I put on my robe and
wizardpirate hatDo you know how I watch movies? I got a single board computer running Linux that’s hooked to my TV. There, I open brave or Firefox with ad blockers and I search “Watch movies online” in a foreign language. Then I get to see any movie I want. Oh yeah, and I keep a VPN running at the router level, although it’s not really needed.
This meme was likely made in 2017 and is no longer the case. If I have to manage and shuffle my subscriptions according to the content they’re currently showing - then it isn’t slightly more convenient but the opposite. Meanwhile piracy is as easy as typing “moviename” into Radarr and voila, 1080p ready within minutes
Hey do you have any tutorials on your setup?
I’m a bit more old school in the way I do things, I usually read through the documentation first before installing software to ensure I optimize it to the fullest, however, writing “setting up Jellyfin/Sonarr/Radarr” in the YouTube search bar will lead you to a detailed tutorial for your respective operating system.
If you’re completely new to self-hosting, install Ubuntu Server. If you’re a bit more experienced, go with Debian.
I’m even lazier. I use the top pirated movies of the week Trakt list and movies just show up on Plex automatically.
the netflix thing was the most idiotic, obnoxious bullshit i’ve ever seen – really acting like using a website somewhere else was something THEY got to gatekeep and charge for. it’s not like they had to mail DVDs somewhere else, like it was a physical cost.
If they provide a service(an easy-to use, legal platform) in a capitalist system they didn’t create, I can’t get mad at that. What’s fucking stupid are their assumptions about inelasticity of demand. People have free choices, and if you make the paid choice sufficiently onerous, you’ll lose customers. Natural consequences.
After spending 10 years watching Netflix I’ve been driven back to piracy due to the amount of streaming options basically making it look like cable again. I don’t want to manage my subscriptions every month to make sure I’m paying for the ones that have the shows I want to watch.
Cancelling shows, transferring shows from one to the other, moving shows from that basic plan you subscribe to into a higher tier which is even more money per month, etc.
Now I pay $20 a year for an android box that streams pirated content from every streamer and movie releases. So much easier, I would pay $20+ a month for it if it were legal.
seems to be a disease going around. they have forgotten the agreements across the board.
remember its our network, they would not even be here if it was not for decades of our own investment to build the roads for them
They are just now realizing the its extreamly difficult to actually make a profit with a streaming service. Most major ones like hbo max and disney+ lose billions a year. Netflix and hulu are the only ones that have been able to squeeze out a tiny profit.
Do we have concrete evidence that this is true? I find it highly unlikely Disney+ was hemorrhaging money considering all the parents that are indefinitely subbed to D+ for the Disney catalogue.
Unless the original programming like all the Marvel TV shows (which are pretty low quality scripts) and the remakes (which are low quality) really cost that much to make.
They should report the losses at earning calls and i think they did. But i am to lazy to look it up.
Direct to consumer media lost $659M in Q1 this year https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2023/05/q2-fy23-earnings.pdf
They describe in in their filings like this
Direct-to-Consumer Direct-to-Consumer revenues for the quarter increased 12% to $5.5 billion and operating loss decreased $0.2 billion to $0.7 billion. The decrease in operating loss was due to improved results at Disney+ and ESPN+, partially offset by lower operating income at Hulu.
The improvement at Disney+ was due to higher subscription revenue and a decrease in marketing costs, partially offset by higher programming and production costs and, to a lesser extent, increased technology costs. Higher subscription revenue was attributable to subscriber growth and increases in retail pricing, partially offset by an unfavorable foreign exchange impact. The increase in programming and production costs was due to more content provided on the service. Improved results at ESPN+ were attributable to growth in subscription revenue due to an increase in retail pricing and subscriber growth.
The decrease in operating income at Hulu was due to higher programming and production costs and lower advertising revenue, partially offset by subscription revenue growth and, to a lesser extent, lower marketing costs. The increase in programming and production costs was attributable to more content provided on the service and an increase in subscriber-based fees for programming the Live TV service, partially offset by a lower average cost mix of SVOD content. Higher subscriber-based fees for programming the Live TV service were due to rate increases and more subscribers. The decrease in advertising revenue resulted from lower impressions, partially offset by higher rates. Subscription revenue growth was due to increases in retail pricing and subscribers.
The problem isn’t so much that it is hard to be profitable. It is that the Movie industry will just keep raising prices of the content until they are barely scraping by. Since there is 9 major streaming services they are effectively a commodity bidding over the media content. So the free market has squeezed the profit out of it.
Of course the streaming services then turn around and try to restore a profit margin by raising the prices. Now the consumers are facing raised prices for a small slice of available media and realizing that this is both expensive and inconvenient.
Even if the consumers keep using the streaming services at a higher price the media companies will notice that they are making a profit again and jack the prices further. The streaming services are basically helpless middlemen.
This is of course why just about ever streaming service is starting to produce first-party content. This is where the money is as they are in control of the price and don’t have to outbid other streaming services.
That and the ability to be forgotten about for a month or two for something else.
