My phone can’t play BluRay disks.
My computer can’t natively play BluRay disks.
My iPad can’t play them.
My only option is to pay for yet another HDMI device because of BluRay’s DRM and sit down in front of a TV that I may not actually even own. That’s both an additional waste of money and inconvient compared to watching an episode on my phone during lunch.
Or I can use software to crack the DRM and rip the disk to video files, which is a violation of the DMCA and brings us right back to being illegal.
Fuck streaming services, but also fuck DRM-encumbered pieces of plastic and foil. I’ll buy the movie on a subscription-free service as a token gesture and pirate it.
Netflix already does this. They all will just copy each other. Eventually ads will come for the top tier levels too. Enough is never quite enough for these people.
Amazon Prime is absolute dogshit anyway. Fallout wasn’t even that good, I don’t know why it got such a warm reception. Probably because people had such low hopes for it. Rings of Power was a billion dollar investment and only 30% of people finished the whole series.
Let’s be honest, one of the main pulls of that show is the main character is an attractive woman. I haven’t seen the show, but I’ve seen the oogling over her.
Yes. Because when I pause to discuss a show I’m watching with someone, or to otherwise pay attention to something else for a moment, for some other sound and video to play is exactly what I want.
This makes literally no sense. The whole point of pausing, is that it’s something you do right before you turn your attention away, and that’s when they want to show you ads?
Either these ads won’t work, because no-one will look at them, or they will defeat the point of pausing, annoying the living shit out of your users. It’s a lose-lose for everyone involved. Including the advertisers.
I remember when commercial breaks were the time when you went to the bathroom/got snacks and then ran back and jumped over the couch to get back before the show started again.
But most ads don't work on a conscious level. They're there to make whatever is being advertised seem normal and good, like birds singing in the trees, background noise you associate with good feelings. The point isn't to get people to engage rationally. The point is to elicit positive emotions and associate them with a brand.
The point is to elicit positive emotions and associate them with a brand.
Then don’t interrupt my movie or my pause time, and I won’t be pissed at you, then have a seemingly irrational anger-hate when I see you at the store, and refuse to purchase you. There are so many products I won’t buy because of this.
Almost all the ads I’ve seen on Prime video are for other Prime movies. They never appear during a natural break in whatever I’m watching, just burst right in in the middle of a scene. They elicit zero positive emotions, and I am about to cancel my subscription.
The point is to elicit positive emotions and associate them with a brand.
This is super obvious in pharmaceutical commercials as they all follow the same formula of upbeat music, people either enjoying nature or a party with friends, and lots of smiling as the voice-over tells you about the anal leakage and heart failure side effects.
Once. It’ll better be one hell of an ad because it will lose them my subscription. I stopped watching television back in the late 90s because of all the ads, before even I had internet to watch pirated media. I don’t wear clothes with too visible logos. Just saying to illustrate how this ain’t an empty threat.
Losing a single customer probably doesn’t matter to them. But I hope Im not the only one?
Same, and even that is getting worse. I feel like I have to fight with the search algorithm to actually find what I want for the best price. Most of the time, I could order something better from another retailer for a better price and still get free shipping. They don’t even do free returns anymore.
Yep, you have to filter for free shipping. You also have to filter for fast shipping, or you might get some “Two day shipping (ships in two weeks)” bullshit. And then you have to mentally filter out the “sponsored” results which may not be what you’re looking for at all. Searching for a hard to find hat size? Top result is perfect, has free same day shipping, and is a reasonable price. Oops, except when you click on it, you have to pick a different size, which isn’t available in that color, costs more, snd ships out of Mongolia.
If you live near a regional transportation hub it probably won’t make a difference on your delivery times. We dropped prime when our “1 day” deliveries kept turning in 3 day deliveries and never saw a difference.
And honestly a lot of the stuff I used to get on there isn’t even cheaper on Amazon anymore. Half the time if I check the manufacturer website they’re having a sale or have no shipping costs or cover returns longer, something like that. YMMV, you know your situation and needs better than me.
For me its kinda worth it. I can can next day or same day delivery, which is kinda nice when Im an impatient ass. Also I share it with my family, so we all make use of it.
If it were just me, definitely would not be worth it.
I’m about 6 years completely Amazon-free. A key component of the switch was realizing a lot of the random stuff I’d buy (mostly cycling equipment) is cheaper on eBay with faster shipping. The irony is that the seller is likely the same one on Amazon and the items would be delivered by Amazon Fulfillment Services.
I’ve been going back to eBay more recently as well! If anything I feel more confident that what I get on eBay is going to actually match the listing, since AFAIK they don’t do the same insane “jumble all items with the same ID code together in a bin and hope all the sellers were honest about it being real” system Amazon uses.
The only reason I don’t is that I can buy a bunch of stuff from Amazon and get it in one or two boxes, instead of a bunch of stuff from all over the country in a bunch of boxes. It’s about saving a little bit of carbon emissions.
Does it make a significant difference? Absolutely not. But it makes me feel better. (Also Amazon packages are more often reusable. The boxes and paper packing are better than eBay bubble envelopes and bubble wrap encased in packing tape.)
Electronics too (like LEDs, microcontrollers, and sensors not phones and TVs). Often brands have a store on both Ali and Amazon but Ali is cheaper with longer shipping times of basically a week to a week and a half.
This doesn’t work for me. Regional hub is 20 miles from me. Two day shipping is now just "free shipping over $35 and takes a week to arrive.
I agree with your other points though. Amazon isn’t the cheapest option anymore. My local Walmart is actually better. I know Walmart is still a shit company but still…better in terms of getting what I need.
I’ve done the same with Netflix for years and previously had the 4 streams 4k plan up until they implemented their bullshit password sharing rules. Now I have the $6.99 plan and only keep it because my MIL babysits for us and likes to watch all the K dramas on there.
Did it this last cycle. Didn’t renew, don’t miss it. In fact the announcement of adding more ads into the video service I didn’t want, but had to pay for to get prime lead to me just leaving.
I canceled Prime as soon as they announced they were adding ads and I let them know that was the reason. Fuck them. We moved to streaming because it wasn’t cable, now these fuck heads are trying to turn streaming into cable. Capitalism is the fucking worst.
Yeah, I’ve got a full *arr setup so far - just need to iron out a few kinks before I can consider it “done”. Mainly just dealing with my server computer being incredibly slow with - I assume - transcoding.
Sadly, my current server is an old all-in-one, so adding a GPU will be difficult. My plan is to make due for now until I can get some proper hardware.
The current plan is - rather than bringing the hardware up to spec - I’ll try bringing the spec down to the hardware, by pre-encoding everything to something like H264. (While keeping originals, since I have the space.)
Thank you for the response and the resource, though! I’ll definitely check it out!
When my server crashes… I’m going tiny. Beelink S12 Pro Mini PC, Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake- N100(up to 3.4GHz), 16GB DDR4 RAM 500GB PCIe SSD, Desktop Computer Support 4K Dual Display/USB3.2/WiFi 6/BT5.2/Gigabit Ethernet for Home/Office a.co/d/gZYihvd
And a 3.2 enclosure
Mediasonic USB 3.2 4 Bay 3.5” SATA Hard Drive Enclosure – USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps Type C | USB-C (HF7-SU31C) Support 18TB HDD www.amazon.com/dp/B078YQHWYW
Yeah one of these days we’ll crack the code and get it right. In the meantime, how many homeless people are there in the richest country in the history of the world?
I don’t pay for prime for the video though, I do it because 10 members of my family like the 2 day shipping lol the video is just icing that we honestly rarely use. Just “The Boys” and “Clarksons Farm” really
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