I’m all for services making a reasonable profit and being able to fund new shows and such endeavors…
But we’re rapidly getting into an environment of “soaking viewers for all we can get out of them” simply to feed the fucking shareholders ever larger payouts.
Thank you Milton Friedman. 🖕
🙄 🤡 🖕
There’s a word for that: enshittification
the word is actually “capitalism.” it’s baked into its dna.
Capitalism - and I am the last person to defend it - didn’t used to be like this, or at least not as bad. shrug I could probably tolerate capitalism if, say, no company was allowed to employ more than say 15 people.
yeah it’s not like Smith predicted this but yeah … it’s certainly not human nature either.
i’d be happy if shareholders, all of them, were held criminally responsible for the criminal things corporations do - all the way down to wage theft and child labor.
That’d be a hell of a thing. I’m with you on that one. Too bad this country is by, for, and about the rich and we don’t really… do consequences for the rich.
Capitalism didn’t used to be like this because it was still developing, but it was always going to become this. Enshitification is not a bug, it’s a feature. Capitalism is supposed to work like this. And when it wasn’t, it was just because it wasn’t there yet, mainly due to technical limitations.
Enshitification is a consequence of legalized dumping. Companies are allowed to dump loss-making profucts and services on the market until they achieve dominance, then they squeeze the users that now have nowhere else to go. In startup-lingo this is blitzscaling followed by monetization. Our competition laws are 30 years behind the curve on this stuff.
Continued expansion or ever-increasing profits is a definitive characteristic of the system though. Enshittification is just the latest feature it found, for software-based companies.
One could also argue that enshittification is independent to software, like diluting juice or other “innovations” that products received…
It’s an interesting debate, if what we are seeing now is the natural, inevitable progress of capitalism, or it could have gone a better way, but eg. Reagan fucked it up for all of us in the 70s.
That it wasn’t always like this doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t always lead there though.
I think that is the point.
you just need to keep a shit list of brands that are now dead to you.
I have a dwindling list of brands that are not yet dead to me.
All of them.
exactly, if you want to be an ethical consumer you’d need to be a hermit.
Hermit here, can confirm.
I’m amazed that ads are so effective that they can make more cramming unwanted video in my face than just asking me for a couple bucks.
No one wants to pay money for the services they’re using. Ads is the way to go.
Nobody wants to pay for all the little individual piecemeal services and shit, because it’s wildly expensive and inconvenient, and because they keep adding ads to the paid stuff anyway because greed, so what benefit is there to paying?
they already make significantly more profits off of each ad-tier sub than they do the ad-free… yet it still isn’t enough. greedy fucking bastards.
How is showing me ads for things I will make a point not to buy because I implicitly hate the products of people showing me ads more profitable than the twenty fucking bucks a month I already give them?
Imagine if all that misallocated marketing budget got used to develop better products instead.
YAHAR!!! HOIST THE MAIN SAILS!!!
ahoy!
Implying there’s anything worth pirating on Netflix these days.
Wednesday was pretty good
You mean today? Today is Wednesday.
…my dudes.
I send that to my students through Google Classroom literally every Wednesday. I teach high school juniors and seniors.
Love death and Robots
Black Mirror
No it wasn’t. The show made ZERO sense.
Wednesday running around trying to PREVENT murders? That makes no sense!
Plus, she’s being admitted into a school for people with special powers, but at the time of admittence, she has shown NO powers whatsoever. They do come later, but…when she’s admitted, she’s just a 16 year old girl.
Plus, that thing where she looks back on her ancestor with the last name “Adams”, but the ancestor is on her mothers side? Why would the ancestor have the last name Adams? That implies that if she’s both an Adams, AND the mothers ancestor, that the whole Adams family is built on incest.
And before you say the husband could have taken the mothers last name, first off, we know Morticia didn’t, and second, it would imply EVERY woman in the family timeline dating back to the 1700s also did this.
Simple solution to all this…first off, make it so Wednesday has some motivation or reason why she’s not the one committing the murders, but also make it a reluctant reason. She still enjoys the murders, but she’ll get kicked out of school if she’s involved. Then make it so without the degree she can’t get her liscense as an embalmer. Which without that, she’s forced to get a normal person job.
Then, keep her quirky room mate exactly the same. The only difference is, she’s not a warewolf. She’s just a preppy girl. Exactly as she was. She can turn into a warewolf later at the hands of Wednesday creating a potion or whatever, but it’s not naturally in her DNA.
Now onto the school. It’s not a school for monsters. It’s just a regular ol’ private school.
