good parent.

I'll mention it here, since nobody did for some reason, but torrenting is sustainable so long as people keep the files and reseed. So keeping a copy is not the end-goal of people using torrenting technology, but a necessary part of the process.

The goal, functionally, is still streaming. (So much so I used to set the torrent to download the file progressively and run the incomplete file in VLC, watching it while it was getting completed).

What keeps me away from streaming site is that I'm confused about how they sustain themselves. Aren't the costs giganormous to constantly be streaming stuff around?

Why do i want a copy of something I am only going to watch once? And why should I keep a copy if I can just stream it again from the same or some different site for free in the future?

1. you're downloading a copy no matter which way you do it, you're just tossing the copy as you download it with the streaming method

2. aside from the wastefulness of downloading the exact same thing multiple times, the source might vanish leaving you with nowhere to stream it from again

Why do i want a copy of something I am only going to watch once?

Delete it when you're done if you never want to watch it again.

And why should I keep a copy if I can just stream it again from the same or some different site for free in the future?

I thought you just said you wouldn't want to watch it again?

Obviously there are people who do watch pirate streams. I'm just pointing out how odd it is in the context of this thread, where people are complaining about dependency on outside resources, and how alien it is to my personal approach to this kind of thing.

And why should I keep a copy if I can just stream it again from the same or some different site for free in the future?

That's a big if depending on the media in question, and the effort required to go find it again.

I've had so many instances where a streaming site takes down the movie or show I was planning on watching with one or both of my partners, only to have it not there and either have to waste an hour trying to find it again or figure out something else to watch.

Spinning rust drives are cheaper than the time I spend looking for something or being annoyed at having my plans derailed. Plus, I've used that more than once to make up for streaming site/content missing issues during get together with friends, so it's more than worth it to me.

@groet @FaceDeer if you likenthe service you should help mantaining it...

it’s just factually incorrect that “The PC is dead”

I think the author's point on this wasn't so much that "nobody uses PC anymore", but rather the concept of a Personal Computer, which you fully owned. There's also the irony of the first Apple computers being personal computers you could open, fix and modify. Software is where few people feel like they own their computers. Free software being sold to shady companies isn't new, even FOSS projects have been bought. That's the main problem the author wants to point out, which is essentially the same as Cory Doctorow's piece on enshitification.

The author also left this:

I’ve shown this editorial to friends, and some people felt that I did not emphasize the benefits of current technology enough. But I argue that my criticism is less about the actual technology and more about how we use it—and how companies make money from it.

I think the point the author was trying to make is that the "personal" part of PC is what is dying. the profit model for modern tech is no longer about supplying the best or most useful product but instead exploiting users, either to manipulate them into buying more crap or harvesting their data to sell off to someone else who wants to sell them more crap. Even many of the products we buy these days we don't really own. Steam just released a policy statement saying that users don't actually own the games they've purchased, but are merely buying a license to access them. If Steam decides not to support a particular title anymore than poof, it's gone forever from your account. For the most part it seems that if you aren't running strictly FOSS software or pirating, you can't really own anything on your PC aside from the hardware. I think the gist of their argument is not that computing has gotten worse, but that while software, hardware, and user experience have massively improved, the exploitation of the user has greatly tainted that progress.