Comments

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

octopus_ink, to piracy in Streaming Pirates Are Hollywood’s New Villains - Illegal subscription services that steal films or TV shows bring in $2 billion a year in ads and subscriber fees.

Sorry I didn’t mean you personally. I was speaking generally to the content providers. 😁

octopus_ink, (edited ) to piracy in Streaming Pirates Are Hollywood’s New Villains - Illegal subscription services that steal films or TV shows bring in $2 billion a year in ads and subscriber fees.

Dunno. Less than what things cost now? I think knocking down the geographic restrictions and letting people watch it on any device or OS that can connect are likely bigger fights than pricing, if the industry actually cared to solve the problem.

It’s not as if we don’t have examples of this. Yes, some people still pirate music. Roughly 20 years ago, almost literally everyone with the knowhow was pirating music. (And with services like kazaa, emule, etc, it took very little knowhow)

You know what didn’t solve it? Prosecuting consumers, high prices, and DRM.

What solved it was when Apple started selling legit music for 99 cents per track, and keeping album costs reasonable. (Much as I hate to give apple any credit.) Spotify, amazon, etc all got on board, and now almost no one pirates music. (I pre-apologize for whatever detail I misremembered there - that was a long time ago.)

Am I saying that exact model will apply to video streaming services? No, but what’s not going to do it is prosecuting consumers, high prices, and DRM. We have decades of proof of this.

People like getting stuff for free even if they can afford it.

Some people will pirate no matter what. You can worry about them, or you can worry about everybody else. At some point (and I suspect we’re well past it) the return on investment has got to start looking pretty bad for all the money and technology they have tried to throw at piracy.

octopus_ink, to linux in My move to wayland: it's finally ready

I’ve got a 3.5k 13" display and have only noticed scaling issues with xwayland apps (which Plasma warns you of) - but I’m not disputing your point, there are clearly rough edges some folks see that others don’t.

octopus_ink, (edited ) to piracy in Streaming Pirates Are Hollywood’s New Villains - Illegal subscription services that steal films or TV shows bring in $2 billion a year in ads and subscriber fees.

The solution is so easy. Make your content available at a reasonable price, make it easy to use, don’t restrict it by geography, and let people watch it on any device that can connect to your service.

Piracy is about ease of use (it’s getting even easier), and about value. DRM has repeatedly been shown to hurt only the people who try to pay for legitimate access. Not a single time has it prevented me from getting a copy of something if I wanted to, and it’s clearly not stopping people from providing those copies or streams.

So stop wasting bathtubs of money on stopping piracy, but maybe take a few less buckets of money from consumers in exchange for your service. As long as you price it such that the cost of being legit can’t compete with the ease of use and value from piracy, some folks aren’t going to make the choice you want them to.

Some folks won’t be able to spend on your service anyway, because they just can’t afford it - but they still might buy other merchandise, they can still spread how great your show is to their friends who possibly will subscribe to your service, but regardless you aren’t going to get their dollars no matter what you do. So stop trying.

octopus_ink, (edited ) to linux in My move to wayland: it's finally ready

I think this thread shows it’s very hardware/driver dependent?

I’m posting from Wayland running on Plasma 5, on 100% recent gen intel hardware, and as far as I’ve been able to tell I have zero deficiencies that matter in functionality. (aside from whatever little bugs surely exist that I’m not noticing - and big things no one really has yet like HDR)

I don’t have much sympathy for the haters who think we shouldn’t be moving to Wayland ever, but every recent thread seems to confirm that Nvidia and possibly other HW configs are still likely to be problematic.

octopus_ink, to memes in Why the hell did that stop

I just reread that entire sentence substituting that word both times, and made myself lol.

octopus_ink, to memes in Why the hell did that stop

Well if the shoe fits…

octopus_ink, to linux in 4 reasons to try Mozilla’s new Firefox Linux package for Ubuntu and Debian derivatives | The Mozilla Blog

Just want to say this has been a rollercoaster to read @eager_eagle and @Shdwdrgn. That is all.

octopus_ink, (edited ) to memes in Why the hell did that stop

I’m not even sure thinness was something consumers ever would have demanded (at the sacrifice of battery life) if the mfrs hadn’t pushed it as a selling point.

In the flipphone days I didn’t know many people who didn’t have at least one spare battery, so they could swap to a fresh one on the go without having to charge, or bought extra thick batteries with higher capacity, extending the back of the phone.

Then when smartphones had removable batteries, lots of people still did those things. And all during that time I remember many reviewers and consumers reacting to many of the “thinness” claims with “I’d really like a bigger battery instead.”

I also remember it being proven that apple’s removal of the headphone jack impacted neither waterproofing nor thinness, despite their claims. (But then of course one by one others started following suit.)

I think it’s better for mfrs and that’s the only reason. It saves them money on mfr, or gets phones tossed in the bin faster. Possibly both.

I’d still take 2 or 3 more mm of thickness for an amazing battery.

octopus_ink, to fuck_cars in Yes... pirated cars will definitely fix the problem

That’s Kia - I thought we were speaking more broadly. We drive a Toyota product and were offered nothing but the app. However, to your point that may have been poor salesmanship.

octopus_ink, to fuck_cars in Yes... pirated cars will definitely fix the problem

Then let me have the remote start that has existed for decades as ONE option (without a monthly subscription), and the remote start that requires an entire infrastructure that isn’t required for me to look out my window and remote start my car as an option for those who want or need it.

octopus_ink, to memes in This is the master race...?

The thing is - I feel bad for them for feeling like they are no one, for feeling like this is all they have. I can pretty easily get myself into a mindset where I want to give some of these folks a hug, and tell them they matter. I think many of us have felt worthless at times, either due to circumstances, due to depression, whatever.

But then I see what their voting habits are doing to this country and to our governing bodies, and that gets buried under piles of anger.

octopus_ink, (edited ) to memes in This is the master race...?

deleted_by_moderator

  • Loading...
  • octopus_ink, to memes in This is the master race...?

    Like I get that they probably are reaching deep into the barrel to find anything that makes them special it’s not like they can fall back on their personalities, intelligence, appearance, or achievement.

    This one detail is responsible for the kernel of sadness I feel for many on the far right. These are despicable people who were once kids who just wanted to be grownups and do grownup things. And whether due to genetics or due to upbringing, anything else that might have given them a sense of pride and competence is not something they have. As you say - all they have left is trying to push others down, hoping this lands them on top. Damn it’s truly sad.

    octopus_ink, (edited ) to linux in This week in KDE: auto-save in Dolphin and better fractional scaling

    I have to admit I am a little bit of a Gnome hater, because I was a very happy Gnome 2.6(?) user when they moved my cheese (and then moved it again, and again, and again) - Gnome was for me until they decided I wasn’t the kind of user they wanted anymore.

    Having said that, I appreciate the point you are making, and I only (tangentially) referenced Gnome in my first comment because the contrast is huge. KDE likes you to use the system how you want. (and it’s one of the things I love about KDE) Gnome likes you to use the system how they want. That’s all there is to it, regardless of how reasonable the logic behind that distinction may be.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • localhost
  • All magazines
  • Loading…
    Loading the web debug toolbar…
    Attempt #