[HN Gopher] Apple is quietly pushing a TV ad product with media ...
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Apple is quietly pushing a TV ad product with media agencies
Author : ksec
Score : 271 points
Date : 2022-10-12 13:56 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (digiday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (digiday.com)
| moolcool wrote:
| I hate how Apple is becoming increasingly an advertising company.
| mattwest wrote:
| What's interesting is how this all worked out for them, whether
| it's serendipitous or purposeful.
|
| Conventional consumer data collection relies on users _coming
| to_ the collection mechanism i.e. spending time on a website or
| interactions on social media.
|
| Apple is poised to withstand many privacy protection measures
| because their collection mechanism is in millions of peoples'
| hands and pockets. iPhone users are providing high-resolution
| data to their platform. The accuracy of your personality
| profile and related data are nicely packaged and easy to
| convert into highly targeted advertising.
| prange wrote:
| The idea that Tim Cook is Batman is pretty far fetched.
| mattwest wrote:
| How does your comment relate to my original one?
| smoldesu wrote:
| He isn't (but it would be cool if he was).
|
| However, it does seem fairly likely that he's a bit of a
| pushover, politically. I hate to beat a dead horse, but
| this is the guy who doubled-down on China while even
| _Google_ was appalled by how they were using personal data
| to hunt dissidents. He 's not Batman, but he's _also_ not
| powerless to stop the incredible human suffering caused
| through Apple 's deliberate labor partners and political
| allies. If Tim Cook had the gall to start moving away from
| China 10 years ago, maybe he'd have a shot at being even
| _better_ than Bruce Wayne.
|
| All of this is to say, Tim Cook is certainly not going to
| stand up for your data privacy when national interests step
| in. The best he can do is encrypt your device and give you
| a copy of th- I mean, _your_ keys.
| prange wrote:
| "Incredible human suffering"? This doesn't seem like a
| serious comment.
| prange wrote:
| dont__panic wrote:
| I mean, Apple has put Lidar into a decent percentage of
| iPhones over the past few years. Wifi and cellular signals
| can be used in a similar way to generate low-resolution
| maps of the world around your phone. And there's of course
| cameras on the front and back.
|
| All running on closed source Apple software, with no
| physical on/off switch for those data collection
| pathways... or even the phone itself, which _never_ fully
| shuts down. So maybe Tim Cook really is Big Brother.
| prange wrote:
| There are no data pathways for aggregating that data. It
| just gets used by apps.
| coldtea wrote:
| Says who?
| prange wrote:
| Says Apple in their privacy policies.
|
| If you have even the slightest evidence to the contrary,
| now is the time to present it.
| coldtea wrote:
| prange wrote:
| debacle wrote:
| Every company, once it reaches a certain size, only can grow
| materially through certain venues: government contracts,
| financing, advertising, etc.
| NickC25 wrote:
| True, but Apple has so many interesting spaces it could grow
| into through M&A activity as opposed to putting ads in its TV
| service. Off the top of my head, wearables and gaming are
| just two that could promote a ton of genuine growth as
| opposed to promoting pirating by introducing ads.
|
| There are plenty of whip-smart folks at Apple, surely they
| know people adopted streaming services due to lack of ads,
| and have the ability to pirate stuff pretty easily.
| syntaxing wrote:
| I stopped using Prime Video because of the stupid 5s forced ads
| in the beginning. It will be a serious turn off to the Apple
| ecosystem if they do the same.
| hardlianotion wrote:
| "The last bastion is Apple TV. Apple is going to be a very good
| ad experience with probably a low ad load. They're already
| actually very diversified in terms of revenue streams so there's
| less pressure to fit lots of ads."
|
| If it's true now, it won't be later on.
| jeffbee wrote:
| General comment on Apple TV+. Is my impression incorrect that it
| is a distant last place among streaming services? There's nothing
| on. You get a free subscription if you replace your iThing and
| then it takes a few weeks to watch Ted Lasso and Severance, the
| only two shows they have, and you're ready to cancel.
| scarface74 wrote:
| They aren't playing the same game as the other streaming
| services besides Amazon. Both Amazon and Apple are using
| streaming to get you into their ecosystem and make the bundle
| more attractive.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Less content, but it's pretty consistently higher quality than
| other services, at least so far. It's more than just those two
| shows. It was actually kind of hilarious to see Apple win a
| best picture Oscar with a tiny indy film on their first try
| after seeing Netflix spend years and billions on huge names
| blowing their load on near miss after near miss.
| jeffbee wrote:
| That was the thing that got me to sign up for Apple TV+ and I
| was shocked by what a terrible film CODA turned out to be.
| Just complete schlock. I put it up there with "Crash" among
| films that won Best Picture purely due to lack of candidates
| that year.
|
| I tried to watch some of the stuff they were heavily
| promoting, but couldn't get into them. Shining Girls is
| really bad. Tehran, a 3rd-party adaptation from Israel, is
| Netflix-grade trash that strains one's ability to suspend
| disbelief. Adding Glenn Close, an elderly American WASP, as a
| Mossad agent, did nothing to make this weird Israeli
| propaganda vehicle more believable.
|
| Anyway these are all matters of taste but objectively I
| believe Apple TV+ has very few subs, which was my main point.
| It doesn't seem like a massive advertising opportunity.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| As a quibble, "Crash" didn't win because lack of
| candidates- "Brokeback Mountain" lost due to lack of
| courage from the Academy's part.
|
| Severance is really good, you should watch that. I've also
| heard good things about Ted Lasso and For All Mankind. I'm
| trying to finish WeCrashed, which has some great
| unsympathetic performances, but it's been a grind.
|
| There's an uncanniness to Apple TV+ productions. They have
| gorgeously high production visual quality, in comparison to
| Netflix's notoriously flat and cheap affect, but most of
| their programming does seem mediocre story-wise.
| andelink wrote:
| I enjoyed these TV shows: - Ted Lasso - Severance - Bad Sisters
| - Servant - Trying - Mythic Quest - The Morning Show (season 1)
|
| And these movies: - Cha Cha Real Smooth - Swan Song - Coda -
| The Banker - The Tragedy of MacBeth - The Greatest Beer Run
| Ever
|
| Looking forward to the Sidney movie as well.
| tjpnz wrote:
| >There's nothing on.
|
| They've got Yo Gabba Gabba.
| wccrawford wrote:
| Also, "For All Mankind" and "Servant".
|
| They've had a few shows, but I generally agree that it's pretty
| slim pickins there.
| cube2222 wrote:
| They actually have very good shows overall. Not many, but very
| high quality.
|
| Other than the ones you've mentioned there are also See, The
| Morning Show, Mythic Quest, and For All Mankind, which are all
| great, as well as Foundation, which was quite good as well.
| jon-wood wrote:
| You should watch Foundation and For All Mankind as well next
| time you replace an iThing. The Apple TV+ library is definitely
| a lot smaller than competitor's, but what is in there is on the
| whole incredibly high quality.
| mholm wrote:
| I'm wondering if this is going to be the start of a lower cost
| tier, or perhaps raising the price to watch without ads? I don't
| think Apple could get away with normal ads on Apple TV without an
| option to get rid of them, even if it's a light touch.
| dave78 wrote:
| I feel like it's inevitable now that all streaming services are
| going to add an ad-based tier. Initially it will just be a
| cheaper option and you'll still be able to pay for an ad-free
| experience, but I am concerned that eventually the ad-free
| option will go away. It probably depends on how much money the
| services can make from advertising per subscriber per month -
| but it seems plausible that ads could be worth more per
| subscription to the streaming services than the $10ish dollars
| a month most of them charge.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| See, I think they'll creep ads into the "adless" tier, and it
| will become a "less ads" tier in reality.
|
| Paramount+ already does this with their "adless" tier, it has
| ads. Unskippable ads.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Ideally, that would qualify for action from FTC or whatever
| government agency is responsible for businesses advertising
| one thing and selling another.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| They'll just call it the "Ad Light" tier then.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is fine. Ads on an "adless" tier is fraud.
| Abekkus wrote:
| The sad thing that sticks in my head is that, if you're the
| person who could afford the higher tier ad-free experience,
| you're also worth more to the advertisers than people who
| can't afford ad-free.
|
| so if ad-based free tiers are profitable at all, then they
| are going to be more profitable than the paid subscriptions,
| and ad-free options will go away.
| ridgered4 wrote:
| pavlov suggests companies now just sell the high value ad-
| free users data so they can be targeted by ads elsewhere in
| their lives while the source service remains (technically)
| ad free, which makes a sickening amount of sense.
| jsonne wrote:
| This is inevitable for basically every media service whether
| its streaming music like Spotify, connected tv like Hulu, etc.
| You'll have a premium tier with no ads, perhaps a less ads but
| still some ads semi premium tier, and then an ads supported
| tier that is either free + ads or some small fee + ads. I know
| it's verboten to say this on Hacker News but it plays out this
| way over and over because some % of the consumers (read most of
| them) are actually okay with the trade off of having ads to pay
| less or pay not at all. This is even more pronounced outside
| the US where some markets are 99% ad supported. People should
| have the choice to pay for an ad free experience but its also
| okay for others to choose an ad supported one too.
| hexo wrote:
| Lower cost tier and Apple? Nope. Just normal (very high) cost
| and maybe much highier cost. IMHO
| AyyWS wrote:
| iPhone SE, iPad, and the MacBook Air all disagree with you. I
| feel like this is the cheapest Apple products have ever been.
| My grandma had a colorful $2000 Apple laptop in early 2000s
| and you can get a MacBook Air now for $1000. That's a heck of
| a price decline without figuring inflation.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Chromebooks start around $150, and perform well at around
| $400 and are perfect for the grandma use-case
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I was pretty surprised at how shit ChromeOS'
| accessibility features are, when my elderly dad got one,
| considering their market is basically young kids and old
| people.
| AyyWS wrote:
| I wasn't very clear. She had a mac laptop around 1998 or
| so.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| I meant it in response to "you can get a MacBook Air now
| for $1000". It is the cheapest of the Apple laptops but
| it's not a particularly cheap laptop.
| account-5 wrote:
| I wouldn't call any of those low cost.
|
| Only relative to other Apple products might they be
| considered "cheaper".
| philistine wrote:
| They've done a ton of free content already, like Baseball or
| Jon Stewart and if I had to bet they're rushing to put ads on
| all the free access they're giving. Whether or not we'll see an
| ad-supported tier depends on how popular their other hobbled
| tiers are. The _Apple Music paid tier but only with access
| through Siri_ comes to mind.
| [deleted]
| neilv wrote:
| That has precedent (including with YouTube and Kindles), and I
| always assume that the platform owner did the math.
|
| But it's interesting to me because I'd guess that the people
| with disposable income and willing to spend it on luxuries
| (including not seeing ads)... would be among the most valuable
| targets of consumer product/service advertisers.
| pavlov wrote:
| That's why the streaming platform can sell those users' data
| at a premium to a platform like Facebook. When the platform
| does reach that user with an ad placement somewhere else,
| that spot is valuable.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| My girlfriend just canceled her Hulu last night because they
| just raised the rates on even the ad-supported tier.
| account-5 wrote:
| I'm sure it was only last week on another apple thread some
| person got downvoted for suggesting apple will succumb to ad
| money. Seems the fabled apple can't resist the extra revenue.
| [deleted]
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| If Apple becomes an ad company, I'll have to seriously reconsider
| my commitment to Apple.
|
| The only reason I moved away from Android was Google. I had no
| real complaints from the phones or Android user-experience
| itself.
| andsoitis wrote:
| What phone would you get?
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| I'll just go back to Android. If my only options are adware
| companies, I might as well get the cheaper product.
| fsflover wrote:
| How about https://puri.sm/products/librem-5 or
| https://pine64.org/pinephone?
| kornhole wrote:
| Too bad you didn't know that you can use Android without
| Google. Checkout grapheneos.org or lineageos.org.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I mean, what are you really going to do? Apple has $4b ad
| revenue and you aren't moving. I'm sure just like now you'll
| have a reason "oh it's not actually X" or whatever.
|
| People make all these dramatic commitments but they never go
| through with it, or they leave out the true caveats that would
| weaken the statement.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Based on what little privacy research we have, between Apple
| and Google, neither is privacy-friendly, but at least Apple
| is more so than Google.
|
| That is to say, I don't see why one would move when the
| alternative is worse.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Yep, exactly, so any threat to "seriously reconsider
| [one's] commitment" is toothless.
| errantmind wrote:
| Apple has finally lost touch, it was bound to happen eventually.
| Ads will seriously hurt their reputation as a premium product.
| The ads will metastasize and spread from product to product,
| tainting everything they touch.
|
| This will make a good case study on why a company shouldn't get
| too greedy about 10 years from now.
| anonred wrote:
| Et tu, Apple? Although I predict that in true Apple style,
| they'll somehow manage to make ads fashionable in 3-5 years.
| jupp0r wrote:
| Bold prediction: if ads on paid streaming services become the
| norm, there will be a renaissance of piracy because it will once
| again offer the superior user experience.
| somehnguy wrote:
| I went back years ago when a lot of media companies started
| pulling their stuff off Netflix in favor of creating their own
| platforms.
|
| Cloudbox on a rented dedicated server, everything is automatic
| and things just show up in Plex.
| eptcyka wrote:
| I love how horrible UX ends up wasting hardware - not that
| this is something to be held against people who host their
| own media services, I'm doing the same. But serving media is
| definitely a thing that scales well with centralized CDNs and
| other infrastructure - copying the same data to everyone's
| personal cloud hosted Plex implies duplicating a lot of
| terabytes, essentially wasting hard drive space, nobody
| watches their Plex troves 24/7, so the hard drives and CPUs
| will be idling a good amount of their life. Popcorntime was a
| great way to increase homebrew media distribution efficiency
| w.r.t. to content delivery and storage, maybe it's time it
| got resurected?
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| How accessible is piracy for the average person? I've had
| people in my circle of friends and acquaintances ask me how to
| pirate media safely. They are broadly aware that music and
| movies can be pirated, but they typically just visit some
| sketchy website that plays the content in the browser or they
| do not attempt to pirate anything because they are afraid of
| getting caught and/or sued.
|
| Downloading a torrent client and VPN is seen as confusingly
| complicated for many of them. Once I help them get past that, I
| also have to train them to search safely and parse the file
| names of what they are trying to find. More than just informing
| them that a movie is not a 25 MB exe file, but that there is a
| convention around encoding/file type, bit rate, and how
| episodes/tracks are named.
|
| It is understandable, but I think there is a huge mental
| barrier for most non-savvy computer users. I think that unless
| there is some friendly and non-sketchy all in one service to
| facilitate piracy there will not be some widespread upswell in
| piracy among the general public.
| Liquix wrote:
| Would a "widespread upswell in piracy amongst the general
| public" ultimately be a good thing? How much more accessible
| can it get? If A.) clicking through a software installer and
| B.) reading file names is too high a barrier of entry...
| Streaming services will gladly take your money.
|
| A small-scale solution could be setting up a Jellyfin or
| similar server for all your friends + family members. Curate
| it with what they ask for, maybe give them access to a Sonarr
| instance so they can add content themselves. There are client
| apps for smart TVs, phones, and a web player. Maybe they'll
| like it so much they tell their friends, or want to set up
| their own :)
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| There used to be an app called Popcorn Time which had a
| Netflix-like UI but was actually serving the videos from
| torrents. It would attempt to download the torrent data
| sequentially so you could stream the show/movie after about
| 10 seconds of buffering.
| thakoppno wrote:
| A few friends in different US regions running Jellyfin in a
| container with an Hdhomerun (~$100) and rabbit ears (~$50)
| could effectively reproduce the DirectTV Sunday ticket
| (~$300).
|
| I anticipate some version of family and friend supported
| distributed services to continue growing in the near
| future.
| hanniabu wrote:
| Syncler + Premiumize or Real Debris is fantastic and super
| easy to use. No server setup needed, you stream everything.
| Comes working out of the box and if you want to play with
| some settings it's in an easy settings menu.
| Foxhuls wrote:
| I'd recommend looking into Radarr and Sonarr. Those two
| programs really simplify the process and is basically
| automated once the initial setup including automatically
| moving and renaming the files for to a plex library if you
| happen to be interested in using something like plex. I
| personally think Usenet is better than torrenting but I also
| choose to spend about $60ish dollars per year on providers
| and indexers because I feel that it's worth the cost.