The preppy girl is the one solving the murders. Wednesday is reluctantly helping her. The rest of the school shits all over Wednesday, but this preppy girl is the one person who accepts Wednesday for who she is. So even though Wednesday LOVES the murders, she also sees the good in the preppy girl. She becomes protective of her. The rest of the town can fuck off, but the preppy girl is different.
So she goes around town with the preppy girl TRYING to stay out of actually solving the murders, while still supporting the preppy girl. The problem is the preppy girl is REALLY BAD at solving these murders. Remember, she’s just a regular 16 year old girl. Meanwhile Wednesday has her periodic visions that solve the murders.
And the bad guy makes no sense either. He hates the school because they have magic powers. So to defeat them he creates a cult of people with magic powers?
I say make him just hate the Adams Family, including Wednesday. And his plan isn’t to do magical spooky shit. He’s just going to straight up kill Wednesday, until the preppy girl drinks the warewolf potion.
See? Now it all makes sense, and doesn’t go against the core concept of the character. You can even keep in the viral dance.
I think at least a few of those objections are addressed in the show.
The reason I didn’t like it is that all the previous incarnations of Wednesday had her as vengeful to those who deserved it, but basically decent, if a little sardonic, towards those who didn’t. Whereas this new one was a colossal B to everyone she met by default; made it kind of hard to root for her.
Wednesday is for people who grew up on Harry Potter and want more of it but know that won’t happen because Rowling is a terf wacko
Season 2 available yet?
You want Season 2 of Wednesday? I’m still waiting for season 4 of G.L.O.W.
I liked Kaos. Of course, it only got one season.
The latest Black Mirror is excellent!
Really enjoyed One Piece live action
The seas are truly splendid. I can only but pity the landlubbers.
They want the old cable tv days back, but worse
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Streaming was different for years and years. But then people got greedy.
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Streaming just waited to roll out unskippable ads so they could win customers early on with an artificially, temporarily better service.
This is the exact same thing cable did when it came out.
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No, cable was commercial-free when it first came out just like streaming was. They repeated the ota signals for the broadcast stations which of course contained commercials, but extremely similarly to streaming they started out with a quality and ad-free pitch for their own networks and then wound up pivoting to screwing over the customer any way possible.
(As they continue to do today, btw.)
No, but companies are made of individual people who get more or less greedy with time, like most other attributes of people. Which is why I said ‘people got greedy’.
It’s quite something how they’re trying to force the Internet to work as an artificial version of things we already have, instead of using it for the unique purposes which it can actually fulfill.
They want the old cable TV days, but worse, and filling their pockets instead.
This gem might need an update.
Stremio plus real debrid for the win…
I’m kinda proud of myself, that I skipped Netflix and never took off my pirate hat.
I never took off my pirates hat but I have had a netflix account for about a year…
…
It wasn’t my account. One of my kids friends signed in to their profile on my TV so I used it every now and again until the password sharing option was taken away.
Between that, price hike, and some weirdly low quality content because you don’t use this or that browser, netflix really wants people to stop their subscriptions it seems.
High seas baby!
There is surely a recognisable pattern here in which people leave because of this shit and to keep the flow of money going up they then have to further reduce quality by increasing ads.
I deleted my facebook a few weeks ago and signing in for the first time in years gave a look at what it became and it was unrecognisable.
Yup, I’m finishing off a couple shows and it’s on the chopping block. Easy choice
Netflix is the worst of the streaming channels these days.
Netflix will what now? Sorry, I was busy canceling my netflix account.
Kidding, I canceled it ages ago when the $10 version became SD-only with ads.
Why do we keep paying people like this to enshittify everything?
Because if you refuse to destroy yourself, your family, and the rest of the world, they’ll import 3rd worlders who will do it because they’re being threatened.
Yarrr
The only limitation on sailing the high seas is that the video and sound quality are not as great as legit streaming. You get descriptions that claim it is ripped full 4k or HD, but when actually looking at the encoding, it is not the case. But what can we do? If we are being made to stream in shit, it is better to sail in blue ocean high seas.
I hear a whisper in the wind about file size being a distinct though not foolproof hint of quality.
I definitely look at the file size first. Although, as you already alluded to, sometimes it gets cheated with the resolution being cropped to either the top or side. And a major issue with downloading large file sizes is if you are unlucky enough that there aren’t many seeders.
