Remember everyone, media piracy is in the spirit of a tv show about a post-scarcity socialist utopian future.
I feel like Quark giddily grabbing his security rods to break into Sisko's personal logs.
Wtf why did a parrot land on my shoulder
It's a mystery!
Do you have a sudden urge to sing sea shanties?
I'm happy about the long curly hair, but the hook for a hand, peg leg, and eye patch arrrren't great. Worth it, but not great. Arrrr arrrr.
That's okay I'll just watch it on Netfli...WHAT!? Since almost two years ago you say? Because of late-stage capitalism you say?
I really miss old Netflix. Even had Disney movies 😭
The worst part is, Netflix didn't even mess up. All the content owners decided to pull their licenses and make their own Netflix. Now we have 200 streaming services.
So I joined the party and made my own netflix. And not to toot my own horn, but it's the best one.
Well, they did mess up. That mistake was to make content of their own. This angered the other studios so they pulled content and here we are.
I think the issue started long before that. Netflix always had issues with content owners licensing it for one country but not for others, or asking huge fees to license for multiple countries. They'd also limit which shows Netflix could have at any time.
This meant Netflix had to manage many different catalogues for different regions and constantly cycle shows on and off just to make the content owners happy
Once content owners started realising they could milk Netflix for all it had, Netflix really had to start making content to reduce its risk and dependence on other studios
The issue is and always was corporate greed, on every level
There was multiple mess ups from many different places. Netflix making their own content was just an excuse.
First off the government allowed consolidation of the studios. All of the buyout and mergers reduced the number of players.
Netflix, video stores, and theatres before them were/are distributors. They did not create any products but acted as a local point of sale.
A distributor only makes sense when the producers and customers have a high level of segmentation and they can't economically or efficiently connect directly. When the producers are consolidated enough, cutting out a distribution network in an attempt to generate more profit is inevitable. It never works out as expected.
In general the producers can not offer the level of service that the distributor did. So the customer always suffer from a decline in service. It also always becomes more expensive for the customer with shittier products. The producing companies try to make up for losses in revenue from sales with lower quality cheaper product.
Now if the government had blocked the studio consolidation we would have likely have seen the rise of distributor competition. Distributor competition is very, very good for the consumer. When multiple companies are offering the same product but offering differing levels of service the consumer benefits.
The producers if they are smart make the same amount of money from all of the distributors and focus on making high quality products they can sell at a premium.
Those were the days...:-D
So here's an unpopular opinion, but this isn't a bad thing. It's just not enough.
The biggest reason that legal, paid Streaming is so shitty these days, the reason people miss old Netflix, is that everything is spread across so many different platforms now. Back in the day, just having Netflix meant you had just about everything, and if you wanted more still you could get Hulu... and that was it. One, maybe two subscriptions, and you're set. But now? Now you need half a dozen subscriptions and you're still picking what things you won't get. If content was more centralized again, that wouldn't be a problem.
And if content was more centralized, that centralized platform would have PLENTY of subscribers, they wouldn't need to add commercials and hike prices just to stay afloat. I mean... they'd do it anyway because capitalism enshittifies everything, but it wouldn't be a do or fail situation for them.
The only thing I ever used the Paramount streaming for was Trek. I wouldn't complain if Trek, ALL Trek, migrated to somewhere else that has other things I like, too.
We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable.
-Gabe Newell
The problem is that the people who hold the rights don't want to share. They want that sweet, sweet, monthly subscription income. They don't want to compete because that means they'll potentially earn less and have to spend more.
I tell people about fmovies every chance I get because it has just about anything you are looking for. I've only run into a few titles they don't have.
No registration, completely free, and easy to use.
IMO, we really need an update to copyright law covering streaming. Think of how Redbox would just buy DVDs even though studios wanted them to wait about 2 months.
Streaming services should have a similar option. Then they'd need to compete on features, not on the streaming equivalent of "you can only watch this movie if you buy a Betamax player".
It's odd that people are against monopolies, generally speaking, but for streaming services we would prefer if there were a few giant companies which owned it all.
I'm not disagreeing with the above, just thought it was curious.