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| for me this was infinitely harder than using kodi or just
| torrenting and saving to library. and i work in software
| dev with CS major.
| Foxhuls wrote:
| It's definitely not the solution for everyone. I don't
| and have never worked in anything IT related but I have a
| homelab for fun and this was just the first "major" thing
| I did with the old server I bought to teach myself some
| things and provide something somewhat useful at the same
| time.
| z3c0 wrote:
| Much like how private chat and gaming servers work, I expect
| the onus will fall upon the tech-savvy to host content for
| their friends via services like Plex, Jellyfin, or the like.
| claaams wrote:
| You can also be the person that downloads things and hosts it
| privately for your friends. You could even share it via
| onedrive or similar cloud platforms provided you zip,
| encrypt/pw protect and rename it.
| dublinben wrote:
| >friendly and non-sketchy all in one service to facilitate
| piracy
|
| I've heard that paid Plexshares are more or less this. You
| pay to access a private streaming server that has all the
| content you could ever want. No VPNs, no torrent clients, no
| parsing formats, no viruses, no running an HDMI cable from a
| PC to your TV. It's as easy as any other paid streaming
| service, without exclusive content restrictions.
| epicide wrote:
| Great points, but I'd like to draw attention to the
| distinction between pirating media and doing so _safely_.
|
| It used to be that either one required a bit of know-how, but
| I've personally seen cases where the barrier to entry is
| lower for just obtaining the media. Safety isn't just an
| afterthought as much as total ignorance.
|
| In the most alarming case I witnessed, an acquaintance of
| mine had a friend who "knew enough to be dangerous": they
| were sideloading an app on their settop box for them that
| just pulled from some site. I'm sure it would work to watch
| rips of new movies or whatever, but I doubt it even used TLS.
|
| I had to explain to my acquaintance that not only would it be
| easily visible by their ISP (and why that's bad), but _that
| it was almost certainly illegal in the first place_.
|
| Getting a movie for free sounds obviously sketchy to most of
| us, but think about the number of gadgets and services that
| have been advertising exactly that for decades[0].
| Understanding the difference requires some technical
| knowledge.
|
| [0]: The catch usually being that "free" really means "after
| fulfilling some other obligation", such as signing up for a
| free trial of something.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Piracy is already the vastly superior user experience (If you
| are willing to put the time/money into it).
| robertoandred wrote:
| People who wanted to steal tv shows never stopped. It's an
| ethics thing, not a convenience thing.
| davidjfelix wrote:
| I really don't think it's that simple. Ethics bend and break
| around inconvenience.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I absolutely stopped pirating due to the convenience of
| streaming.
|
| Maybe I'm unusual, but I doubt it.
| jupp0r wrote:
| Music piracy took off because people wanted to consume mp3s
| but the music industry kept telling them they should use CDs
| instead.
| tcptomato wrote:
| Copyright infringement isn't theft.
|
| And to say that it's just an ethics thing, is completely
| ignorant view. It's perfectly acceptable to torrent something
| when living in a country that wasn't deemed worthy by the
| rights holder to release their product there.
| tomrod wrote:
| Very few people operate against ethics, virtually everyone
| considers convenience (or, in other words, non-tangible use
| cost).
| zikduruqe wrote:
| Remember when you would pay for cable TV services so you didn't
| have to watch ads? -- something, something Pepperidge Farms
| meme.
| scarface74 wrote:
| That time was never
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33177999
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Even if something is streaming, and you have access to all/most
| streaming services, its a pain to figure out what is on what
| platform.
|
| Want to watch the new season on x? Oh even though HBO has all
| the old seasons, the new season is on another service.
|
| Want to watch x movie you saw on netflix two months ago?
| Netflix doesnt have the rights anymore now and you'll have to
| dig through your streaming services to see where it landed or
| hope whatever, "Where is this streaming?" website you land on
| is accurate and up to date.
| shmatt wrote:
| I find Roku's search engine great for this scenario. Tells
| you which service and also if its free with membership,
| without membership, or paid per episode
| RichardCNormos wrote:
| The Pirate Bay has all the seasons. Even with the hassle of
| starting my VPN, downloading, making sure it's in the right
| format, dealing with subtitles (looking at you, Better Call
| Saul), piracy is a better experience than fragmented
| streaming.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Only to a geek. I much rather just pay money and juggle the
| streaming services. I had a Mac Mini running Front Row
| connected to a TV back in 2005 and then graduated to Plex
| until 2020. It's really not worth it when both the AppleTV
| and Roku have universal search.
| sfvegandude wrote:
| This isn't really that hard on Apple TV though. Siri has
| universal search and will show media and punch out to the
| right app.
| [deleted]
| rchaud wrote:
| Superior UX, really? I'd agree if it were pre-2012 (Megaupload
| takedown), because back then torrent sites used to be able to
| operate with impunity. Go to the site, type something into
| search, then download.
|
| Now everything has moved to private trackers, invite-only
| Discords and more and more outside of the clearweb. That's a
| far worse UX IMO.
| waboremo wrote:
| I find that to get the superior UX experience, there is quite
| a lot of work that has to be done upfront. A lot of technical
| experience is also assumed because many of these "bridges"
| don't have real guides.
|
| But once you do go through those trenches, it can be quite
| amazing to see how simple everything can be if things weren't
| exclusive to a dozen different streaming services.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| it never stopped being a superior experience for many types of
| users and many locations
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| It's inevitable. Paying for cable TV was once pitched to the
| American public as a reprieve from ads. Now, virtually all
| cable TV channels have more ads than than broadcast television
| had in the first place.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Why does this meme always come up in any discussion when it
| only takes a little bit of research (if you aren't old enough
| to remember) to know this was never true?
|
| Cable TV was first pitched as a method to get broadcast TV -
| with ads - in places that couldn't get broadcast. Cable
| companies put big towers up and rebroadcasted network TV -
| with ads.
|
| Then HBO came along as an ad free _premium_ channel and it
| still is.
|
| Then the "Superstations" like TBS out of Atlanta came along.
| Which were always ad supported and started broadcasting
| nationally.
|
| Then the first cable channels came along like MTV, Lifetime,
| ESPN, USA. Not only dud they have ads from day one, they had
| infomercials to fill out the time when they didn't have
| programming to show.
|
| There has never been a time since the invention of cable TV
| in the US that it was ad free.
| [deleted]
| thakoppno wrote:
| Thanks for mentioning this. I'll admit I believed the meme.
|
| From a 1981 NYT article
|
| > Although cable television was never conceived of as
| television without commercial interruption, there has been
| a widespread impression - among the public, at least -that
| cable would be supported largely by viewers' monthly
| subscription fees.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-
| inv...
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| > Then the first cable channels came along like MTV,
| Lifetime, ESPN, USA.
|
| MTV was actually a ripoff of QUBE channel C-1 program
| "Sight on Sound" which didn't air advertisements the way we
| think of them. Instead record labels could pay to have
| their music videos prioritized or to run giveaway contests.
|
| QUBE also lead to the creation of Nickelodeon (Which itself
| was ad-free for several years). QUBE channel C-3 "Pinwheel"
| was the first cable channel made for only young children,
| and was spun off into Nickelodeon when QUBE went defunct.
|
| The QUBE T channels were just cable links to conventional
| OTA broadcast television channels (T for television).
|
| QUBE C channels (C for community) did not have ad breaks.
| Instead there would be sponsored giveaways or sponsored
| shows which eventually lead to the current practice of
| infomercials. Except with QUBE the segments were live and
| viewers could push one of 5 buttons on the remote to
| interact with the program. For example in a sponsored
| cosmetics segment viewers could vote on whether the next
| topic would be one of 5 options, lipstick, mascara, etc.
| Sight on Sound would ask some questions about current
| viewer demographics (are you male/female. Are you in age
| group ABCDE. How many people are watching right now), the
| dj would say it was to play music matching the current
| demographic, but it was mainly collected to give metrics to
| sponsored segments or to wait for an appropriate time to
| play a sponsored segment.
|
| But what most urban people considered "cable" at the time
| would be the QUBE P-channels. P for Pay. Unlike other pay
| channels at the time like HBO, the P channels were a
| monthly subscription (each), not pay per view. Notably,
| QUBE got into the news several times because of channel
| P-10, which aired softcore porn.
|
| Also ESPN did not initially air advertisements during
| programming, only in between programs. But they also only
| had sports no one really cared about for the first few
| years. No major sports, no college games. But they did have
| highlights and some international sports.
|
| https://youtu.be/7Fz1bSViIZw
|
| The main reason early cable-only channels didn't have
| advertising is mainly because the subscriber numbers were
| so small there wasn't much revenue to be made targeting
| 5-10k viewers. Once subscriber numbers went up, and higher
| budget programming was in-demand (sports licensing is
| ridiculously expensive) ad breaks similar to OTA channels
| were introduced. But many of cable's early adopters bought
| into it on word of mouth, and word at the time was "no ad
| breaks!" It wasn't a goal of cable TV, just a side effect
| of the development.
|
| It was only a few years, but there were a few years when
| cable tv had no ad breaks for the majority of urban
| subscribers. It's sort of like someone saying Netflix used
| to have pretty much every show and movie, and then pulling
| up stats from 2014 and beyond saying no they didn't.
| scarface74 wrote:
| > Instead record labels could pay to have their music
| videos prioritized or to run giveaway contests.
|
| Isn't that a form of advertising?
|
| > QUBE also lead to the creation of Nickelodeon
|
| If I recall correctly, Nickelodeon use to fill up late
| night spots with infomercials.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| It is advertising, but usually not the kind people are
| complaining about. There's no Netflix tier to remove
| product placement from shows.
|
| And yeah Nickelodeon did but that's because the network
| was "off" during those hours. When it was on it was 12
| hours uninterrupted for the first 5 years.
| scarface74 wrote:
| > It is advertising, but usually not the kind people are
| complaining about. There's no Netflix tier to remove
| product placement from shows.
|
| Fair point.
| fullshark wrote:
| Well its inevitable to have an ad-tier and an ad-free tier at
| least. One of the benefits of digital ads v. linear TV ads.
| Msw242 wrote:
| What do you do when you find out that you make more per ad-
| tier user than you do for ad-free user[0]?
|
| The incentives go in the wrong direction from a UX
| perspective
|
| [0] https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/hulu-makes-about-15-in-
| reven...
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| They'll just make the ad free price higher or the ads
| more obnoxious (or turn the ad free tier into a slightly
| less ads tier)
| smeyer wrote:
| Can the answer not just be to charge more for the ad-free
| tier? The gap between what I'm willing to pay for a
| streaming service with and without ads is a lot more than
| what the current going rate is.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| This is boiling the frog though? These services were sold
| to us as something without ads. Seems really mob-like for
| the services to say to me: pay more or we're going to
| start showing ads on the thing we sold to you with the
| promise you wouldn't have any ads.
|
| Rinse and repeat another year later.
| smeyer wrote:
| I don't think that's particularly a problem. Just because
| Netflix or Hulu offered one service when I first used
| them a decade ago doesn't mean they're obliged to provide
| the same service at the same price forever. I
| occasionally cancel a streaming service if I decide that
| it's no longer providing enough value to me, just like
| I'd cancel my current subscriptions if they started
| adding ads.
| moreira wrote:
| The problem is that if you increase the price too much,
| the bad PR and hit to your reputation will likely offset
| any extra revenue. If a service like Hulu released a
| $50/mo ad-free tier people would freak out, even if they
| still had access to the same free ad-tier experience they
| do now. I don't know that it'd be beneficial.
| _trackno5 wrote:
| I have to disagree with you.
|
| Coming from a country where media consumption used the be
| expensive, the reason people pirated entertainment was mainly
| due to cost. Not because it was inconvenient to see an ad.
|
| Streaming will still be miles more convenient than piracy. All
| I have to do is turn on my apple tv, grab the remote and watch
| whatever I want, whenever I want. I don't have to dig through
| some torrent sites, download it, then stream it to the tv.
| monetus wrote:
| I have access to apple TV, the service, but it is easier for
| me to use Kodi on a raspberry pi to watch it. Make of that
| what you will. I know there needs to be a hub for all of the
| streaming services, and the options seem imperfect in one
| significant way or another.
| takoid wrote:
| > I don't have to dig through some torrent sites, download
| it, then stream it to the tv.
|
| This is not the reality of piracy in 2022.
|
| https://radarr.video/
|
| https://sonarr.tv/
|
| https://www.plex.tv/
| airstrike wrote:
| At this point, I actually pay for Netflix +
| Hulu(+ESPN+Disney) + Amazon Prime + I get HBO Max with my
| AT&T plan otherwise would also have to pay for that one. In
| the past I have also paid, for a limited amount of time, for
| Apple TV, Paramount+, Starz, Cinemax, The Criterion Channel,
| FuboTV, BritBox and Peacock. I'm probably forgetting a few.
|
| I'm fairly certain Comcast's cable package they keep spamming
| me costs less than those combined
|
| Media consumption _is_ expensive again. All we 've done is
| move from the cable bundle with terrible content to a
| different set of un-/re-bundled channels where the slightly
| better content lives.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/10/hbo-
| max-d...
| Bayart wrote:
| The Criterion Channel and MUBI are the only video streaming
| subscriptions I ever found real sustained value in.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Media consumption of everything all at once is expensive.
|
| But it is on demand now, which is a great improvement.
|
| And people can also pick and choose. I can buy individual
| episodes or seasons, or I can pay for one service per month
| and then cancel and pay for another next month. Or people
| can pay for everything all at once if they want. Or they
| can watch YouTube for free or pay to have fewer ad breaks.
|
| I see lots of improvement compared to the previous
| situation.
| jjulius wrote:
| >I can buy individual episodes or seasons...
|
| Can you, though? By this I mean, what does "buying" an
| episode/season look like? Have you simply paid for a
| license to watch the content via the provider you
| subscribe to as long as the provider continues to hold
| onto it's agreement with the rights holder that allows
| them to host the content, and you continue to pay said
| provider a monthly access fee? Or do you possess a
| physical copy, or a digital file, of the episode/season,
| un-DRM'd, on a device that you own?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is true, I should rephrase to state I can rent for
| an unspecified amount of time. But I also do not care
| enough about media to care if it goes away. I just buy
| for the toddlers who like to watch things on repeat. For
| me, I just rent whenever I want to watch something,
| sseagull wrote:
| > I can pay for one service per month and then cancel and
| pay for another next month
|
| I would not be surprised to see this go away. Some
| services have shows released regularly one episode at a
| time, which mimics broadcast TV (although that doesn't
| really bother me, and can be a good thing).
