Accurate.

130 comments

I've been too poor this whole time, so the hat is firmly attached.
- I've been aware long enough of big gaps in the libraries of streaming services that there was never a reason to give it up.
  It took until fucking March of this fucking year for Spotify to have any old De La Soul to stream. Good thing I've had a high quality rip of their early discography for fifteen fucking years. Otherwise I would have been shit outta luck on listening to them.
  I couldn't stream a killer album from fucking 1989 in 2022. There continue to be massive gaps in their libraries due to licensing issues and people who just don't want to get underpaid by Spotify.
  
  At least the De La Soul situation was understandable. Imagine the amount of time it must have taken to track down and relicense every sample.
- I've been too cheap this whole time.
  
  My man
- Me too, but for some damn reason, it seems to cost more per month, overall, than a couple subscriptions.
  But I will say, I love my setup...
  
  Also you actually own the files not rent them, which I think is worth the price.

Way too accurate. Netflix, when it was the sole main provider, was super good. Then the other companies realised the big bucks they could get from streaming/peddling their own shit.
Thanks to this meme, I killed my netflix account. Nicotine is fine :D
- It sucks when competition spoils a market
  
  The whole idea that competition is good is a total libertarian lie. Cooperation leads to the best results. It's just impossible under capitalism.
- Pretty sure I read they’re all losing money hand over fist, which is why they’re implementing ads and jacking up prices. Exception being Netflix.

I've just finished my setup with Radarr, Sonarr, Jellyfin, qBittorrent and nzb360. I've paid 120€ for proton vpn for 2 years, 200€ for m2 ssd for 4tb and a few bucks for domain to access my setup from anywhere. Also, I have a 1gb internet connection for 65€ pm...
So, I'm willing to pay... I don't want to spend all this time configuring scripts and integrations(though it was fun 😁)... But paying for Netflix, Prime, HBO, Disney+ and not being able to watch everything I want, simply makes me angry and miserable.
Duck them all. Arrrrr
- I have outsourced much of the setup you describe to a country with lower law enforcement pressure with regards to torrenting. Costs me 15€.
  Worth it for me.
  
  Saw some service offering like 100k movies for $15 a month.
  Only thing stopping me is the thought of giving my credit card details to a criminal...
  
  do you have a name for the provider?
  
  Is it done SaaS or do you have your private setup? Also what about the speed? I stream 20gb files over wi-fi and can experience issues with stream lag time to time
- It also requires you to skip from page to page. You need a page to search to tell you what page to to go search for what you want to watch

Are ya ready, kids?!?
- aye aye captain!
  
  Oooooooh!

I subscribe to a bunch of services but still pirate all the shows because it's nicer to have them all in one place
- Why do you subscribe then?
  
  Probably for the convenience of partners/children.
  Lots of people who aren't super deep into computer nerdy shit get outright confused when faced with options they've never heard of like "Plex." Sometimes it's just more convenient to respect your partner and keep Netflix because it makes sense to them.
  Plex doesn't have easy-to-use parental control options and a lot of parents who might have the time to set up a Plex server for themselves may not have the time to muddle through the parental control options than just accepting that most streaming services have a kid-friendly section already set up and easy to access. Plex's matching algorithm isn't perfect, and opening it to your kids means you've got to make sure the matching is perfect. I've definitely had adult shows be recognized by the matching algorithm as children's shows. If you don't catch that, your kid can end up watching something you'd rather them not. It's just a lot more work to manage your Plex parental controls than just using the off the shelf setup from the streaming services.
  Neither of these apply to me, but I know folks who have Plex plus subscribed services for these reasons.
  
  They came free with a bunch of other things so I subscribe until they start charging me, and then they're like "oh no don't go here's a free year" and I'm like "okay." I'd steal it anyway but at least this way it's a little ethical.
  
  It’s an unpopular take here I would guess, but because they have the money to do it, and it’s the right thing to do.
  The unfortunate thing is the actual actors/writers/producers aren’t getting paid because they’re paid per stream that Disney or whatever won’t count because it’s pirated.
- I have nutflex but still ended up downloading ld&R because they would not stop fucking up the episode order or playing no more than one at a time before rotating back to a reshuffled episode menu and i JUST WANTED TO WATCH THE FUCKING SHOW
  
  I have nutflex
  You should get that checked out.
- if you’re talking about UI/UX check out stremio. it’s groundbrakingly good

Every time I see this meme there's another platform on here
- Because there's a new platform (being annoying) every time this gets reposted, which is a lot!

As we approach every service charging $30 a month, there's going to be a point where the average consumer will just give up.
Meanwhile, your seedbox will still only be $5.
- That's cheap. Where do I sign up?
  
  I pay $5 for evoseedbox.

Corporations had a good thing going on, they fucked it up.
- Corporations had a good thing going on, they fucked it up.
  Show me nearly any problem the US has and I will boil it down to Corporate Greed and/or Racism.
  
  I have a ring set aside for the first woman I meet that says this
  
  I'm usually baffled whenever companies do a long term face-plant for the sake of short term profit. Really goes to show that what academics like to theorize about capitalism isn't reflected in reality. Sure the system might work with people interested in long term gains but it very obviously is run by people that want short term gratification and in general just more of whatever they already have. Mostly that means money, because swimming in money still is not enough for these people.
  Loot boxes and streaming are the best examples, the companies could have had a thing where they just print money. All they had to do was to moderate themselves a bit and not extort the customer for the last cent. But no, insane amounts of cash flow/profit are not enough, it needs to be ludicrously insane amounts. And after that some more.
  
