this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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Frog: "Hey, did any of you guys notice the water get a couple degrees hotter?"
Other Frogs: Already boiled alive
Frog with hacked firestick and a pirate subscription: huh?
Frog who downloads media himself and hosts it on his own server: you guys are in water?
You are not immune to propaganda
And in particular, even if you avoid being exposed to it, you are still affected by other people being exposed to it.
Why come we are affected by what other douchebags are exposed to?
Because they vote too.
But to adverts. :-p
Hacked how?
I dunno exactly, I just know many people have "hacked firesticks" that basically run Kodi, then they pay some dodgy dude on WhatsApp like 30 euro a year and get e v e r y t h i n g as a streaming service. Sometimes the service gets shut down, but apparently they're pretty decent at referring you to their new operation with credit - and even if not, you've paid far less than a full legit TV package.
I'm honestly a little jealous, as they even get live sports streams. Meanwhile, if I try and get them I have to go to very dodgy websites, and often the stream cuts off at key times. However, I just can't bring myself to pay for piracy.
I met a guy in the city that supported himself selling cracked firesticks, I shit you not. 40 bucks a pop and it'd be plug and play all the way supposedly, and that's all he did, sell those via word of mouth.
As an old, I have to chuckle at the whole thing as it reminds me of the '80s when (if you knew who to talk to) you could pay a guy to open up your 13 channel, wood paneled cable box, move a few things around, and give you free Home Box Office. It was the tits, let me tell you.
Fuck, I'm getting old.
For me, it was the guy in the pub selling bootleg cigarettes and tobacco. Then, for a time, they would sell CDs and DVDs. Although now that I think about it they did VHS back in the day also.
These days I'm pretty sure all hacked firesticks have moved to a subscription model. There's a game of whack-a-mole being played with rights holders and streamers, particularly with sports, so there is some back end work being done keeping it seemless for the user.
And when that frog realizes that all the other frogs in the water have been caught and eaten already, where do you think the predators are going to turn to next?
You're right! People should stand against this NOW by not paying for these shitty services!
Wait a minute...
59... 58... 57 ...
(Piracy means you are not giving these shitty services your money. Actively not supporting them.)
If someone could explain to me why that comment is getting downvotes?
The point I'm making is that just looking out for yourself is never enough, sooner or later its your turn.
I dunno why the downvotes, but I think your analogy doesn't quite work. If anything, piracy keeps prices down for paying users - so long as piracy is an option, media services cannot raise their prices to such an obscene level, as the more they do it the more people will turn to piracy. So really pirates are on the front line.
Also, a lot of piracy is still done by torrents, which inherently helps others to pirate themselves - especially if you leave it to seed.
It's just kind of sad that fewer people do it these days. Just like it's sad how few people use ad blockers.
It's absurd. You've strained the metaphor by pushing it too far and it makes no sense.
The point I was trying to make is that at some point it'll be impossible or nearly impossible to do piracy, that you have to do more than just look out for yourself, you have to vote people into office that'll pass fair laws for consumers.
I'm not passing judgment on piracy, just that someday there will be a point where DRM will be too much, so you need to fight by other ways than just piracy, like getting the right laws passed.
Piracy has always been illegal, and has always happened anyway. There is no way to make it impossible. Even Denuvo, the currently best anti-piracy measure, can be cracked and makes the experience worse for paying customers.
I don't live in the country that needs to pass those laws.
I hope you're right, but I wouldn't be so confident in that. As time goes on, and they bake more of the DRM into the hardware directly, it'll be harder to circumvent (for the common person at the very least).
For example, the Sony PlayStation used to be very hackable, now it's not (last time I checked).
I would imagine that, as the world gets more International and interconnected, that might change, at some point the future. If it doesn't, then good for you.
This is talking about a Fires TV: TV shows and movies. I've yet to experience a streaming service with required hardware and baked in DRM.
PS1 required acquiring a physical chip and making physical changes to the device. PS5 can be jail-broken through software alone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSJ8DKijRzA
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=HSJ8DKijRzA
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
It's why I'm struggling really, really hard not to feel to annoyed with the average consumers that still buy this trash instead of supporting less oppressive alternatives.
Like, yeah, people should just be able to buy what they like and not have to concern themselves with the overall market trends they're helping to entrench... But holy shit is it becoming a serious problem. The customers are what drive the direction of the market, but the customers base isn't just tech enthusiasts anymore, it's literally everyone, and they are sleepwalking us all off a god damn cliff. By the time they wake up to start complaining about it, we will already be halfway down.
They'll be at the "too big to fail" point, where to try to reverse the trend would crash the economy that's based on selling customer privacy and information.
I'm still alive.
But only because I ditched Amazon Prime at the end of the month.
Of course you are. Frogs jump out if the water gets too hot regardless how slowly the temperature is rising.
I left when they started charging $10-11 for whole food deliveries. It used to be included.
They also used to have Amazon fresh and Amazon pantry delivery, but they exited my suburban area, too.
So now Walmart+ gets my money.