can get a decent 720 or 1080 rip.

>at the end of the day, torrenting is always the best value proposition.

Weird that the one that is free and doesn't pay anyone who had a hand in creating the content is the one with the most value. It is almost like creating content has a cost that needs to be passed on to the consumer.

for content you have purchsed (ie: prime) there is nothing stopping them from giving you a file in case they delist the content (Bandcamp is a good example of a service that offers exactly this).

this may be more of a political stance, but most of this content is produced by huge media corporations with deep pockets and histories of nefarious business practices. do i really care if disney gets paid for their content? no not really. if they amortize this loss by paying their employees less than that says more about them than it does about anyone pirating from them.

>for content you have purchsed (ie: prime) there is nothing stopping them from giving you a file in case they delist the content (Bandcamp is a good example of a service that offers exactly this).

Sometimes you aren't purchasing the content and are instead getting a license because Amazon doesn't have the contractual right to sell you the content because they are also just licensing it rather than owning it themselves.

>this may be more of a political stance, but most of this content is produced by huge media corporations with deep pockets and histories of nefarious business practices. do i really care if disney gets paid for their content? no not really. if they amortize this loss by paying their employees less than that says more about them than it does about anyone pirating from them.

Disney isn't the content creator I am talking about. I am instead referring to the actual individuals that were hands-on with the creation of the content. One of the primary reasons that HBO Max is removing content is they don't want to pay residuals to the individual artists involved in creating the removed shows. Keeping those shows on the platform means HBO Max would have to literally send out checks to the writers, actors, etc. who have negotiated for those ongoing payments. They would never have gotten those checks at all if you never pay for that content.

FYI, you can still get 2-day free shipping from Amazon by spending >$35. In my experience, there are very few situations where I really need an item in 2 days but can't bundle in other necessities like toothpaste or toilet paper to pad the cost to get free shipping.

I value my time way more than dealing with having a Plex Server set up. I had one from 2012-2020 and before that a Mac Mini running Front Row from 2006-2012. I haven’t had it plugged up in 2 years.

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