Compare Movie/TV-show streaming to the Music streaming industry. Spotify/Tidal/Apple/Amazon all offer access to the same music (more or less). They compete on features/quality/apps/prices/etc. They don't compete based on their exclusive libraries. Somehow the music industry can survive in that model. Video streaming needs to do the same. Stop the exclusivity. This way, monopolies are not needed in video streaming.
All we'd really need to do that is just make it a law that contracts aren't exclusive.
If shows were sold to multiple streaming services legally, then those services would compete based on the actual service they offer, and not the content they have.
In other words, make streaming services the customers for shows, instead of individuals, and then let people be their customers.
As it is, a streaming service is pretty comparable to a car dealership.
This is why I own most of star trek on dvd. Cant take that away from me.
Its also very difficult to find complete torrent for the series. Just too much content that nobody wants to host the wild file sizes
This is why I own most of star trek on dvd. Cant take that away from me.
I was so disappointed when the HD remasters stopped. I snapped up TOS, Animated, TNG, and all the movies on Blu-ray (replacing DVDs in the case of the movies and TNG) despite them being available on Netflix at the time. I was really looking forward to catching up with DS9 and Voyager the same way since I was only able to catch them sporadically when they were airing... but no, it seems these are doomed to remain in SD purgatory.
There is a group has who completed an upscaling remaster of DS9. It's very very well done (though could be better with better source material from the producers).
They are working on Voyager now that DS9 is done. They've completed season 1 of voyager so far.
If content is being streamed commercially, any other commercial streamer should be allowed to stream it for a fixed royalty. Every streaming service should have all publicly available content that they want to stream, and they should compete on quality of service and price.
they should compete on quality of service and price
But they don't, they compete on "exclusives" to their platforms. Thus increasing the fragmentation in the market and exacerbating the end user. We're basically back to the days of cable...
What did they do?
Paramount removed all the Star Trek movies from their own streaming service, and gave them to HBO MAX. They have always billed their streaming service as "All things trek", but now they don't allow you to stream their own properties on their own streaming service.
That and hiking their prices like the rest of the streaming services while having a fraction of the new content.
War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength
Pay more for getting less
it's like 5.99 to watch 45 minute shows with 5+ 120 second ad breaks. I instantly canceled and went an alternate route
I cut the cord so I wouldn't have to watch commercials and there is no way in hell I am ever going back to them. And if they start having ads on all the services, I guess there will be a lot more piracy.
Jesus... Well time to get out the Bat'leths.
Time to take up the life of an Orion Pirate
Ok, I have to ask. Wtf?
gestures vaguely
That's a pretty good summary, thank you.
LOL
This is why I have a media server.
Paramount+ is such hot trash. I tried a free trial after Amazon Prime went apeshit with ads one day as I was finishing up DS9. The app kept crashing my FireTV, wouldn't play, would randomly change languages and the only solution was to "keep going back seasons and episodes until you find one in your preferred language and then just fast forward until the episode you want." I had to go back 3.5 seasons - I don't got time for that shit.
They asked me to complete a survey when I canceled the trial after 35 minutes. I was... not polite. I may have suggested that any programmers guilty of releasing code so incredibly damaged into a production environment should commit seppuku.
I may have suggested that any programmers guilty of releasing code so incredibly damaged into a production environment should commit seppuku.
To be honest, my anecdotal experience is that any feedback with this sort of nonsense is removed from the data set. It's pretty easy to spot and right or wrong, it would be considered noise or an outlier at best.
I'm certain it didn't get read, just as I'm certain any negative feedback gets similarly binned. It was far more catharsis for me than any misguided belief that anyone would see or even (lol) act to make their product better.
Spin up a jellyfin server, obtain the movies, copy to jellyfin.
Problem solved
Way ahead of you...
People still stream considering how insane the whole ecosystem is?
Finished setup Jellyfin on a home server. roku, apple tv, and devices with swiftfin. was using plex, but they are going for the streaming profit model hard and probably worse than that soon. managed to find the TOS and TNG 4K remastered movies on usenet. hard drives are cheap and my ethernet is fast enough for 4k. whoo hooo....I mean, Arrrrrr!
QI'yaH, QI'yaH!
I pretty much have to. Paramount+ never actually works whenever I have had a free trial. If they expect me to pay for something that doesn't even work, they're outta their fuckin' mind.
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