[frognumber]

In 2000, everyone I knew pirated content because official platforms were broken, and piracy was more convenient and worked better.

In 2010 everyone I knew paid their media tax through Netflix or a similar provider since paid services were more convenient than piracy, and things just worked.

Somehow, in the past 2-5 years, piracy is quickly moving back as the more convenient option.

The core problem with entertainment is you're paying for fun. Spending hours fighting with broken service is not fun. Increasingly, these services provide negative value to me.

[foogazi]

> Spending hours fighting with broken service is not fun.

Do you spend hours fighting with Netflix or Prime ?

How are the online media services broken for you ?

[frognumber]

T-Mobile gave me free Paramount+. I was looking forward to it, since much of the content disappeared from Prime, some mid-series.

Paramount+ won't play on any device. It says I have to disable my ad blocker. They have code to break playback with an ad blocker, but it's broken, and disables playback even without and ad blocker. Paramount+ support says I should disable antivirus software, firewalls, and essentially, leave myself open to attacks.

Netflix selection has been getting worse too, with a proliferation of streaming services.

For the most part, I'm on Youtube. Youtube works. I can also use tools like yt-dlp to download Youtube content for plane flights, which is the major place I'd like to watch content. Most streaming services don't support use without internet access.

Oh -- and if I buy something, I'm liable to lose it. Google almost killed my whole library of purchases with the whole GSuite free thing, before backpedaling at the very last minute. For a few months, I had unnecessary stress and headache.

Piracy has all the content I want, works off-line, on any device, and in any player. Pirated content doesn't expire or break. If I weren't a high-profile figure liable to look bad in media, I'd go with piracy. It seems like the better option. It's certainly what I advocate to friends and family.

[jacknews]

For a start, you now have to sign up to several services to get all the content.

And stuff just disappears.

This space is going to be broken, just like messaging. Some things call for an enforced interoperability standard.