|
| But I would be willing to bet that they begin restricting
| access to these shows based on subscription length or
| something (can only see a show with a 1 year subscription
| or something).
|
| The goal is 100% to retake control from the consumer
| (well, it is to make money, but they will do that via
| controlling what a consumer can see).
| edgyquant wrote:
| No the goal is to make money
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is fine with me, media is a completely nonessential
| part of life, and a seller can sell how they want and a
| buyer can choose to buy or not buy.
|
| The great thing is the unnecessary middleman that used to
| restrict how sellers can sell is now out of the picture.
| Or in Comcast's case, merged into one entity.
|
| But that is a separate problem of government not
| designating fiber internet as a utility.
| vincnetas wrote:
| Just google "popcorn time". It's a user friendly UI for
| torrent world. On the facade it looks like regular streaming
| service. In the back it downloads and shows torrents
| seamlesly. Depending on yor country, consider using VPN.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| FAIK it's currently down.
| [deleted]
| jjulius wrote:
| >I don't have to dig through some torrent sites, download it,
| then stream it to the tv.
|
| You don't have to do that these days, either. There's
| software out there that will happily keep tabs on your
| favorite shows and films and download them as soon as they're
| available via torrent/newsgroup/etc., and then drop it
| directly into Plex, Kodi, or wherever, automagically.
|
| Just like streaming, but without the cost.
| runjake wrote:
| What might be some of the better software that does this?
|
| So I can avoid them, of course.
| jjulius wrote:
| Radarr and Sonarr; stay away from them!
| runjake wrote:
| Thank you for responding, I definitely will.
| synu wrote:
| It will even download as you watch if you want to watch
| something without a delay.
| [deleted]
| msoad wrote:
| Honestly I'm already off most of streaming services and use
| put.io for everything, including services that I'm already
| paying for. The home page that pushes garbage to my mind is
| another reason I'm avoiding those services. I want to watch
| things that I mindfully picked.
| intrasight wrote:
| My approach has long been to "buy" content but then obtain that
| content via torrent.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Apple moving into Ads is a huge systemic risk for the company.
|
| No one will trust them again if they make one major mistake, and
| Ads are a minefield for upcoming regulations.
|
| They have so much money and financing available, instead of being
| greedy, they should focus on hardware.
| DavideNL wrote:
| Many people are locked into the eco-system with all their
| devices. You can't just "stop" using iPhone / iPad / Macbook /
| iCloud / loose all your AppStore purchases, etc. etc..
| kirykl wrote:
| They already had an ad product before
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAd
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| The magic has left the building. No one at the top cares enough
| about the end user experience and what Apple represents to say
| "No, we make money selling great products not selling ads".
|
| This company will be completely unrecognizable in 10 years,
| product people are no longer holding the reigns.
| codalan wrote:
| I had a Pixel A-series phone last year. I was ambivalent at
| first, but was quickly surprised at how much easier it was to
| use. It also felt less intrusive and gave me more ability to
| control notifications.
|
| This is coming from someone who hates Google products.
|
| This year, I decided to go back to an iPhone. This has been
| my experience so far:
|
| - When you disable notifications for an app, expect to be
| asked inside the app itself to enable notifications. Every.
| Single. Time.
|
| - Expect some apps to hijack control. Spotify is the worst
| offender. I plug my phone into the car, will be in the middle
| of setting my course in Apple Maps, then get rudely
| interrupted as Spotify forces itself into the foreground
| after connecting.
|
| - In general, everything takes multiple taps to complete in
| iOS. It's just such a time suck to have to tap tap tap tap
| away at something that should be just one or two taps, at
| most.
|
| - Inability to customize apps. I use a third-party app to
| browse Reddit. The only way I can open Reddit links from the
| browser is to hold-tap, share, select 3rd party app. Just
| more tap swipe tap swipe tap...
|
| - The built-in mail and calendar apps are garbage
|
| - Safari is garbage and can't be replaced with a true 3rd
| party browser
|
| - A buggy Do Not Disturb functionality that will randomly
| leave itself on outside scheduled hours
|
| The first two points could arguably be blamed on the third-
| party apps themselves. But I would counter-argue that it's
| Apple's responsibility to punish companies that actively
| diminish the user experience by finding ways to skirt around
| iOS settings. If I turn off notifications, it should mean
| that the first time I'm asked. An app should not beg me over
| and over and over again to turn them on. I said no, don't ask
| again.
|
| Apps should not be allowed to hijack control, either.
|
| If Apple isn't going to focus on improving the user
| experience, and if they're going to start down the road of
| advertising, I guess I wonder what delineates them from
| anyone else in the mobile space. Now they're just a buggy,
| expensive interruption machine.
|
| Ironically, I had more control over my Pixel (with stock
| Android) and the way it behaved than I've ever had with the
| iPhone.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Ads make any product shittier. So it is systemic risk - because
| degrading the experience means that they are turning into more
| expensive android.
| ksec wrote:
| >No one will trust them again.
|
| As much as I want this to happen. It wont. Just look at the
| spin given out by either Apple's PR or Apple Apologist:
|
| "Apple were never against Ads. Steve Jobs made iAds." Meanwhile
| completely forgetting Tim Cook, 2014-2015. "Apple is not in the
| Ads Business." - In the Context of why you should choose Apple.
|
| "Apple Ads are privacy focused and they do not track you."
| _Cough_. They are only _personalised_.
|
| "Apple is moving away from China." ( No they are not ). "And
| has been planning to do so for a while." ( No they didn't )
|
| And literally all the Fans reading Appleinsider, Macrumors,
| 9to5Mac believes in it. As well as all the YouTube repeating "
| _THE SAME_ " information over and over again.
| p_j_w wrote:
| >And literally all the Fans reading Appleinsider, Macrumors,
| 9to5Mac believes in it.
|
| It's a common belief even on this site. I see it parroted all
| the time.
| _the_inflator wrote:
| Apple lets you pay for so called premium content. So this is
| some sort of black mailing: ad free, if you pay more.
|
| They took a look at YouTube premium, that's all.
| 3D30497420 wrote:
| Not sure that masses of people will no longer trust Apple due
| to a move into advertising. Many people still use products from
| companies that have continually done things that are against
| the interests of their users.
|
| Now, I do agree that it is a systemic risk to the company.
| Ultimately, businesses/people/organizations respond to
| incentives, and for businesses that is usually revenue. If your
| revenue comes from your customers, you're more likely to be
| aligned to the needs of your customers and try to meet their
| needs.
|
| However, with advertising, your customer is the advertiser, not
| the end-user. Additionally, your end user probably doesn't want
| advertising, so your incentives are now significantly
| misaligned with your end-user. Maybe that is fine for the near
| term, but each small decision that's pro-advertiser and anti-
| user compounds over time and eventually, creates a more user-
| hostile product.
|
| Also, as an aside, I expect the stock price drives decisions
| way more than how much money Apple has in reserve.
| tootie wrote:
| I don't think consumers will care or notice who is serving
| their ads. Google and Facebook have absorbed all the worst that
| regulators can throw at them, paid their fines and are still
| swimming in cash. Apple can navigate all the precedent they've
| set and utilize their dominating vertical integration to sell
| ads in the markets they own: AppleTV, iTunes/Podcasts, mobile
| apps. They'll add $10B to their revenue without breaking a
| sweat.
| MivLives wrote:
| Out of curiosity, what upcoming regulations?
| coldtea wrote:
| > _No one will trust them again if they make one major mistake_
|
| They have the advantage that all other competitors at that
| scale (FB, Google, etc.) are worse and even more desperate for
| ad revenue...
| cowpig wrote:
| I wish I could upvote this 100 times. Seems short-sighted to
| the point of company malpractice.
|
| Introducing a massive conflict of interest into their business
| model cannot possibly work out well in the long-term.
| drexlspivey wrote:
| There is a single point of failure in their hardware stack
| (TSMC). It makes business sense to try to diversify their
| revenue a bit.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| 20+ years now of not watching a single video ad (since the TiVo).
| I will never ever go back to that insanity. I'm unlikely to hoist
| the jolly rodger again as my internet connection is tied to my
| income. Honestly, I know that the day will eventually come when
| these parasites will eliminate ad-free streaming and ad-blocking
| on the web. At which point I will raise my middle finger as a
| flag and tackle my neglected reading list.
|
| Obligatory Bill Hicks:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Yeah, there's really no way I'm going back to a cable tv style
| ad hellscape. Before subscription streaming services I bought a
| lot of physical media so I might go back to that or the digital
| equivalent.
| [deleted]
| dont__panic wrote:
| Any reason you wouldn't use a seedbox? I'm strongly considering
| one since streaming service Balkanization started, and price
| increases are only making it more tempting. All I have to do is
| cancel one service to justify it, after all.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| You are asking me why I wouldn't pay for a service provided
| by dubious entities that is primarily used for activities
| that are illegal?
| dont__panic wrote:
| There are a lot of happy seedbox users out there -- I know
| quite a few. The companies sometimes go belly-up, but it's
| not like they're doing something truly repugnant like human
| trafficking or stealing from vulnerable people. They're
| just running a VM and providing an IP and not asking you
| any questions about what you're doing.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| [deleted]
| mattwest wrote:
| I have a question:
|
| Does the current state our attention economy and advertising
| ecosystem play a major role in the destruction of our planet,
| depletion of resources, and perhaps the rise in depression
| through hyper-consumerism?
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| I think it's a harder stretch to say it plays a major role in
| the destruction of the planet and depletion of resources but in
| my totally non-expert opinion I am positive that the rise in
| depression is coupled with it.
|
| Advertising has always been a thing but advances in the last
| 50-70 years in tech and human sciences has turned the problem
| up to 11. Increasingly every little move we make and thing we
| say is recorded, analyzed, run through an algorithm, then used
| to trick the lizard part of our brain into opening our wallet.
|
| Humans were not meant to be under CONSTANT psychological
| assault like this and if I were king I would outlaw marketing
| departments and severely restrict advertising across the board.
| kipchak wrote:
| I think the argument would be that prior to advertising as we
| know it today, people bought things because they needed them,
| and at a substantially lower level of consumption. For
| example you might need a pair of work boots, walking shoes,
| and dress shoes. Advertisements for 19th century shoes
| generally focused on their features, like quality, comfort,
| fit or value.
|
| Born from WWI's propaganda was the idea of using
| communication to convince someone of something against their
| interest or for your policy objectives. For example, all x
| are monsters and you should risk your life to go fight them,
| using emotional responses and conceptual associations. "make
| the world safe for democracy."[1] After the war it was
| realized these same techniques could be used to make people
| buy things they didn't need. Shoes are often now sold by
| convincing you they will make you more athletic, cool or
| similar self image. As a result there is now no limit on the
| number of shoes that a person "needs".
|
| This consumer culture[3], and was somewhat a conscious
| decision in response to the challenge faced by business from
| the ability to produce outstripping people's demands or
| overproduction. Consumers were trained via advertising, in
| order to keep production and growth humming, at the unseen
| expense of overconsumption. From Paul M. Mazur's :American
| Prosperity: Its Causes and Consequences" in 1928,
|
| "Advertising is an educational force. If effective, desires
| increase, standards of living are raised, purchases are made;
| purchases create production, production creates purchasing
| power, and the circle can be made complete if desire is at
| this point strong enough to convert that power into actual
| purchases.
|
| Of course there exists theoretically that danger point when
| consumption has reached its limit. Such a breaking point is
| probably non-existent.[2]
|
| [1]https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-woodrow-
| wilsons-p...
|
| [2]https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/01/21/desires/
|
| [3]https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/a-brief-history-of-
| consum...
| concordDance wrote:
| No, those are mostly caused by having over 7 billion people and
| improving quality of life.
| weberer wrote:
| I'll just say that not every talking point is directly related
| to every other talking point.
| zackmorris wrote:
| I see it more as, where business is going these days simply
| isn't compatible with the real progress we see on stuff like
| Star Trek.
|
| Some examples of real progress: automation, leisure time, low
| or no taxes on labor, residual income for everyone, longer
| lifespans, having children without fear of the world ending in
| a few years, radical inclusion, decommodification, politics
| without corruption, ending sexism/racism/agism/ableism/etc,
| renewable (free or nearly free) energy, free education, free or
| nearly free basic resources of life like food/shelter, free or
| nearly free medical care, a gradually lowering retirement age
| as tech improves..
|
| Some examples of phantom progress: advertising, collecting
| rents, converting unsustainable resources to capital, profiting
| from externalities, exploitation of the commons for private
| gain, charging interest, profiting from the labor of others,
| paying dividends, exclusivity, service industries, lobbying,
| divisive politics, monopoly/duopoly, patents/copyrights, unjust
| law enforcement (unequally applied), celebrity, royalty,
| dynastic wealth, patriarchy, for-profit insurance, service fees
| on the transfer of money, forcing the indigent and elderly to
| work to survive..
|
| Seen through this lens, the larger and less competitive
| companies grow, the more they impede real progress. We
| currently live under the largest companies in the history of
| the world, exploiting more people than at any other time except
| perhaps during colonialism/slavery. Which is now returning as
| neocolonialism as the rest of the world catches up to the
| developed world, so without a cheap labor force, we exploit
| ourselves.
|
| I only see one outcome without some kind of spiritual
| revolution: the gradual loss of income and buying power for
| working people, following a curve like Moore's Law where access
| to resources halves every 5-10 years as we're steadily
| outcompeted by the tech of moneyed interests, until money loses
| most of its value sometime in the 2030s and menial labor grows
| to fill the entirety of our waking lives.
|
| If Apple truly wanted to innovate, it could for example lead by
| building its products in the US at standard rates for labor and
| resources.
|
| Since Apple can't or won't do that, it turns to phantom tech to
| maintain profits as its ability to innovate for the common good
| (its original vision) continues to diminish.
| kornhole wrote:
| This looks like classic bait and switch in the tech industry.
| "Trust us, we are only interested in selling you hardware and
| maybe some services that protect your privacy." Once the people
| are sufficiently captured and wires deeply embedded, gradually
| change the terms and networks.
| sircastor wrote:
| I've wondered recently if we're going to see in the next 10 or 20
| years a split generation of people who are susceptible to ads. I
| heard anecdotally someone talking about his kids who weren't
| exposed to ads much because they (as a family) buy the ad free
| experiences - when they did see an ad, it was extremely effective
| and they were explaining to their father how much they needed
| this thing.
|
| Alternatively, are the poorer kids going to be the ones
| inoculated against advertising because they are exposed to it
| constantly?
| kimbernator wrote:
| Given the way our society is becoming more and more ad-focused,
| I have started to think that marketing should be taught to more
| people earlier. My first marketing class was a 300-level
| elective in my junior year of college, and it was invaluable in
| understanding the subtle ways advertisement is meant to reel
| you in, and how nobody is truly unaffected by advertisement, no
| matter how much they think they are.
| sircastor wrote:
| Anecdotal, but my 17yo is currently taking a marketing class
| in high school. I don't not how much media literacy that
| includes.
| concordDance wrote:
| Unless they're using uBlock of course.
| clord wrote:
| Perhaps not. my kids are ad-free (8 and 11), and when we visit
| family with a tv, at first they laugh at the ads and wonder why
| people fall for them, or what the ad is even for. They just
| turn the tv off and do something else when the ad interrupts
| what they were watching at a critical moment (dad, get this
| show later ok? I can't stand seeing that ad again).
|
| Also, many ads now are like insider jokes, trying to poke a
| certain market.
