[righthand]

The iTunes movie store is not friendly outside of the Apple ecosystem. Making the entire idea not really affordable since you need a expensive electronic device to utilize it sanely. Might as well find another way to get to it at that point.

[e40]

It’s not even friendly inside the Apple ecosystem.

[extra88]

MSRP of an Apple TV device is $129. The iPhone's market share in the U.S. is already over 60%. But neither matters because the Apple TV app is available on basically everything and can be used to buy movies.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/119890

[righthand]

But if you use the app you’re only streaming from Apple servers. That Apple server copy can be revoked at any time. And 60% is not 100%, my point stands you need an expensive device just to purchase and watch it. Probably multiple expensive devices if you want to actually watch it on your TV. When can I download my movie onto my Linux laptop and play it through an HDMI cable?

[GeekyBear]

Steam games with DRM can be revoked as well.

We've also seen Apple upgrade 480p movies purchased in the past to HD which is an improvement compared to buying physical media.

[arusahni]

A "Steam for Movies" service (as expressed in an ancestor comment) is basically that, though. One doesn't own their Steam games.

[lmm]

But you can run Steam on Linux. You don't have to worry about whether they're going to discontinue the cheap Steam Box you were relying on. And they have built up credibility from decades of not pulling the rug, in a way that Apple hasn't and probably can't.

[redwall_hp]

Apple has been running the iTunes Store without "pulling the rug" for about as many years as Steam has existed.

Hell, they ditched DRM on music in that time period too and will sell you lossless ALAC as well as MP4 audio. (They obviously weren't able to talk Hollywood into that.) Steam is DRM that ensures the capability to pull rugs.

[lmm]

> Apple has been running the iTunes Store without "pulling the rug" for about as many years as Steam has existed.

Maybe. It's not been a very prominent line of business for them, and even then I can recall a couple of significant dramas over that time - didn't they merge two different kinds of libraries and cause confusion? The unremovable U2 album is also a cause for concern, not because an extra album is bad but because it implies they see the contents of your library as up to them rather than you. Most of all, they went out of their way to break music being sold by Real for iPods, which hardly suggests a company committed to interoperability and open platforms.

> Hell, they ditched DRM on music in that time period too and will sell you lossless ALAC as well as MP4 audio. (They obviously weren't able to talk Hollywood into that.) Steam is DRM that ensures the capability to pull rugs.

Not "obvious" at all, and precisely the point at issue. I'm happy to buy music from Apple, but movies require another level of trust that they haven't reached yet. I will grudgingly, cautiously buy games from Steam when they're not available on itch/GoG, and maybe that's unfair, but Apple have never sent me the message that they want or care about me (a non-Apple hardware user) as a customer of their movies.

[freejazz]

> But you can run Steam on Linux

And how many people run linux that this is even relevant?

[esseph]

> Despite astronomical price hike, the Steam Deck has sold out again in North America

> May 28, 2026

https://mastersingaming.com/2026/05/28/despite-astronomical-...

Not to mention reading this on Linux with Steam in the background.

[righthand]

The number of people doing it is irrelevant because the larger point was being able to download the movie on any platform. Steam on Linux is just a good example of supporting almost all platforms to distribute media.

[righthand]

You can download a copy of the installers and game files on steam. Steam allows you to install on any hard drive or device that runs Steam. Streaming apps download and store data in drm encrypted formats and by and large do not allow you to keep copies of that data for your own use.

[extra88]

You're moving goalposts and ignoring what I wrote. An Apple TV box is not expensive and you can use even cheaper streaming devices to buy and watch instead.

[redwall_hp]

I buy/rent films on my phone, and play them through the Apple TV Roku app. (Roku sucks for its own reasons, but most TV platforms have Apple TV apps.)

[righthand]

No you’re ignoring the criteria for why someone would want Steam for Movies. It’s not for the pleasant thought that they can stream movies from Apple and download it when they want through specific hardware. People back up their games from Steam and actually do own a copy of the installer and game files. That is a huge difference.

The DRM in Steam is not one of ownership. It’s one of needing a Steam account to buy and access those installer and game files.

“You can just stream your movies from proprietary device through apple tv app” isnt Steam for Movies in the spirit of the idea. What you have described is no different than having a streaming only subscription where you dont own the files and can’t access a copy of it offline. However you are correct that if you don’t care then you probably never wanted to own a copy of the files in the first place.

[extra88]

That's not what your original message was about and please don't invent quotes that are not what I wrote or anything like what I wrote. You wrote:

> The iTunes movie store is not friendly outside of the Apple ecosystem. Making the entire idea not really affordable since you need a expensive electronic device to utilize it sanely. Might as well find another way to get to it at that point.

I pointed out that buying a movie from Apple does not require an expensive device and does not require buying any hardware from the Apple ecosystem.

You ignored the facts and kept going on about having to buy expensive Apple hardware, which it isn't and you don't.

You moved the goalposts by requiring not only that purchases not require hardware that's expensive or from Apple, you added that it must not be revocable or streamed and must work on Linux.

I am not advocating for the iTunes store or any other source for buying media, I lost interest in owning TV or movies long ago, I was just providing factual information about what doing so requires.

[righthand]

No I’m not arguing about the specifics of the Apple ecosystem, you are. And you’re still ignoring what a Steam for Movies would be. That’s the conversation, not “iTunes Movie store can stream movies”.

And I am providing factual information on what a Steam for movies is.

Also when I write things in “quotes”, does not mean someone is quoting you or inventing things you said. Quotes have many uses and contexts. Perhaps if you cannot stay on topic or focus on the criteria of what is being discussed and dont understand how quotes work, this forum is not for you.

Steam for Movies and how iTunes store does not fit that description is exactly what my original message was about. Please stop pretending otherwise.

[radley]

> When can I download my movie onto my Linux laptop and play it through an HDMI cable?

Probably because the Linux market is too small to support an iTunes for Linux.

By my understanding, the Linux market prefers free, open source, community effort. So essentially the real question is: why aren't you making movies yourself and sharing them free with your Linux peers?

[esseph]

> So essentially the real question is: why aren't you making movies yourself and sharing them free with your Linux peers?

This is always the dumbest style of argument.

P1: Healthcare sucks!

P2: Oh yeah? Why aren't you a doctor?

Be serious. It's perfectly fine to criticize things and the answer is extremely rarely change your life and become a domain expert in something else to meet some kind of "oh yeah, be the solution" nonsense by somebody that often themselves refuses to get off the couch for anything meaningful.

[righthand]

I actually have made movies and they are all available to download online for free. Not the gotcha you think. And also totally unrelated to the idea of Steam for Movies.

[chillfox]

And yet, Steam is on Linux.

If the Linux market is large enough for steam to support it, then it should be big enough for a movie store to support.

[vintermann]

Valve made the Linux market work by bloody persistence, because Gabe Newell saw the Microsoft Store as a threat to turn Windows into a walled garden (which would have hurt Steam a lot). It's not the Linux user base as such which attracted Valve.

But it's really beside the point, since supporting games on an OS is a hell of a lot harder than supporting video. You're right that movie stores have no excuse - except the control argument, working the other way than it did for Valve.