  You forgot complacency and apathy
  
  Duh, we live under capitalism. Racism can be overcome (not in this lifetime tho), but the greed is built into the system.
  
  Honestly most of my problems in life have much to do with the fact that rich Southerners halted the Reconstruction in order to maintain dominance over the poor

The eyes in this fucking strip have haunted me for years.
- This, it would be less deep in the uncanny valley without eyes at all.
  
  On second though, it doesn't seem like a big improvement. Reminds me a bit of limbfeeders without limbs.
- I thought that was hair. I still see it mostly as hair. My brain can only see it as eyes for a fraction of a second at a time.

Yeah, I used to turn to such activities because it was cheaper, now I do it because it's simpler/easier.

It’s Plex’in time!
- I'm more of a Jellyfin person though (all hail open source!)
  
  Does jellyfin support transcoded downloads already? Thats the only thing holding me back from plex. All my movies and shows are 4k no need to load giant 4k files to a phone when traveling.
  
  based
- Plex is getting worse tough just saying...pushing their own services and now they started blocking certain hosting providers.
  
  It may be but until other options are available on a PlayStation, I doubt I'll move. I don't even watch stuff but the people I serve to need functionally on the PS... maybe they'll get smart TVs soon
  
  Jellyfin is a great and superior alternative.

Don't forget the price increase and drop in quality.
- The price increase I can deal with. The drop in quality and getting rid of password sharing (after they actively endorsed it) is why they lost me.

To the grand line!!!
- We Are!

Ah enshittification, making me not want to pay for your shitty services every god damn time.
- This is my new favorite word.

Especially with Netflix increasing their prices again here in a couple months…

As someone who watches a lot of non-English stuff, I could never put the hat down.

Original comic was 2019. What's the point of adding 2 years?
- To make the years mirror better maybe? That's really all I can think of. 2012->2021 has the flip of the last two numbers

Haha I'm poor

Once this happens to the music industry, we need to make sure the kids are all prepared to open Netscape Navigator, go to AltaVista and search for "Napster". They'll thank us later.

Where $currentYear?
Ooook.

Who the fuck pays for more than one at a time anyway, I don't mind fragmentation because I have no loyalty to one service and will move to one to watch it's stuff, then move when i get bored of what it has to offer. Competition is always good. We shouldn't have monopolies in any industry, including streaming
- Competition in a streaming service is an illusion that makes the overall service worse and more expensive. And it's probably not viable long term. Why? Because there is no competition for any one show. If the platform were all streaming the same shows, that would be competition. Instead they simply share the service with each platform having its monopoly on the shows it streams.
  
  You saying that shows don't compete with each other?
  
  Competition for one show is another show. What else?
- It's only going to be a matter of time before they start requiring contracts, forcing you to stick with a service for long periods or face fees for dropping them.
  They are capitalists, and so they must always profit more and more, never ending, for all of time. One of the things they will eventually do to hit that unsustainable proift motive is contracts. It's what the cable companies did, and it's only a matter of time.
  
  This is exactly where it's heading, not just for streaming but for anything and everything that can be packaged and sold "as a service" whether it's actually a service or anything that's undergoing the enshittification process of being converted from a product into a service.
  Anything that can be converted into a service will be, and anything that can be so converted will, eventually, become a subscription, and from there, into a contract service model.
  Honestly it wouldn't surprise me a bit to even see literal standalone products converted into contract based subscriptions over time, given the IoT trend.
  So beyond just your streaming service, your TV will have its proprietary OS converted to a subscription and then to a contract, so that you need to sign a 2 year deal with your TV manufacturer to keep it "powered". Don't sign a contract? They brick your TV.
  With more and more smart appliances, expect to see companies try this to also force you into contracts to keep your fridge, toaster, smart lighting, microwave, door locks and cameras, etc. functional.
  Naturally, baked into your contract will be language that forces you to share any and all data they can collect from said devices as a condition of the contract.
- Pirating is just so much less hassle.
  
  There is more competition in piracy with who you trust to download from, what codec you find is best and what page / travkers you use. These fragmented streaming services don't have any of that choice to offer
  
  I disagree for the most part but if you already have a system for watching your pirated stuff sure, or if you just watch things at your computer desk.
- Ditto.
  Canceling cable used to be, at the very least, a long, phone call that alternated between stretches of hold music dulling the senses and combative sales technique verbal jousting. Canceling a streaming service... I don't think that has ever taken me more than four minutes of finding a webpage and clicking. The collective consciousness is in danger of forgetting/underplaying just how far we have come on this.
  If pirating ever takes less than four minutes every other month, I guess it will have reached convenience parity. But it certainly wasn't that back when I was in that game. And I really, really doubt it is now.
  
  After you get it set up pirating is basically zero time. There's some up front time costs learning how to automate everything but after that? Yar har
- People are too lazy to manage when to subscribe where based on what's on offer at any given time.
  That's it, that's all there is to it.
  
  But pirating is just better, I can see what's new across all services in seconds and get whatever I want at basically streaming speed with xdcc
  
  I mean, I suck-it-up and sub to all of them. I hate the experience and my wife removed at me at least weekly because it's so much work to find and start a show (to the extent she ends up NOT watching the show she wanted, and leaves some stupid channel on at random). We are so close to cancelling all of them, not for the money but because the experience is complete ass.
  Guess what I'll be doing to watch my TV if we do that?

Yo ho yo ho…

Yo ho fiddle, de dee

This, but more like from 2010 to 2012. Streaming was only great for a very brief moment imo. It was pretty obvious, pretty early on that every studio wanted to create their own streaming service. It became easier to automate the downloading and have everything located in one spot real fast.