|
| I notice people who are used to it can just stare at the tv
| during the ads, even during a conversation. They go to the
| bathroom at the recap part of the show. I think TV ads are
| crafted to create a partial attention.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Anecdotal data but I do not watch ads.
|
| When I occasionally see one (usually at restaurants or such),
| it's.. weird? People in ads don't talk like real people. The
| timing and intonation and facial expressions are all off.
|
| I think my lack of exposure to ads has made them feel very
| alien to me.
| brezelgoring wrote:
| I know its anecdotal, but I grew up only having air channels (4
| in total, all state-owned) that had crazy long ad-spaces,
| something like 15 minute intervals of _just_ ads, and 10 min of
| contents (series with 28 minute episodes had an hour of airtime
| here, half their runtime was ads). I completely filter them
| out, always have.
|
| When I watch TV (seeing a boxing match, or a movie when at my
| in-laws' house), and an advertisement space is coming up, the
| TV magically turns much louder, blasting some jingle and
| colorful bursts, but I automatically stand up to go to the loo
| or get drinks or something.
|
| With streaming services, it's something else entirely. I _must_
| skip them, I get this discomfort in me, an urge to make the
| obvious text-to-speech ad that was auto-generated to tick my
| keywords shut up immediately. I wonder if it is because its
| targeted to me directly, or if it is because I have the ability
| to make it shut up, that I get this boiling sensation in my
| head when they come up.
|
| Still, I'd never pay for something like Spotify Premium or
| Youtube Premium just to get rid of them. Even if it were just a
| buck, I wouldn't do it.
| jerf wrote:
| Anecdotally... since that's all we have right now anyhow... my
| kids grew up in a similar situation, where I paid money for
| things and refused to pay money for ad-laden content, and
| they're almost oblivious to the ads. So far the only ads that
| have resulted in me being asked for things are things we would
| have ended up with anyhow. E.g., they both played and enjoyed
| Mario vs. Rabbids on the Switch, and they ended up seeing an ad
| for it and were interested. But I already knew about it and it
| was going to end up purchased anyhow. (Though I've told them I
| am likely to wait for it to go on sale.) I have not been
| bombarded with a laundry list of requests when they go to the
| grandparents (where they end up watching hours of TV, alas) or
| something.
|
| (Note I set the bar at "I was asked for something." I'm not
| claiming they're 100% mathematically immune to ads, anymore
| than I or anyone else is. Just that it wasn't like a forest
| fire charging through rich ground for the first time.)
| rglullis wrote:
| Do you really think it works that way? People might develop
| banner blindness, but subconsciously they are being bombarded
| with messages anyway. They are being trained to consume, to
| associate the sites they like to visit with certain brands,
| pushed products by influencers...
|
| If ads didn't work, companies wouldn't be paying billions of
| dollars per year. The only way to fight it is by being vigilant
| and block them at the source and become truly allergic to them.
| yunwal wrote:
| I do think it kind of works that way. Take a look at who is
| affected by blatantly fake news. It's the people that grew up
| in an era where there were just a few "legitimate" news
| sources. People who grew up with misinformation just laugh it
| off.
|
| Not saying fake news has no effect on young people but it's
| definitely a huge difference.
| rglullis wrote:
| > People who grew up with misinformation just laugh it off.
|
| It does not make them immune to other types of
| disinformation or manipulation tactics. To think that you
| are so smart to be beyond that is just hubris.
| dont__panic wrote:
| In a way, becoming allergic to the ads is the cure -- you
| need to immediately recognize the toxicity that stems from
| the emotional (rather than logical) appeals and the
| manipulative tactics companies use to undermine your own
| happiness and convince you to buy their products.
|
| At this point I can't even go to a sports bar for a drink
| because being bombarded by that many ads is a legitimately
| stressful experience. If I'm visiting a family member who
| leaves the TV on in their living room, I ask if we can turn
| it off -- or mute it and leave the room. But I don't view
| these as problems: I'm recognizing a negative thing in my
| reality and trying to cut it out. I imagine it like a bug
| problem: I won't go to a bar where cockroaches are crawling
| all over the walls, or hang out in a room where a bunch of
| cockroaches are nesting in the corner. Ads are the same
| thing, but you have to be much vigilant to keep them out of
| your life because so many people have gotten used to them.
|
| I hope folks start educating their kids at an early age to
| loathe ads. Middle schools and high schools ought to dissect
| ads in a dedicated (health?) class that showcases the
| manipulation tactics companies use to control viewers. But
| parents can do the same thing, knowing that school systems
| take literal centuries to adapt to new technology.
| skc wrote:
| Competing services should ironically be somewhat happy about this
| news. Apples entry into this space might help to legitimize it
| and quell at least some of the outrage.
| boringg wrote:
| How much of this is tied to facebook being shut out of targeted
| ads?
|
| Really not looking forward to this -- this is a serious brand
| risk for apple to step into more advertising.
| Melatonic wrote:
| I do not like apple at all and do not use their products and
| even I recognize this is a dumb move. They have tricked people
| into their walled gardens for years now and this might be the
| thing that finally wakes people up to the fact they are
| manipulating them into apple only services
| t3e wrote:
| I'm currently reading Tim Wu's "The Attention Merchants" about
| the history of advertising and can't recommend it enough. It's
| not a happy or encouraging story, however.
| newsclues wrote:
| I'm investing in a media server, hard drives and a seedbox.
| msoad wrote:
| or just pay for put.io
| nehal3m wrote:
| I'd never heard of this service. Seems nice. Do you use it
| yourself, and how do you like it?
| sva_ wrote:
| Seems very grey-area. Would definitely not want my credit
| card details to be on their list.
| tomrod wrote:
| What is giving you that vibe?
| sva_ wrote:
| They allow you to download Torrents and seed them on your
| behalf. Now of course, you might just be seeding Linux
| ISOs, but we both know that is probably not what 99.9% of
| their customers intend to do.
| mbesto wrote:
| The downloaded files are technically sitting on Amazon's
| server (IIRC). Put.io doesn't know an illegal file is
| there (it's encrypted), so how would any one else?
| sva_ wrote:
| By seeding a copyrighted file, someone could get Amazons
| IP address, who would in turn know the data was hosted by
| Put.io? I doubt they could get out of DMCA that easily.
| shitlord wrote:
| Doesn't that achieve the same thing as a seedbox but with
| less control and higher cost?
|
| Seedboxes are great when used with private trackers, but the
| trackers usually have very strict rules about which clients
| you can use, how long you must seed, etc.
| runjake wrote:
| How does one avoid DMCA notices from the ISPs? Is this
| where private trackers come into play? How does one who's
| not immersed in the community obtain access to private
| trackers?
| shitlord wrote:
| > How does one avoid DMCA notices from the ISPs?
|
| Rent a seedbox from a company not based in the US, under
| a pseudonym, and use cryptocurrency for payments. This is
| surprisingly common.
|
| > Is this where private trackers come into play?
|
| The main benefit of using a private tracker is access to
| high-quality content: no mislabeled content, no audio
| lag, etc.
|
| A side benefit of using private trackers (instead of
| public ones) is that you probably won't get any trouble
| from your ISP or any law firms.
|
| > How does one who's not immersed in the community obtain
| access to private trackers?
|
| Some trackers have Open Invite periods where anyone can
| join. You can use your membership there as a foothold
| into other private trackers.
| viridian wrote:
| Good investment. Would recommend you set up raid 1 for the hard
| drives if you can afford it, single redundancy is very nice to
| have. I'd also recommend jellyfin over plex or any of the other
| big proprietary players out there. Jellyfin just works, and has
| a pretty good list of plugins for metadata.
|
| The biggest drawback I've found is that I did have to make an
| account with opensubtitles to have automatic subtitles, and if
| you try to load too many pieces of media at once you may run
| into the 50 api's downloads per day limit for free accounts.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| This feels inevitable. When you chase growth infinitely ads
| becoming more appealing over time.
| jitix wrote:
| If this move proves profitable (likely will) shareholders will
| pressure Apple to move further into ads. I wonder what an
| alternative ecosystem would look like.
|
| Does anybody have experience with Fairphone/PinePhone/Librem as
| their daily driver? I don't necessarily need all the apps, but
| the common ones like WhatsApp, Amazon, Uber, Doordash, etc. Also,
| which wearables work best with open source phones?
| wobbly_bush wrote:
| I've personally gone back to reading more books instead of
| watching more TV, and it has been more fulfilling. It doesn't
| work for everything I used to watch - but for my main consumption
| of fiction, I now prefer books/audiobooks over TV. On the plus
| side, the artists are supported more directly with book sales
| rather than circuitous route of payment involved in subscription-
| based streaming. It also reduces the surface area where I can be
| exposed to ads.
| kart23 wrote:
| running ads with that amount of content is a no-brainer and it's
| pretty much going to be required to keep it profitable. I
| wouldn't be surprised if apple TV+ is losing money, I've seen $1B
| tossed around online.
| joegahona wrote:
| When did "planning" become synonymous with doing something
| "quietly," as though it's somehow underhanded, deceptive, or
| nefarious? Just because Apple didn't respond to Digiday's stupid
| request for comment doesn't mean they're up to no good. Companies
| very rarely make their roadmaps public or hold press conferences
| for initiatives they're working on.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Ads are often underhanded, deceptive, or nefarious so any plans
| to add them can be considered as such by extension.
| Calvin02 wrote:
| Apple doing a 0 to 100 on ads is pretty remarkable.
|
| Bold prediction: Apple will increasingly turn to services to
| maintain revenue growth as people don't upgrade their hardware as
| frequently because hardware innovation is also slowing down.
|
| On a similar note, Apple will find it hard to move into VR
| because it'll never be a big enough business for them but a make
| or break for Meta.
| quest88 wrote:
| Have they been against ads? I don't know. I know they've been
| pushing privacy, but I always thought it was because they want
| to be the only ones to know your behavior so they can sell ads
| instead of FB or Google.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Apple is definitely enamored with the service business model,
| but I think the issue with VR is a lot more clear-cut; Apple
| can't release a $1,000 headset in a market where $400 headsets
| exist too. VR is a novelty, and people will probably reach for
| whichever option is cheaper.
|
| If you want a more clear-cut example of this happening in the
| past, compare the launch of the PS3 with the Xbox 360. The PS3
| was the better console in _every way_ , being faster, having
| more features and _not_ being made by Microsoft!
|
| The Xbox 360 destroyed the PS3 at launch. Turns out, desperate
| consumers just wanted a cheap box to play vidya on. I think
| Meta knows this, which is why they go out of their way to
| undercut everyone, all the time.
| toqy wrote:
| I only got an Xbox 360 because I had an Xbox. I only had an
| Xbox because it had Halo, Halo 2, and Xbox Live. Price never
| came into the equation. If Sony had a better online
| multiplayer story and a killer game like Halo the PS3 things
| might have gone differently regardless of price point.
| sircastor wrote:
| >Apple can't release a $1,000 headset in a market where $400
| headsets exist too. VR is a novelty, and people will probably
| reach for whichever option is cheaper.
|
| I disagree. Apple did this kind of thing with the iPod and
| the iPhone. IIRC, the iPhone was $600 when it came out, and
| people paid it, even when there were dozens of other options.
| There are certainly people who are price sensitive, but
| Apple's never really cared about selling to those people
| anyway.
| smoldesu wrote:
| We'll have to see. Considering the amount of negativity I
| hear surrounding VR, I personally believe Apple is going to
| have an upwards battle selling their units. Even though
| people (myself included) hate Facebook, the value
| proposition of the Quest is a lot easier to sell.
|
| FWIW, Macs still struggle to surmount the number of Windows
| machines in circulation, much less the number of
| Chromebooks floating around out there. Maybe _you_ won 't
| buy Meta's headset... but what options will schools make?
| How about businesses? Gamers? Thrill-seekers? Apple's
| marketing tactics are second-to-none, but many a business
| has outsmarted them in the past. Meta might just be next-up
| to bat.
| scarface74 wrote:
| You mean like Apple can't release a $1200 phone and sell a
| "low cost phone" that's $400 in a market where $70
| unsubsidized phones exist?
| hnaccount_rng wrote:
| Isn't that the exact analog of "Apple can't release 1+k$
| phone in a market where 50$ phones exist"? Which they very
| clearly can and do.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's more like "Apple can't release a set-top box in a
| market where people get them for free", which is right. So
| right, as a matter of fact, that Apple had to develop
| AppleTV apps for the likes of FireTV, Tizen and Android.
| There are a number of markets that don't give a rat's ass
| about brand recognition, and unless Apple partners with
| Valve, I reckon VR/AR will be another one of those
| segments.
| scarface74 wrote:
| And yet they still sell a $170 set top box.
| smoldesu wrote:
| And it's by-far the lowest-effort product they make.
| Nevermind the rogue's gallery of subscription services
| they call a menu, the hardware itself has been copy-
| pasted across multiple generations, and the internals are
| mostly just repurposed/binned iPhone chips.
| hnaccount_rng wrote:
| So you are saying: "They don't put any effort into their
| infinitely more expensive product and they still sell it
| profitably." I really don't think that's an argument for
| the side you want it to be...
| scarface74 wrote:
| The internal of _all_ of their products are "repurposed"
| iPhone chips - even the 27" monitor
|
| I have multiple Roku TVs. But my main two TVs also have
| AppleTVs attached. The Apple TV has a faster, better
| interface and doesn't have ads.
|
| You can replace the top nav bar with non Apple apps that
| can also take over the "hero" portion of the screen when
| you navigate to them.
| givinguflac wrote:
| " Apple can't release a $1,000 headset in a market where $400
| headsets exist too."
|
| They definitely will, especially since Meta's new kit is
| $1,500.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Sure, anyone can do anything.
|
| Here's my "bold prediction" though - neither of those
| $1,000+ units will ever sell as well as the Quest.
| Especially WRT the consumer segment, Meta probably won't
| even stock the Quest Pro on shelves. It's clear that the
| Pro is more of a jab at the Hololens market anyways.
| indymike wrote:
| > On a similar note, Apple will find it hard to move into VR
| because it'll never be a big enough business for them but a
| make or break for Meta.
|
| I'm not sure that there is much of a technology jump to move
| into VR for Apple.
| [deleted]
| 12xo wrote:
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| More like 0 to 25. I hope they _do_ go to 100 so we can move
| past the Apple mysticism which is rampant in the US.
| etchalon wrote:
| I suspect this will fail, because Apple is fundamentally against
| providing the level of data large ad buyers want.
|
| We already saw this happen with iAd.
| perceptronas wrote:
| I might be wrong, but it feels like this will negatively affect
| their other products in the long term. Brand reputation goes both
| ways.
|
| Of course, in KPI spreadsheets Apple TV will bring more revenue
| and that's what counts. Slower growth of iPhone sales will be
| blamed on global recession.
| vidoc wrote:
| <company> is quietly <action> has been a trend for some time,
| love it!
| Melatonic wrote:
| More like (cr)Apple!
| belval wrote:
| I know it's morally dubious, but I'm completely back in
| pirateland because of all the changes/price hikes/partitioning in
| the streaming space. My interests make it so I only watch 1-2
| shows per platform so I'd be approaching ~100$/month.
|
| And even if I was swimming in money, it's often easier to just
| download the shows I want and watch them on Plex/Jellyfin than
| trying to navigate the (often ad-riddled) interfaces of the
| various platforms and finding _where_ the content I want is.
|
| One example is Rick and Morty, it's made by Adult Swim, but they
| don't have a streaming service in Canada. It seems to be on
| Primevideo but under a different system than their regular
| content. The other way to watch it is to buy it from my cable
| provider (I don't have cable). So to watch a 20-minutes animated
| show I'd have to take a +40$ subscription.