You are aware that Netflix et.al. put compression on their streams (usually quite a bit in regards to bitrate) ? It is often the case that BluRay rips etc. are available better on the high seas…
*only if you use the Netflix app on “supported platforms”
I guess the answer to your question is to get on a private tracker for high-quality releases ;)
vlc has the codec information in the tool menu
atmos and even dts x content are very findable
have a 5.1.4 system hooked up by hdmi to the igpu and the video to the gpu
the green for atmos comes on and the amber for dts does too as well as the white for dolby digital
again vlc confirms this too in the codec information
be prepared for enormous file sizes so worth it though but have to use the atmos for home theater or the dts x for home theater under the windows spatial sound settings per the content and yes switch back and forth all the time
atmos for home theater doubles for dolby digital
sounds just like the theater but be sure to check what is available for the content you are searching because it might not exist
for example Harry Potter just got rereleased on dts x and the news was on the official dts site but also check blu-ray.com to see what formats exists
That’s why you do several magnets, to be sure, and discard the ones that are bullshit, if you’re worried about that. Haven’t had any problems myself, other than theater cam for the newest new movies.
“[Netflix] members pay as much attention to midroll ads as they do to the shows and movies themselves,” Amy Reinhard, president of advertising at Netflix, said, per the publication.
Amy, I want you to be honest with me, are you an alien.
Because on planet Earth we do not, if fact, pay as much attention to the ads as to the things we’re actually interested in. Famously our brains even produce this fascinating effect to spare us from the bullshit you’re shoving into our eyeballs.
I’m just waiting for it to be like that Black Mirror episode where ads came on, the guy closed his eyes, and alarms went off until he opened them again.
The bad thing about those kind of shows, is that while most people see that as a warning, and something to avoid.
Some people immediately start charting a path to how to make it a reality, and sometimes those people are very very smart and can chart a path that might take decades.
I say this while on the toilet, writing on a device that has cameras both front and back, always on microphones and location sensors, and facial recognition and 3D scanning equipment.
When the personalized condom ads start popping up, I will only be slightly annoyed.
i think in netflix’s case, they might actually be paying as much attention to the ads as they do the shows, which is to say none at all
This is exactly how I interpreted that statement. No one is paying attention, who cares if they slip some garbage ads in?
If I pay for a service and get ads, that service is dead to me forever.
But you’re only getting ads if you choose to get them. What’s your problem exactly?
Always sad watching people complain about ads on free streaming sites which can be easily blocked with an adblocker while defending their subscription to netflix.
It really puts into perspective how ‘intelligent’ the average consumer is and how seriously their input should be taken, though.
Since when is Netflix free?
As the old saying goes: Don’t feed the trolls.
Replying as if half the comment doesn’t exist and putting the word intelligent in quotes is a classic antagonizing move by trolls to make people try to engage them.
Huh?? If a streaming site (or any product for that matter) is free, the user is the product - be it their time, personal info, whatever. It is known and accepted that a “free” service will have a catch that allows the provider to make money.
If a user PAYS for a service it is expected that the payment is enough remuneration for there to be no strings attached. Of course companies will look for shitty ways to do shitty things to make more money, and those companies ought to be punished, generally by a reduction in customers, for their shitty behaviour.
If a streaming site (or any product for that matter) is free, the user is the product
Not necessarily. This is rhetoric peddled by useful idiots to justify spending money on things they could be getting for free.
Companies have a way easier time harvesting and selling your data when you give them your credit card info.
But good job defending corporate abuse with a “saying.” You’re not a useful idiot.
The sooner people realize that the subscribers are nothing more than super-slow-boiled frogs to them, the better.
“[Netflix] members pay as much attention to midroll ads as they do to the shows and movies themselves,” Amy Reinhard, president of advertising at Netflix, said, per the publication.
In terms of attention, she’s either lying or admitting that members barely pay attention to their content.
They have told writers to dumb things down and have the characters speak aloud what they’re doing because so many people doom scroll while it’s on in the background.
There not making quality. They’re making elevator music for your home.
She is exactly admitting members barely pay attention. It’s a pretty widely known issue in the screenwriting community. Netflix in particular wants more “second screen scripts.” Meaning they need shows that constantly remind you of what’s happening, have tons of expository dialogue—constantly—and that leans hard into the shallow end of story.
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They pay for market research
Well, time to cancel finally I’ve gotten used to torrenting again anyway
Pirating has never felt so good. Normally I’m indifferent to it but now I’m enjoying it.
Soo… the ad income is higher than the energy costs of gen. AI? They lied about the pennies per visit? 😢
Also, 🏴☠️
Netflix showed time and time again that they are shit at counting money. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out they’re losing money on those ads but will do them anyway because managers eat the worst possible hype for breakfast.
I higly doubt they generate a custom ad per viewer, it’s probably per show which can be re-used.
I’ve gone back to books.
Spent waaay too much on a single volume illustrated edition of all the Earthsea books. My weekend is going to be lit.
Oh shit….I need to go get that!
(Speaking of books …. time to go see if that fancy hardback edition of Cibola**Burn is ever going to get released.
edit: it’s not coming out any time soon 😤