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| I like how you use one difficult example (Rick and Morty) to
| justify a wholesale move back into piracy.
|
| I use a Roku. It has all the apps. Sometimes I forget what show
| is in which app. JustWatch is helpful. I can legally buy Rick
| and Morty season 6 from iTunes. I'm laying in bed and could buy
| it in about 15 seconds.
|
| If there was no such thing as piracy and streaming services
| were free then dealing with all the different services would be
| a mild nuisance. IMHO people pirate primarily because of money.
| Everything else is just a weak attempt to morally justify
| something they know is wrong.
|
| At the very least pay for most of your content. Don't pirate
| everything just because that one anime from Japan you love is
| hard to legally pay for.
| pirateperp1 wrote:
| > I like how you use one difficult example (Rick and Morty)
| to justify a wholesale move back into piracy.
|
| Ah yes, the ol' blame the user.
|
| > streaming services were free then dealing with all the
| different services would be a mild nuisance
|
| Sure.
|
| > IMHO people pirate primarily because of money
|
| The biggest video games are all free.
|
| > At the very least pay for most of your content.
|
| Because of piracy, all the streaming services operate like
| free to play games. Disney+ gets $80/yr from payers. Not bad.
| Compare to Clash of Clans which is closer to $10-15/yr (per
| _payer_ ).
|
| They're doing a good job. I am not 100% sure what the payers
| are paying for. Lack of technical knowledge to pirate? You're
| right, nobody who would know how to do this would pay.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > > > streaming services were free then dealing with all
| the different services would be a mild nuisance
|
| > Sure.
|
| I'd still find piracy tempting if streaming services were
| free just because streaming service UIs don't offer good
| parental controls. All I want is a goddamn allow-list.
| That's it.
| [deleted]
| andsoitis wrote:
| > The biggest video games are all free.
|
| Huh?
| ask_b123 wrote:
| https://steamdb.info/graph/ Top 5 currently and Top 4 all
| time peak.
|
| And outside Steam others like Fortnite, Candy Crush,
| Roblox, Club Penguin...
|
| Many at the top here have a free-to-play model:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-
| played_video_game...
| tharax wrote:
| Many popular games are free to play. They monetise
| through targeting whales.
| Melatonic wrote:
| You have a Roku and you do not use Roku search? lol. It will
| tell you exactly where the show is and then let you open the
| app in one click :-)
| artificial wrote:
| Why not just buy the Rick and morty episodes or seasons, for
| example, on iTunes/appletv?
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Then what? If your disk is full and apple removes it from
| their collection you can't download it anymore.
|
| It just doesn't make any sense.. Just sell me an NFT and use
| that to access _ANY_ quality or media of that publication.
| Then I can also just resell my NFT, just like we would with
| videos, dvd, and games
| skulk wrote:
| I don't know how Apple sells media, but if you "buy" content
| on Amazon, you're still subject to licensing terms that
| Amazon negotiated, which often means you don't have permanent
| access to said content. Someone sued Amazon for this:
| https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6882808-Caudel-v-
| Ama...
| kennend3 wrote:
| I'm also Canadian and recently cancelled prime. It is weird how
| amazon prime video offers Canadian programming to Americans,
| but want me to buy an additional subscription to watch a
| Canadian show in Canada??
|
| I'm with you on this one, between the price hikes, geo-
| restrictions, etc streaming is rapidly declining.
| FredPret wrote:
| I always ignore Prime Video because you can't watch everything
| you see without subscribing to some channel.
| haliskerbas wrote:
| They have a "free to me" toggle, does it work for you?
| bombcar wrote:
| It does, and what I do is remember/bookmark the things that
| are in the weird channels, and then subscribe to one and
| cancel during the free period, and binge watch them all.
| muahahaha
| lstamour wrote:
| Actually you can get Rick and Morty legally in Canada via
| StackTV on Amazon channels for $12.99/month if you're an Amazon
| Prime member.[1]
|
| You can also watch episodes in the Global TV app, but you do
| have to have a subscription to Global TV to watch those, though
| it is often included in basic packages that start at $25/month
| ($15 for Alt TV) as CRTC mandated that channels be made
| available a la carte with a cheaper "Starter" package.[2]
|
| That said the cheapest (legal) way to get Rick & Morty is to
| record it yourself over-the-air for free given that Global is a
| nationally broadcast TV channel, for now. Edit: Actually, I'm
| not sure this is still the case.[3]
|
| 1. https://www.adultswim.ca/where-to-watch/
|
| 2. https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/television/program/alacarte.htm
|
| 3. https://blog.fagstein.com/2018/11/13/corus-asks-crtc-to-
| shut...
| black_puppydog wrote:
| I mean... this answer is probably the best illustration of
| GP's point... Talk about customer hostility...
|
| (the companies/pricing being customer hostile, not you of
| course)
| scarface74 wrote:
| It's customer hostile for them to expect you to pay for
| stuff?
| lstamour wrote:
| Oh the hostility is definitely still present despite
| (perhaps because of) the CRTC's regulations. For example,
| Bell successfully lobbied the CRTC to mandate that you can
| only buy TV from your ISP if watching on a home ISP cable
| package. This doesn't apply to Crave/Netflix/OTT, but if
| you want to a-la-carte buy a Global TV channel you'll have
| to buy it via your ISP, often Bell.
|
| There is definitely a need for things to change yet even in
| the land of the free (USA), there are talks of trying to
| "bundle" together OTT streaming as the next wave of getting
| you to pay more to watch the same content.[1]
|
| There is some good news though. Often when you subscribe to
| internet there are limited two-year promotions that offer
| streaming TV at no extra cost. Unfortunately, these plans
| often don't include PVR function and also don't include the
| ability to skip commercials when playing on demand, but
| luckily a number of on-demand streaming methods can still
| be tricked by adblock such as Pi Hole, in my experience.
| Not all of them, of course.
|
| 1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/streaming-service-bundle-
| cable-...
| tomxor wrote:
| Yup, and this is just for a single show... another show can
| have a different combination of hoops. For a while it felt
| like streaming services were seriously competing with the
| convenience of torrents, but I just can't be bothered with
| the mess it's become, the dark UX patterns, the anti-
| linux... the anti-user. I realised that when I started
| torrenting shows again that i technically had paid for that
| the streaming services had lost it again.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Yeah I agree in general - torrents originally didnt even
| get big because people wanted things for free - it was
| just way easier. Click a few buttons, wait a few minutes,
| done.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| Actually if you tell your client to load the pieces
| sequentially, and load the last piece first, and if you
| use a sane OS (like, not Windows) then you can skip the
| "wait a few minutes" part, you can start watching pretty
| much instantly.
|
| Or so I'm told :P
| varenc wrote:
| I pay for a bunch of streaming services, for semi-moral
| reasons, but I still pirate 99% of content.
|
| Pirating is the only way to get accurate high-quality
| subtitles. I'll automatically download them from Opensubtitles
| and then strip out the very distracting non-dialogue parts like
| "[ominous music]". Also streaming services often have out-of-
| sync subtitles, like DS9 on prime video. With pirated content I
| automatically get perfectly synced dialogue-only subs in the
| exact font, size, and styling of my choosing.
|
| Other benefits of pirating include:
|
| - knowing exactly what bitrate/resolution you're getting.
| Streaming services love to stealthily downgrade Chrome users to
| 720p. Pirated content often uses more computationally complex
| encoding letting you get more quality in fewer bits.
|
| - easy playback of 4K content on the desktop. Often streaming
| services restrict 4K to certain hardware devices only. (where
| they can do L1 DRM protection)
|
| - general playback flexibility. Instead of relying on each
| streaming service's bespoke interface, I can use my preferred
| media player (IINA/mpv) with all my favourite keybindings.
| Also, I can try out things like vapoursynth motion
| interpolation to get pseudo-60fps, or real-time upscaling of
| cartoons with Anime4K.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| Meh, maintaining the fully automated TV show downloader I used
| to use was a pain in the butt and it was always having some
| issue or another. I'll gladly pay the $100 or w/e per month to
| avoid it, and I haven't had a problem like yours where
| something I wanted to watch wasn't available.
|
| As I get older, I find myself more willing than before to trade
| cash for time, and this is exactly one of those scenarios.
|
| Rick and Morty came close, but Youtube TV taped the episodes
| for me so I watch them there.
| Justin_K wrote:
| What were you using? Nzb / sonarr / radarr / Plex is quite an
| amazing setup. Very low maint.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Plex Metadata Manager also allows you to import
| tmdb/imdb/tvdb/trakt lists which makes discovery a solved
| problem. You can have it import the top TV shows and movies
| currently playing which means it always has the latest
| releases.
|
| The whole process is absurdly low maintenance once set up,
| as long as you have the storage space for it.
| colordrops wrote:
| I assume you run these behind a VPN? Or is traffic
| obfuscation part of these packages?
| collegeburner wrote:
| it's not P2P so the chance of getting a nastygram to your
| ISP is basically 0. why would he bother?
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Plex/Sonarr etc don't handle the actual downloading part,
| so they don't need to be behind a VPN. They simply look
| up the show metadata from public databases and find
| downloads available from indexes you have registered,
| passing on the download that best fits your criteria to
| whatever download client you have configured (so the
| download client is the only part that needs to be behind
| a VPN).
| coldtea wrote:
| Or like most they just doesn't care about that?
| matai_kolila wrote:
| No need, you can sign up for any of the hundreds of
| private torrent sites and the RIAA isn't legally able to
| join and send anything to your ISP, and without literally
| the RIAA sending the letters to your ISP, your ISP
| doesn't care.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| Yep, all of those things, with a Synology NAS for storage
| running in docker containers on a laptop in my office. When
| it worked, it was seamless. When it worked.
|
| I think for some folks, maintenance is part of the "hobby"
| so they may not think of it as a chore, but I'm at a point
| where I don't really enjoy the sysops stuff as much
| anymore.
| mbesto wrote:
| https://showrss.info/ + https://put.io/ is easy as hell
| [deleted]
| _-_-__-_-_- wrote:
| This is exactly what I'm currently working towards at home.
| Buying a few more hard drives and a new case for my current
| desktop to turn it into a local media server and cancelling all
| streaming services.
|
| Someone tells me about a show, I add it to a list and then find
| it later. Throw it up on Jellyfin and I can watch it anywhere
| using Tailscale (based on Wireguard).
|
| One of the instances that pushed me was "buying" a movie on NFB
| (the National Film Board of Canada). I could only watch the
| movie in their player in a browser. But, I had paid 12~20$ for
| the movie. Instead, I found a Firefox plugin to download the
| video file and I used Jellyfin to watch it. Being Canadian,
| lots of media is region-locked.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > Someone tells me about a show, I add it to a list and then
| find it later. Throw it up on Jellyfin and I can watch it
| anywhere using Tailscale (based on Wireguard).
|
| Jellyfin FTW. I spent a half-dozen attempts over a dozen
| years trying to make XBMC work such that I was spending more
| time using it than messing with it (including just getting
| lost in their UI with an accidental button press and having
| to figure out how to get out of whatever unfortunate mode I'd
| become stuck in) and that anyone other than me was able and
| willing to use it. None succeeded. Painful set-up, painful UI
| (the themes don't help because they don't change the way it
| behaves), and you have a copy of XBMC on some XBMC-capable
| device attached to every TV you want to watch on.
|
| Jellyfin solved all those problems.
|
| Edit settings in a browser, leave the TV UI to do TV UI
| stuff. Clients on every major platform (even if the best ones
| are paid on some platforms--my paid tvOS app was entirely
| worth the could-find-it-in-the-couch-cushions amount of money
| it cost). Roku, Android, tvOS, whatever. Stream to any
| computer, tablet, or phone without installing anything. It's
| great.
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| > And even if I was swimming in money, it's often easier to
| just download the shows I want and watch them on Plex/Jellyfin
| than trying to navigate the (often ad-riddled) interfaces of
| the various platforms and finding where the content I want is.
|
| I'm not quite there yet, but even when i already pay for the
| service (for example Amazon) i'm tempted to pirate it. My local
| Plex server is so much more usable than Amazon's terrible
| streaming app. Amazon's app freezes frequently for me, gets
| loading widgets stuck overlaying the movie/show, etc.
|
| I'm debating finding a way to download shows i pay for and then
| watch them locally. A bit of a grey area between paying and
| pirating, but i'm done with their crap UXs.
|
| I'll avoid pirating as long as i can because i make plenty to
| justify not pirating; but i will gladly solve their terrible UX
| problems myself if i am able. I am paying for it after all. TOS
| be damned.
| [deleted]
| papito wrote:
| So is mine, but I cut the cord 10 years ago, when my Internet +
| TV bill hit $250. Cable bills basically keep going up until you
| leave.
|
| Now, because of inflation, $100 is not even what it was 10
| years ago, so I am not sure why people are getting torqued
| about this. It's still a very good deal, considering the
| quality and amount of entertainment that you get, which is
| light years better compared to back when Facebook was still
| cool.
| taylodl wrote:
| You make the case for pay-per-view shows. I'm not an industry
| insider so I don't know how much revenue they may be leaving on
| the table from people like us who would have purchased an
| episode or season of something but not sign up for $14.99 per
| month. Right now I'm consolidating my streaming services. It's
| gotten to be too much and I simply don't watch enough to
| warrant the cost.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| FULL CIRCLE! haha.
|
| People used to have this crazy bundle of streaming services
| called "cable TV" People started to complain that it was
| getting too expense to pay $150+(even with commercials) a month
| when you only watch a dozen of the hundreds of channels at
| most. Then came streaming services. People were thrilled they
| could only pay for one channel at a time for 10-15$ per
| month.... problem solved.
| Aissen wrote:
| Most of those are without commitment, why not round-robin
| between them every month ?
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| I'm back in pirate land now that Bleach is on Disney plue and
| not crunchy roll. Beginning of the end for crunchy roll, the
| last service that really had everything in its market space
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| I wish Summertime Rendering would get out of Disney Plus
| jail. I've thought about pirating it multiple times.
|
| Western shows get more formulaic by the day and anecdotally
| most of my friends that watch anime watch 98% anime and 2%
| occasional popular show on netflix.
|
| Anime fans will be more likely to drop non-anime streaming
| services in favor of additional anime streaming services.
| e.g. trade Hulu for HiDive
| efsavage wrote:
| This is a moral question, but the answer doesn't really matter
| because there's a more important issue that preempts it, which
| is that you're ignoring a signal that if these these things
| aren't worth your money they're probably not worth your time
| either.
|
| I'm no fan of the companies involved, or their policies, or
| even copyright law as it stands, but I've gotten to a point
| where if something entertaining isn't worth the price, I just
| don't buy it. I have no "right" to watch a TV show that some
| monopoly is infringing upon.
|
| We all have _so many_ things competing for our time and money,
| take advantage of that. If Rick & Morty isn't worth $40 to
| you, spend that $40 _and those 20 minutes_ on something of
| better value.
|
| And yes, I still watch TV, though far less (2-4 hours/week)
| than I did before I adopted this thought process. And yes, I do
| watch, and pay for, Rick and Morty :D
| nscalf wrote:
| I don't find this particularly morally dubious. These companies
| are approaching monopoly powers and using it to squeeze
| consumers. Disney owns about 1/3 of all box office revenue. The
| government has shown they're unwilling to break up monopolies,
| or even really limit them in any meaningful way.
|
| Also, I don't quite know my feelings on this yet, but there is
| something real about some shows and movies being part of the
| milieu. Something doesn't sit quite right about repeatedly
| increasing the pricing via anti-consumer acquisitions on
| products that are contributing a substantial part of how the
| society collectively feels and thinks. It feels like you have
| to make more money to live in the same society.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| > The government has shown they're unwilling to
|
| Have they? Or perhaps trash media is the bottom of their list
| of priorities? Maybe they are overloaded with cases and need
| more support? There are many more possible explanations than
| "shown they are unwilling"
|
| You can take a look at some recent current and pending
| antitrust cases on the DOJ's website:
|
| https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-case-
| filings?search_ap...
|
| In fact there was _just recently_ action taken against
| Disney, which forced it to sell of major parts of 21st
| century before it was allowed to proceed with the merger.
|
| https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-case-
| filings?search_ap...
| themitigating wrote:
| It's morally dubious to pick and choose what laws you follow.
| It doesn't matter if you think they are monopolies, that's
| not your judgment to make
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| Is it morally dubious to change citizenship to another
| country? That's literally choosing what laws you follow.
| What about religions? Their texts used to be laws, and we
| seem to believe in freedom to choose our beliefs.
|
| I think every citizen has the _responsibility_ to choose to
| not follow unjust laws.
| fancyfish wrote:
| It's well-accepted in psychology/sociology that moral
| development extends beyond simply following the law, i.e.
| using the law as a stand-in for moral principles. E.g. in
| Kohlberg's stages of moral development[1], there is a post-
| conventional stage where an individual develops a moral
| code independent of laws, and views laws as a social
| contract that can be disobeyed if it violates his/her
| morals. Laws are a good guideline, but are not an absolute
| moral framework.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_sta
| ges_o...
| bee_rider wrote:
| I think you could make a strong argument for the "sign" on
| the morality of pirating being negative.
|
| But the "magnitude" is so low, I can't imagine caring when
| other people do it.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > that's not your judgment to make
|
| It certainly is.
| LocalH wrote:
| It's morally dubious to practice blind adherence to the law
| for the sake of it being the law
| prometheuspk wrote:
| You can object to the law. Petition your lawmaker to
| change the law. Be vocal about hating the law. But until
| its not the law, you have to follow it.
| evandale wrote:
| I practise my objection to the law by downloading
| whatever I want. If somebody has a problem with that they
| are free to sue me :)
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| Getting sued will be the least of your worries.
|
| There's a litany of incidents where the FBI has raided
| homes just to snag one pirater.
|
| With how politically weaponized the FBI has become in
| recent years, I personally would want to do everything I
| could to avoid attracting any attention from them.
|
| Not worth it to watch some shitty trash TV or movie,
| personally.
| vcxy wrote:
| I understand that you believe that, but you didn't say
| why. Is this a foundational belief or is there a deeper
| reason?
| prometheuspk wrote:
| It's a foundational belief of the social contract we've
| signed by agreeing to democracy
| stormbrew wrote:
| Democracy exists at all because people did not follow a
| blind adherence to law.
|
| At any rate, "the law" is a body of rules so large and
| complex that likely almost no one actually manages to get
| through a month without breaking it a couple times.
| samatman wrote:
| > _The Constitution has no inherent authority or
| obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all,
| unless as a contract between man and man. And it does not
| so much as even purport to be a contract between persons
| now existing. It purports, at most, to be only a contract
| between persons living eighty years ago. And it can be
| supposed to have been a contract then only between
| persons who had already come to years of discretion, so
| as to be competent to make reasonable and obligatory
| contracts. Furthermore, we know, historically, that only
| a small portion even of the people then existing were
| consulted on the subject, or asked, or permitted to
| express either their consent or dissent in any formal
| manner. Those persons, if any, who did give their consent
| formally, are all dead now. Most of them have been dead
| forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years. And the
| Constitution, so far as it was their contract, died with
| them. They had no natural power or right to make it
| obligatory upon their children. It is not only plainly
| impossible, in the nature of things, that they could bind
| their posterity, but they did not even attempt to bind
| them. That is to say, the instrument does not purport to
| be an agreement between any body but "the people" then
| existing; nor does it, either expressly or impliedly,
| assert any right, power, or disposition, on their part,
| to bind any body but themselves._
|
| Lysander Spooner goes on to expand this theme greatly.
|
| Foundational essay, well worth a read:
| https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/spooner-no-treason-no-
| vi-t...
| dexterdog wrote:
| Please show me where I signed
| [deleted]
| LocalH wrote:
| I agreed to no such thing. The social contract I've been
| forced into seems to have a lot to do with enriching
| power and moneyed interests, at the expense of the
| individual. I want no part of that.
| themitigating wrote:
| In a democracy you don't always get what you want
| jallen_dot_dev wrote:
| Strictly following the law because it is the law is
| precisely amoral. You are taking moral judgement out of
| the question.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| You need to fundamentally rethink your philosophy if you
| think law and morals are the same. Rosa Parks would like to
| have a word with you.
| kube-system wrote:
| Immanuel Kant would like to have a word with you.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Ha, well Kant's universal moral law is really what I'm
| getting at here. It transcends the current, highly
| immoral, Western legal system which is often confused
| with universal law.
| kube-system wrote:
| Yeah, Kant wasn't a fan of 'law' in the legal sense, but
| natural and moral law does respect property rights. I'm
| not really aware of a deontological argument against IP.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| I don't think philosophy has caught up with the dizzing
| media landscape we exit in today. It's such a
| multifaceted problem.
|
| Like others have mentioned, media is heavily shaping
| culture today, and is responsible for a large amount of
| cultural dissemination and public discourse. And today,
| to be a patron of the arts, you are looking at an
| increasingly large library of works which you need
| affordable access to. Knowledge shouldn't be pay-to-play.
|
| With companies like Disney eating the lion's share, we
| should worry about what kind of legal landscape a
| continued, coordinated lobbying effort could lead to.
| Remember the shock around the DMCA? We still have massive
| and systematic abuse issues because of it. A chilling
| effect is well-established.
|
| With the way Microsoft, Apple and other vendors are
| moving, locked down computing platforms are becoming a
| silent reality. Thanks to corporate astroturfing efforts,
| cloud fingerprinting is being normalized as the moral
| choice. What's next, screen fingerprinting to ensure our
| greedy, multi-headed subscription serpent overlord always
| gets its piece of the pie?
|
| Eventually, unchecked corporate lobbying in areas like IP
| will lead to an inscrutable system of governance hiding
| behind the opt-in curtain, which completely sidesteps the
| ever-evolving system of rights envisioned by our past
| democratic visionaries.
| kube-system wrote:
| Well, philosophy is one of those disciplines in which
| work is always being done, but it's takes time for any
| work to become well recognized. Some day, some ethics
| ideas written by someone living right now will be
| something everyone reads about in philosophy 101. But we
| can still apply many of the frameworks from hundreds of
| years ago to current ethics problems. There are no
| completely new moral ideas, everything is similar,
| influenced by, or related to ideas that others have come
| up with.
|
| As you point out, there are plenty of utilitarian and/or
| consequentialist arguments for piracy. From an
| academically philosophical perspective, these aren't
| "right" or "wrong" arguments, they're just from a
| different school of philosophical thought than some other
| arguments which may dismiss concerns of utility or
| consequence.
|
| a consequentialist might say: "Piracy is fine because the
| DMCA causes chilling effects which are bad, regardless of
| the wishes of the author."
|
| a utilitarian might say: "Knowledge is good for society
| so piracy provides greater utility for mankind, more than
| it harms a few authors."
|
| but a deontologist might say: "we have to respect the
| rights given to someone to reproduce their work,
| regardless of bad consequences"
|
| All of these are academically valid arguments, regardless
| of which one any of us subscribe to.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| A pragmatist might say, "Piracy can only be
| contextualized and not objectively analyzed".
|
| It's a completely different set of arguments from someone
| like us who can object on aesthetic and philosophical
| grounds, vs. a poor kid from Brazil who just wants some
| cultural exposure.
| Fervicus wrote:
| He kant.
| lwhi wrote:
| How on earth is not our right to engage our own brains and
| decide if we agree with any aspect of the world that hold
| sway on us????!!
|
| I completely disagree. To think otherwise is to be entirely
| passive and compliant in a world that quite possibly could
| be (edit: is) corrupt on many levels.
| chalst wrote:
| Do you know all the laws that apply to you? If you don't,
| that's some selectivity right there.
| jonathanlb wrote:
| You assume that laws are moral to begin with. Remember,
| slavery was legal in the United States, and the Nazis made
| laws to deprive Jewish people of their rights.
|
| Conversely, not all immoral acts are illegal, e.g. cheating
| on a spouse.
| Melatonic wrote:
| or we need new laws that update what a "monopoly" is
| dexterdog wrote:
| It's not? I don't know where you're from, but if you're
| from one of the places that claims that its people are free
| then it is the people's judgement to make. If I download
| and watch a show from irc/usenet/torrent/etc I am harming
| nobody. It is no different than going to watch it at a
| friend's house. If the content providers want to secure
| their content they have to go back to showing it only in
| controlled locations, but that costs them too much and
| restricts their audience.
| Super_Jambo wrote:
| Outsourcing your moral decisions to the legal system seems
| a lot more dubious to me.
|
| I don't think you can claim a coherent moral philosophy
| when the morality of an action depends on the legal
| jurisdiction you happen to be standing in.
| pigscantfly wrote:
| Practicing civil disobedience against laws you believe
| unethical is not morally dubious, it's legally dubious. If
| anything, I'd consider it a display of moral fortitude to
| prize one's ethics above the potential consequences.
| Blammar wrote:
| Exactly. And now it's time for Godwin, more or less:
| would you have followed the laws in Nazi Germany that
| made Jews less than human?
| bee_rider wrote:
| I mean I think copyright laws are dumb but this seems a
| like a bit of an over-dramatic comparison.
| alvarezbjm-hn wrote:
| Here in HN it is frowned upon, but I do sometimes like to
| exagerate a point to show perspective, first.
|
| Now that we can agree that law can not be followed 100%
| of time let's kill the comparison with genocide.
| nkjnlknlk wrote:
| Not really when the initial comment was that it is
| immoral to disobey _any_ law.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I actually think piracy is more like speeding than civil
| disobedience for most people. The intent of most people
| who pirate things isn't to get caught and change the
| laws. The intent is to just ignore a law that is
| inconvenient.
|
| And it is sort of similar in the sense that, copyright
| law is over aggressive, honestly, many speed limits are
| set too low, violation is pretty wide-spread, and within
| reason it seems basically fine.
|
| It breaks down a bit at the edges though, because extreme
| violations of speed limits can result in harm and death,
| while copyright is just lost profits.
| nrb wrote:
| > It breaks down a bit at the edges though, because
| extreme violations of speed limits can result in harm and
| death, while copyright is just lost profits.
|
| It's not remotely the same amount of harm, but mass
| violations of copyright seem to be able to end series and
| potentially production companies. Netflix and Hulu appear
| to be making go/no-go decisions about a series after the
| first few days/weeks of viewership data.
| mhb wrote:
| There's a difference between civil disobedience and just
| getting away with something because you can.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| Unless there are people who literally never broke any law
| (and there aren't), picking and choosing laws is exactly
| what every human does.
| ryanwaggoner wrote:
| It's pretty morally dubious to think you can outsource your
| own sense of ethics to whatever government you happen to
| live under. Some laws are immoral to break, others are not.
| It's 100% up to you to decide what your own moral and
| ethical framework is, including whether to outsource those
| decisions to a government, religion, culture, etc. That
| doesn't mean you get to decide on the consequences for
| breaking the rules that society, religion, etc, has
| imposed, but that's orthogonal to whether they fit your
| personal ethics.
| hahaxdxd123 wrote:
| They are approaching monopoly by ... competing with each
| other and taking down Netflix's near 100% streaming market
| share?
| harlequinn77 wrote:
| andsoitis wrote:
| > These companies are approaching monopoly powers and using
| it to squeeze consumers.
|
| This doesn't compute. Firstly, multiple companies cannot
| simultaneously have monopoly power of the same resource.
| Secondly, there is by just one company who controls the
| majority or all content. In fact, having to subscribe to
| multiple services proves that there are multiple companies
| who provide tv shows and movies.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Firstly, multiple companies cannot simultaneously have
| monopoly power of the same resource.
|
| Sure they can; it's called a cartel when that happens.
|
| The major content publishers have acted in concert to
| kneecap Netflix; pulling licensed content, no longer
| licensing popular new content, etc.
| motoxpro wrote:
| So you're saying you WANT Netflix to be a monopoly and
| have all of the licensed content and new shows?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| From a consumer standpoint, life was much better when
| that was the case. One app, one service, pretty much
| anything I want to watch. Per-network streaming services
| were just a glint in some executive's eye, and things
| were good.
|
| The current state of things is confusing, expensive, and
| user hostile.
|
| I was trying to figure out how to watch Rick & Morty S6
| the other night. It'll be on Hulu, but not for months.
| It'll be on HBO Max, too, but it's only downloadable for
| offline viewing on Hulu. Wanna watch it now? Need a cable
| subscription, even though Adult Swim's website says "now
| available on HBO Max".
|
| I like the idea of any streaming service being able to
| license any show, if they can pay the fee. Another
| comment mentioned the Paramount Decree as a similar
| example.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Streaming service providers should be legally prohibited
| from exclusive ownership of content: anything they put on
| their platform should have compulsory licensing at the
| same rate they paid.
| shkkmo wrote:
| I think that exclusivity clauses for many platforms
| should be made illegal or atleast severely limited in
| duration.
| stormbrew wrote:
| If we had something like the Paramount Decree for
| streaming/tv anyone would be able to license those shows
| and we'd have actual choices.
| wvenable wrote:
| If we disallow exclusive licenses then that's not as much
| of a problem.
| nescioquid wrote:
| You assume that the only legitimate arrangement is that a
| piece of content can only be available on a single
| platform. Wouldn't we think it is weird if each book
| could only be sold by exactly one book seller?
|
| What if the platforms competed on offering a better user
| experience or other affordances or price?
|
| If there were some way to break the normalization of
| exclusive distribution, that would tilt things back in
| favor of the consumer, but I won't hold my breath for the
| legislation.
| naravara wrote:
| In my perfect world we would decouple content libraries
| from the technologies, services, interfaces, etc. that go
| into serving the content. The former is largely a
| curation and legal-rights negotiation task. The latter is
| a technical and interface design task. It kind of sucks
| that we're held hostage to bad UX or technology to access
| good content or vice versa. It's definitely not a great
| situation for the consumer and is a classic case of
| market failure owing to the (albeit limited) monopoly
| powers of the rights holders.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| We did something similar, for similar reasons, with movie
| studios and movie theaters. Movie studios couldn't own
| theaters until _very_ recently (a couple years ago, I
| think).
|
| Production companies shouldn't be able to own streaming
| platforms, and streaming platforms shouldn't be able to
| become production companies.
| gfaster wrote:
| What your missing is that this is not (generally) the same
| resource. The resource is individual shows, which are
| copyrighted and therefore a monopoly. Back when copyright
| holders didn't recognize the online streaming market and
| sold off their licenses cheaply, Netflix was awesome. Now
| that publishers have found out they can charge consumers
| directly and be the only place to watch a given show,
| consumers are being squeezed.
| dexterdog wrote:
| That's because the word he meant to use was cartel
| slim wrote:
| monopoly power of the same resource
|
| they can because it's not a resource in first place, it's
| infinite.
| bee_rider wrote:
| People often say monopoly when talking about general anti-
| competitive behavior/abusing market position. If you want
| to nitpick on that point, that's up to you I guess, but you
| must know that changing how people talk about this is
| completely hopeless at this point, right?
| throw10920 wrote:
| Nobody has the right to obtain copyrighted entertainment
| products. Unlike, say, having access to food or water, or
| even education, there's no coherent moral framework that says
| that you are obligated to the latest TV shows or movies under
| your own terms.
|
| > that are contributing a substantial part of how the society
| collectively feels and thinks
|
| First of all, I straight-up don't believe this. I had very
| little exposure to TV/movies/books/the internet growing up,
| and yet I feel virtually no disconnect with my friends and
| co-workers - even when I don't understand a particular
| cultural reference they make, they either explain it and we
| engage in a fun tangent about it, or we just laugh and move
| on.
|
| Second, even if that were true - then the problem is that
| culture is being built off of copyrighted works in the first
| place. Solve _that_. Doing otherwise shows that this is just
| a convenient excuse to secure access to personal
| entertainment.
| kennend3 wrote:
| > Nobody has the right to obtain copyrighted entertainment
| products.
|
| what about all the things that should have been out-of-
| copyright had large companies not purchased favourable
| laws? How many years after death are we up to now? Is this
| what people originally agreed to when copyright laws were
| created? Did they agree to the extensions or did the
| government do this for the "lobbying"?
|
| What about public domain which was taken by for-profit
| companies and then copyrighted so you cant do the same?
| WHYLEE1991 wrote:
| This is the one of the oddest things I've read all day. you
| should feel a certain disconnect during these
| conversations, and it's odd to think of media as something
| that people don't relate over and use to bond. People will
| obviously accommodate people who aren't in the in group
| (and know about insert thing) to not be complete assholes,
| but you will absolutely be treated differently in life for
| not being into _insert thing_ for better or worse.
| nkjnlknlk wrote:
| perhaps not engaging in popular culture at all makes you
| oblivious to said treatment. after all, you have no
| reference.
| k__ wrote:
| If the laws are flawed a citizen should resist.
|
| I think, corporations gatekeeping huge parts of human
| culture is something that we can resist once in a while.
| jjcon wrote:
| > then the problem is that culture is being built off of
| copyrighted works in the first place. Solve that.
|
| How about you solve your business model that relies on the
| generosity and goodwill of people not to take an infinitely
| distributable good.
|
| Maybe it isn't morally coherent but I am all for resisting
| the US government's pro monopoly positions by pirating from
| said monopolies. True resistance will never be legal in a
| framework where the rules are dictated by authoritarian
| governments or in this case corporations.
| alexilliamson wrote:
| There is IMO a coherent moral framework that says "this is
| harming no one"
| xeromal wrote:
| I think that's borderline a similar argument to loss
| prevention in department stores. I don't know hard
| numbers, but assuming there's a 2-3% loss in goods due to
| theft, the department stores can still make profit. "No
| one is harmed yet" If everyone stole goods, the stores
| would go bankrupt.
|
| I think the same argument can be made for pirating. It's
| harming no one as long as it remains a minority action.
| If the entire population felt the same as you, the
| movie/game/show industry would take a huge crash.
|
| My personal believe is that morals shouldn't rest on
| other people not doing what you're doing for it to be ok
| morally. It needs to be applicable for 100% of the
| population for it to be moral. (barring obvious
| exceptions like handicapped people using handicap stalls,
| etc)
| alvarezbjm-hn wrote:
| Nobody will miss neither Disney or Merck or Elsevier, or
| any other company whose bussiness is copyright and
| artificial scarcity. 100% of people can pirate their
| content and noone will miss them because we didn't need
| them in the first place.
|
| Content will still be created.
| xeromal wrote:
| This is a nice fantasy but it's not grounded in reality.
| [deleted]
| samatman wrote:
| > _there 's no coherent moral framework that says that you
| are obligated to the latest TV shows or movies under your
| own terms._
|
| Copyright anarchy and copyright abolition are absolutely
| coherent moral frameworks.
|
| I have a magnet link. It brings me information. You don't
| want me to have that information? Up yours.
|
| Oh you _made_ it did you? Should 've thought about my BATNA
| before deciding how to put it on the market.
|
| For the record, I'm quite a bit more moderate than this
| would imply. But copyright is a weird wrinkle to "encourage
| the useful arts and sciences", it's has no basis in natural
| rights, the opposite in fact: the State intervenes in my
| natural right to do things with my own computer and the
| Internet connection I pay for, in order to encourage the
| making of more cinema and so on.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| > Second, even if that were true - then the problem is that
| culture is being built off of copyrighted works in the
| first place. Solve that.
|
| I mean - the natural state of these works has ALREADY
| solved that, they are easily copied and distributed. The
| only prevention is arbitrary law/policy that says we (the
| royal one) shouldn't.
|
| So you're essentially arguing that no one has the right to
| a product, but they do - in a natural state, copying and
| sharing those items IS THE DEFAULT.
|
| In fact - copyright law is insanely new, as far as laws go
| - dating back only about 300 years (1710 - Statute of
| Anne).
|
| Personally - I think the whole thing was a mistake, and
| we've seen complete erosion of public access to works of
| all sort (not to mention education) under these new laws.
| That said - they're wildly successful if the goal is to
| subvert culture for private gains.
| alvarezbjm-hn wrote:
| You forgot genes. Why on earth is society oblivious of laws
| that allow copyrighting of human genes?
|
| "Unlike, say, having access to food or water, or even
| education"
|
| This is YOUR take. MY take is NOTHING should be
| copyrightable. People will still go to concerts and movie
| theathers. If anything, copyright stiffles production and
| innovation.
|
| EDIT: I forgot to remind you that copyright is different
| from trademark. I think trademark is constructive, but
| copyright is not.
| senko wrote:
| > Nobody has the right to obtain copyrighted entertainment
| products. Unlike, say, having access to food or water, or
| _even education_ , there's no coherent moral framework that
| says that you are obligated to the latest TV shows or
| movies under your own terms.
|
| Yet educational books are copyrighted all the same, and
| scientific journals fight tooth and claw from preventing
| open access even if morally they should (eg. when
| publishing results of research paid for by public months).
|
| You just drew an imaginary line (entertainment products) to
| defend an artificial law (copyright). Prior to 1710 there
| was no copyright, yet culture, art and civilization
| flourished. People were entertained, and entertainment
| products were certainly produced.
|
| Copyright creates an artificial scarcity (literally, in the
| 21st century, where copying is costless). Compare that with
| natural laws, such as against killing, stealing, etc, known
| for thousands of years, with obvious reasons for existence.
|
| We can argue to what extent copyright promotes creation,
| and we can agree to respect it because of its positive
| effects (if any).
|
| But we should never mistake the "nobody has the right to
| obtain copyrighted works" dogma for a law of nature.
|
| > culture is being built off of copyrighted works in the
| first place. Solve that. Doing otherwise shows that this is
| just a convenient excuse to secure access to personal
| entertainment.
|
| What is culture if not total sum of all art, science, and
| other human accomplishments? And as we now stand, all
| modern art (and much of science) is being locked up behind
| copyright for decades.
|
| Solve that.
| badpun wrote:
| > Prior to 1710 there was no copyright, yet culture, art
| and civilization flourished. People were entertained, and
| entertainment products were certainly produced.
|
| People, if they were entertained at all, were mostly
| self-entertained back then - they played instruments and
| such. There was hardly if any passive content consumption
| back then. Before 1710 there were no novels (novels as
| literary form weren't invented yet), obviously no movies,
| video games or music recordings. There was practically
| nothing to protect, apart from musical scores or theatre
| plays.
| senko wrote:
| And books.
|
| I find it amusing that you reduced the works of Greek and
| Roman philosophers and poets, the entire Renaissance, the
| whole Library of Alexandria and indeed, the Bible, to
| "practically nothing."
|
| I fail to see how, say, the Nth installment of Marvel
| movies is somewhat more worthy than all of that.
|
| Movies which, I might add, are already hugely profitable,
| even though they're massively pirated.
| [deleted]
| shkkmo wrote:
| The modern novel predates 1710 by 50 to 100 years and was
| itself predated by many, many other forms of literary
| entertainment.
|
| The sheer amount of work and content you are dismissing
| as "nothing apart from musical scores or theatre plays"
| is mind boggling.
| naravara wrote:
| > Nobody has the right to obtain copyrighted entertainment
| products. Unlike, say, having access to food or water, or
| even education, there's no coherent moral framework that
| says that you are obligated to the latest TV shows or
| movies under your own terms.
|
| The only coherent moral framework for the existence of
| copyright at all is that it is a societal level
| intervention to maintain financial incentives for the
| production of creative arts and livelihoods for creators.
| If the lion's share of the returns to the production of IP
| is being soaked up by gatekeepers like streaming services
| and publishers then the alignment of the principle to its
| aim starts to attenuate.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Putting paywalls on culture puts culture out of reach to
| the lower classes.
|
| I think poor kids growing up with parents living paycheck
| to paycheck should have equal opportunity to become a great
| filmmaker as trust fund kids.
|
| That should be where we start this conversation, not hand
| wringing over making sure billion dollar media companies
| don't have their business models disrupted.
| badpun wrote:
| > Nobody has the right to obtain copyrighted entertainment
| products.
|
| Depends on the country, actually. In Poland, as in some
| other European countries, it's legal to download
| copyrighted content without paying for it. It's only
| illegal to distribute it without the copyright owner's
| permission.
| scarface74 wrote:
| > approaching monopoly powers and using it to squeeze
| consumers
|
| "There are too many streaming services to choose from and I
| don't like having to pay for competing services therefore
| there is a monopoly"
|
| So it wouldn't be a monopoly if there was one company that
| had all of the content you wanted?
|
| > Disney owns about 1/3 of all box office revenue
|
| A third of one channel of distribution is not a "monopoly"
|
| > Something doesn't sit quite right about repeatedly
| increasing the pricing via anti-consumer acquisitions on
| products that are contributing a substantial part of how the
| society collectively feels and thinks
|
| Yes the government must step in for the good of society
| because having a team of superheroes including a man who
| turns green when he gets mad is influencing society.
| geodel wrote:
| Good points. It seems that arguing or challenging free
| loaders is considered morally reprehensible here!
| Apocryphon wrote:
| When freeloading becomes widespread and normalized,
| perhaps it is those who are creating the conditions that
| gives rise to that freeloading who are in the wrong.
| Digital piracy might be wrong, but the business decisions
| driving it seem as wrongly-implemented as Prohibition
| was.
|
| Castigating modern streaming freeloaders might give a
| feeling of moral superiority, but it seems as futile as
| yelling at music downloaders back in the P2P days. It's
| using a bucket to drain the ocean of a widely accepted
| behavior.
|
| That said, most people don't pirate movies or shows these
| days, even if they might not have qualms against it- they
| simply share streaming accounts. Is that illegal, or even
| against EULA? The platforms don't seem to mind.
| scarface74 wrote:
| > When freeloading becomes widespread and normalized,
| perhaps it is those who are creating the conditions that
| gives rise to that freeloading who are in the wrong.
| Digital piracy might be wrong, but the business decisions
| driving it seem as wrongly-implemented as Prohibition
| was.
|
| Do you apply the same standard to other laws? If too many
| people do it, we must legalize it?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Well, that's what's happening to marijuana and other
| drugs in some jurisdictions. The president just spoke
| about it.
| scarface74 wrote:
| So should it also happen for burglary? Shoplifting?
| Illegal immigration (actually, I'm all for much more open
| borders)? Drunk driving?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| If any of those crimes were being prosecuted in a poor
| way, or created by some sort of addressable avoidable
| problem, and happening in such a widespread normalized
| basis, then perhaps we should look at how enforcement is
| handled, yes. Perhaps the same can be said of internet
| piracy, an issue that has been hashed out ad nauseum for
| decades.
|
| You seem to operate under the misapprehension that I'm
| saying that if a crime is widespread then it is not a
| crime. What I'm saying that it _may_ not be a crime, or
| the current approach of prosecution of the crime is
| wrongheaded and should be reevaluated. And _most_
| importantly, the root causes should be examined to
| determine how society should progress.
|
| If burglary and shoplifting is happening everywhere
| because we live in pre-revolutionary France and the sans-
| culottes are starving and stealing bread to survive,
| well. We've all read _A Tale of Two Cities._ Or for a
| later period of the same country, we 've all seen _Les
| Miz._ Crimes must be analyzed in their social context.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| >Disney owns about 1/3 of all box office revenue.
|
| In what way does Disney "own" box office revenue. It spends
| the most and gets the highest return? I know there are some
| anti-competitive theatre negotiations at the margins, but at
| the end of the day anyone could invest in their own business
| and produce good movies - if they had the talent.
| webmobdev wrote:
| +1 - Another pirate user here. I have a Prime & NetFlix account
| but I purposefully never use it and still prefer to download
| pirated copies of their show (mainly for better video quality,
| convenience of offline viewing in any device and most
| importantly protecting my privacy). I have no doubt that there
| is no stopping advertisement on streaming platform and it will
| equal the level on television once it becomes normalised, and
| will be even worse because it will BE accompanied with more
| datamining of our personal data and tracking. Many smart TVs
| are already using the built-in webcam and microphone to
| determine how you watch ads, and all this intrusive method of
| monitoring is only going to get worse.
| Melatonic wrote:
| This is part of the reason I love Roku Search - you search for
| whatever show directly on the Roku and it tells you exactly
| what services you can stream it on for free or buy it on. Makes
| everything much more seamless
| rcarr wrote:
| Morally, would it not be better to just rotate subscriptions?
| One month with Netflix, one month with Prime, one with
| Paramount etc? Or maybe rotate every quarter?
|
| You could claim that by pirating you're instead protesting
| about the fragmentation of the streaming landscape and are
| holding out for an everything-in-one-place service like
| Spotify/Apple Music but I'm not sure you'll get far with it due
| to the nature of the movie industry.
|
| Personally I think you're probably better off with the rotation
| approach - after a few economic cycles, the streaming services
| that aren't pulling in enough subscribers will end up getting
| bought by bigger competitors and we'll probably end up with
| just a few big ones standing. I don't think Apple or Prime are
| going anywhere because they're supported by other aspects of
| the company. Marvel, Star Wars and just general franchise
| fatigue is kicking in for Disney but they're always going to
| have the kid stuff to fall back on so I think they're safe as
| well. Which leaves Netflix, Paramount, HBO, Hulu etc scrapping
| each other for anyone without kids or who don't mind the extra
| subscription.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| This is what I used to do and is definitely the best part
| about cable to streaming.
|
| People now complain that the services resemble what cable
| used to be - but there were entire movies and countless
| sitcom plots about people tryng to cancel service. It was
| terrible for customers. Free trials of streamers have mostly
| dried up but rotating can still provide value - and probably
| better for your own time.
| throw10920 wrote:
| This is the only correct approach.
|
| It takes barely any time to rotate services (ten minutes per
| month max, and you could probably even automate it - I'd pay
| for that automation, ironically), and it provides an
| extremely strong feedback signal to studios/services that
| you're not putting up with the fragmentation.
|
| Piracy is a tragedy of the commons situation that provides
| the _wrong_ feedback signal (industry will just assume it 's
| because people don't want to pay for things), so it actively
| makes the situation _worse_.
| esalman wrote:
| Good idea, except a lot of people including me do not have
| time to do this every month.
|
| Personally I pay annualy for peacock (at a promotional
| discount price of $20, to watch premier league), prime (also
| annually because shopping) and Disney (because kids). I also
| have access to Netflix, Paramount and HBO etc. subscriptions
| for free- via fnf or promotions. If I badly want to watch
| something, I either check on Justwatch if it is available on
| a service I subscribe to, or I just pirate it.
| scarface74 wrote:
| It's also not convenient for me to go to work everyday. But
| yet I do because I have an insatiable addiction to food and
| shelter. It would be much more convenient if people gave me
| food and shelter for free. But for some reason they expect
| me to pay for it.
| nitrixion wrote:
| This is what we do also. I have many streaming
| subscriptions. If a show is not available or is only
| available with ads (Prime Video does this a lot), then I
| feel zero remorse torrenting the show.
|
| Additionally, if a show was _ever_ on a streaming service
| while I had a subscription, I feel zero remorse for
| downloading that show once it is removed from that
| streaming service.
|
| These license holders are getting more greedy by the year.
| If they don't want to provide the content for a reasonable
| fee through a streaming service, then they don't get my
| money. Simple as that.
| throw10920 wrote:
| > a lot of people including me do not have time to do this
| every month
|
| This is ridiculous. If you don't have ten minutes of time
| every month, you certainly don't have time to be watching
| _any_ television.
| mojzu wrote:
| The number of other 10 minute jobs I passively ignore a
| month could probably take up a significant portion of my
| free time, and many of those would probably provide more
| reward then trying to send a signal to a billion dollar
| corporation this way (shopping around for slightly better
| contracts, accounts, finding the cheapest variant of a
| product, etc.).
|
| There's enough to do in life that everyone makes trade
| offs on what they're willing to spend their limited time
| on, personally I'm not willing to spend my time solving a
| problem that can absolutely be solved technologically but
| is prevented from being so by intransigence
| esalman wrote:
| I will go out on a limb and assume you do not have kids.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| ... do you think this somehow strengthens your position?
| On top of being unfair and condescending, you just gave
| everyone another reason you should not have the time to
| watch enough streaming services to warrant spending the
| time to administer all the subscriptions in the manner
| suggested.
|
| I'm going to go out on a limb and assume other parents
| reading your comment don't sympathize with your position.
| At least this one doesn't.
| esalman wrote:
| Well I find it unfair and condescending of you to suggest
| I, as a busy parent, should not watch TV :) I did not ask
| anyone not to pay subscription fees.
|
| It is just a matter of priority. Even before becoming a
| parent, I would find it hard to justify spending time on
| optimizing my subscription expenses, especially being
| forced by large media corps, and completely
| unnecessarily.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Would you consider it morally dubious to subscribe to a
| streaming service for a month, record content during that
| month, then watch it after cancelling your subscription?
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| There's no question of morals here. These streaming companies
| murdered Blockbuster, whose death must be avenged.
| kmacdough wrote:
| Morality gets grey with growing anti-consumer practices and
| shrinking regulation. Legally protected doesn't equate to
| moral. Sure it's good for the content creators to get paid,
| but by and large, they aren't the ones getting paid.
| scarface74 wrote:
| How dare they spend money to create content and expect
| people to pay for it!
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Oh, ho hum. Music piracy was rampant until iTunes and the
| iPod changed the game to the extent of forcing (alongside
| court orders) Napster to go legit. Two decades later,
| music streaming is ubiquitous, consumers are satisfied,
| and music piracy is a retro anachronism. This is just
| applying market pressure to bring about necessary product
| innovation through other means.
| scarface74 wrote:
| So do you expect all movies to be available for 99 cents
| or to be available a la carte like Spotify?
|
| Movies cost a lot more to produce than music. Besides,
| Spotify is losing money and even iTunes was never hugely
| profitable. It was primarily meant to sell iPods. The
| music distribution business is a horrible stand alone
| business
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I'm sure that even as technology continues to innovate,
| and tech companies find all sorts of way to find
| innovative business models (though rising interest rates
| might end that renaissance of creative unit economics),
| they'll find a way to curb piracy by fixing the problem
| of too many streaming services, that they and the studios
| invented.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Yes, if only there were companies that aggregated all of
| the content that anyone wanted and charged more for it.
| I'm sure since everyone is getting the same content they
| could send it through a cable...
|
| A money losing low margin business (Spotify) isn't
| "innovative"
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Yes, maybe eventually they will invent a cable company
| that carries the streaming service-specific offerings of
| the Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, and Apple TV+
| libraries.
|
| I mean, that probably does exist, that's probably what
| Sling TV offers, people just opt to do something even
| simpler and less morally dubious than piracy: they share
| accounts with one another. That's been a common practice
| for over a decade now.
|
| > A money losing low margin business (Spotify) isn't
| "innovative"
|
| And yet the iPod was. And without the iTunes Store, the
| iPod wouldn't have been the success that it was- it would
| have been dependent upon pirates.
| scarface74 wrote:
| And the iPod became irrelevant as soon as the mobile
| phone became popular. Even the Roku which was originally
| created by Netflix and spun off as a company would have
| failed as a "Netflix box"
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The iPod was dominant for almost a decade, without it
| there would be no iPhone. It is understandable to forget
| Galileo or Kepler once you get a Newton, but the iPod was
| absolutely iconic, and once again, the iTunes Store did
| much to eliminate music piracy.
|
| It goes to show that once a petty crime becomes
| widespread and normalized among consumers, it becomes a
| business problem for savvy companies to take advantage.
| Likewise, Steam, despite its DRM and other hassles, wiped
| out game piracy for some time. Of course, that same form
| of piracy is making a resurgence, partly because the
| video game platform space has become balkanized, annoying
| users who don't want to subscribe to the stores of EA,
| Ubisoft, Epic, et al. Much like what we may be seeing
| with movie and TV content.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Honestly, piracy for video games became less relevant
| because most of the game revenue comes from locked down
| platforms - mobile and consoles. Also, much of the
| revenue of from games these days come from in app
| purchases.
|
| As far as iPod sales, I won't editorialize
|
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_qu
| art...
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Perhaps the rise of mobile gaming and decline of PC
| gaming in favor of consoles (if that's actually happening
| at all) still substantiates my narrative that technology
| and businesses arise to address the needs causing piracy.
| So you're agreeing with me.
|
| You keep talking about sales when I'm talking about
| impact on music piracy, the music industry in general,
| and cultural impact. I hardly think Jobs thought purely
| in sales and not the latter.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Gaming revenue breakdown
|
| https://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-gaming-proves-to-be-
| a-g...
|
| As far as "bought digital music" vs music not bought from
| iTunes right before the iPhone came out, SJ himself said
| that most music on iPods were not bought from iTunes:
|
| This was originally posted on Apple's front page when
| Jobs was trying to convince the record labels to allow
| everyone to sell DRM free music (it happened a couple of
| years later)
|
| https://macdailynews.com/2007/02/06/apple_ceo_steve_jobs_
| pos...
|
| > Today's most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and
| research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full.
| This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of
| the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the
| iTunes store and protected with a DRM
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Perhaps I've over-credited the iTunes Store's impact on
| music piracy, so I will concede that point. But for
| whatever reason, after the revolutions unleashed by the
| iPod, and the subsequent rise of Spotify and other paid
| legal music streaming services, music piracy is just not
| as significant as it was in the decade. So either these
| technologies were instrumental to stopping it, or
| consumers just moved on for whatever reason. Perhaps the
| same will happen to movies and television piracy, once
| consumers get over services/platforms fatigue.
|
| https://theconversation.com/the-end-of-the-beginning-of-
| musi...
| scarface74 wrote:
| I would give most of the credit for piracy going down in
| music to mobile phones where especially with the iPhone,
| there is no method to add music not bought from iTunes
| without using a computer.
|
| Streaming music is a much better experience. Jobs was
| right, convenience beats free.
|
| It's the same way for video. If I told a normal person
| how they could save a few bucks by getting video for free
| going through the steps that people hear or suggesting,
| they would look at me like I'm crazy. You can usually
| find someone to give you their streaming account.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| > so to watch a 20 minutes animated show I'd have to take a
| +40$ subscription.
|
| You can buy season 6 on Apple TV and Google play for $19
| according to this site: https://www.justwatch.com/ca/tv-
| show/rick-and-morty/season-6
| iso1631 wrote:
| If there is no way to give money for a service I have no
| problems with getting it via other means -- when Discovery
| season 4 came out it wasn't available in the UK, so I
| downloaded it. A week later after the backlash they put it up
| for sale, and I spent the PS20 or whatever to buy the series.
|
| I have no problems paying for netflix, disney, prime, and now
| paramount plus. I subscribe to apple TV for for all mankind,
| then I stop when it's finished.
|
| What I won't do though is pay to watch adverts, that was
| Cable/Sky TV's market, not interested. Sell me the program
| and I'll buy it, try to include adverts and I'll get it
| elsewhere.
| anewguy9000 wrote:
| its legally dubious but not morally ;)
|
| pirated sports are even a better product. they dont have ads.
| so if i pay for sports on tv, im actually paying to watch ads??
| it should be the other way around, and if it were, i would
| probably sign up. also give me all your money
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| How would pirated sports work without ads? It's a live
| product, so it wouldn't work in the standard *arr pipeline.
| Are there live streams with ads blacked out by a host?
| whateveracct wrote:
| I have a guy who runs OBS and overlays fun graphics over
| ads and plays music over commercial audio. And all I need
| to watch is VLC - so it works on my phones, tablet,
| laptops, etc without any trouble.
|
| He has a KoFi so you can donate and get a message on-screen
| too. Fun for rallying your fellow fans :)
| mgkimsal wrote:
| Dunno exactly, but there's gotta be some original camera
| feeds from on the ground that don't have those. The ads we
| saw years ago were overlayed at the top of the screen,
| taking up around 20% of the vertical space. And... every
| time you started a stream, there were 1-2 minutes of the
| same stupid commercials (trucks, etc).
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Ah so it's just streaming the most premium product
| available.
|
| Usually that's something like NFL RedZone/MLB.tv/etc
| which offers direct feeds, out of market, with blackouts
| etc.
|
| Have enough people feeding your provider with streams and
| you have a legally dubious nationwide ad-free service for
| that league.
|
| I thought you meant it somehow got rid of commercials on
| normal channels, but live. That wouldn't make sense. But
| these channels don't have traditional commercials in the
| first place.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Yeah, I think the premium services offer feeds directly
| from the local TV production. Sometimes they'll offer
| multiple feeds from the same game, one of which will be a
| national broadcast feed and another will be a local
| production with different commentators.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| Yeah, we paid for an extra sports package so my wife could
| watch her UK football. "WTF? There's huge ads taking up 20%
| of the screen? And every time we start (or restart) watching,
| we have to watch a minute of ads? Fuck that" was mostly my
| wife's response (possibly slightly less salty language, but
| that's how I remember it now).
|
| She's gotten really good at finding various streams for the
| games she wants to watch, and just watches those, usually
| with no ads. To keep the system we had to watch them
| "legally" was... I think "only" $90/month - $60 something
| plus more for 'basic sports'. Oh... but you want HD? That's
| even more. And you need a new satellite dish. That will be an
| extra $200/installation.
|
| But had we just been a new customer... I'm sure they'd have
| thrown the world at us for free for the first 3-6 months.
| iso1631 wrote:
| > There's huge ads taking up 20% of the screen?
|
| I don't do sports, but I do remember that sky sports was on
| in a pub I was in recently with a football game. I don't
| remember seeing any onscreen adverts (there was the score,
| the time left, a sky sports logo etc in the corner which
| seemed fairly unintrusive -- certainly the score and time
| left are an essential viewing when I do watch England in
| the finals)
|
| Obviously there's also the adverts around the actual
| ground, and on the players shirts, most of which seem to be
| for betting (when I was a kid my grandad put a couple of
| quid on the pools each week, but this modern stuff seems
| quite the scourge)
|
| Now at half time sure, they are dripping with adverts --
| despite I believe sky sports costing somewhere in the order
| of PS600 a year, and advertising raising just 10% of Sky's
| revenue from the last annual report I saw.
|
| Were you paying a legitimate provider?
| tomcam wrote:
| She actually said "sod that" because she's 103
| mgkimsal wrote:
| She does say 'sod that' but she's not 103...
| tomcam wrote:
| Damn I figured that was out of style by now
| evandale wrote:
| > don't have a streaming service in Canada
|
| This is all I need to justify my piracy. If you're not going to
| let me pay for something or force me into bullshit like needing
| cable to sign up for a streaming service then I'll gladly watch
| what I want to watch without paying.
|
| and don't even get me started on C-11...
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I'd personally like to see a sort of 'least favoured
| nation'-type deal where copyright holders are obligated to
| offer their show at the lowest cost to all streaming services.
| Streaming services get to compete on value added, producers get
| their pay, consumers get their fix. Maybe allow a 6 month
| exclusivity or something similar.
|
| It seems like a pipe dream but it shouldn't, we ( _the demos_ )
| are supposed to be the ones to principally profit from
| copyright.
| wmeredith wrote:
| I'm in a similar mindset, but I often buy physical media copies
| of such things instead of pirating them or even if I pirate
| them. I want to support the art, because I'd like more of it in
| the future.
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| Actually a recent trend is to not release DVD's / blue rays
| because it keeps people on streaming services. I would love
| to buy a blu-ray of Hamilton the musical but Disney hasn't
| made that available yet, despite being able to stream it on
| Disney+ since 2020.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Even when they do release physical media, they often don't
| have the best version of a show available. For example,
| Disney 4k UHD physical discs offer HDR10 but Dolby Vision
| is limited to Disney+ for the same films as are the IMAX
| enhanced cuts (expanded aspect ratios).
|
| A small exception to this is the newly announced Criterion
| edition of Wall-E, which includes Dolby Vision.
| tim-- wrote:
| Disney has never had a history of really being any good at
| physical media releases, but at this point it's starting to
| become a bit of a joke.
|
| Even their 'higher end' 4k UHD media releases are missing
| features that Disney+ has, like Dolby Vision. https://www.f
| latpanelshd.com/focus.php?subaction=showfull&id...
| vinaypai wrote:
| It's contradictory to claim they're monopolies but also
| complain that you would have to subscribe to multiple services
| to get what you want.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| This. I do have a Netflix Subscription because of family and I
| just got tired and got back to downloading stuff.
|
| Now I just have a folder where I can find everything fine, and
| double click stuff.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| No thanks. The day ads show up, my TV+ subscription will be gone.
| This double-dipping is ridiculous.
| [deleted]
| user3939382 wrote:
| Yep, at this point I'm burnt out on ad exposure for the rest of
| my life. Exposure to AM/FM radio or cable TV for more than a
| few minutes is a grating experience. Any service that forces
| ads is dead to me.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| If I can continue to pay to avoid ads I will be ok with it.
| Y-bar wrote:
| If News+ is any indication, your outlooks are bleak:
|
| > Why are there ads in Apple News Plus news feed? Just
| subscribed to Apple News Plus. I am surprised to see ads in the
| Apple News Plus feed. Please remove these ads for paying
| subscribers. I realize that ads in articles that Apple can't
| control, but it is insulting to have them in the feed itself.
|
| https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252017203
| whispersnow wrote:
| No longer watching TV... Going back to reading and news...
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