Netflix Puts AI Ads in Paid Tier: Pirate Everything at This Point
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Just because something always used to be some way doesn't mean it's automatically acceptable.
TV might have been designed for the ad break but what if it wasn't? You give Star Trek as an example, and here in the UK growing up I watched TNG episodes on BBC2, which is a tax-funded station without adverts. Did the lack of adverts make my childhood TNG experience worse? Personally I'd say it made it better.
Even in the cable TV age, to have adverts in something you are paying for is still horrible, and to me it's unacceptable.
I will do everything in my power to not expose my brain to a barrage of advertising, and that includes not using any service where I have to subject myself to it.
Also, I don't know how it was in other countries, but I remember that pay-tv services in Italy didn't have ads during programs and films, but only between the programs. It was a way better experience.
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Did Plex enshittify recently? I've seen a lot of people switching to jellyfin.
Plex is completely enshittified at this point.
- You need to pay if you want to share your movies with friends
- They spy your watch list, and share what you watched with your friends by sending them emails
- They released a new half broken app
- They removed the "party" option that let you watch a movie together with friends remotely
- They're actively trying to hide the personal streaming features in order to push people to their legally (and ad-riddled) streamed movies
So Jellyfin is now the best solution afaik
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Yep, big time. Basically dead at this point, forcing payments to stream your own content.
I started setting up my homelab last month and immediately went to Jellyfin because Plex just screamed "corporate bullshit" to me. Sure enough, it was the right call.
Basically dead at this point
For free users though, there are some of us who paid for Lifetime Plex Pass tier a long time ago... I do wonder if Lifetime really means forever though.
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2 dollars just for providing the tunnel service, mind you. A subscription for glorified port forwarding.
The glorified port forwarding issue is even worthless if you are a CGNAT user, and it is 2025 so I'll assume everyone is.
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Aliexpress summer sale started. Getting a 150 eur ryzen mini pc and slapping some hdds onto it for a cheap media server/nas with 4 digit nas specs.
This seems like it could be a fun project. Mind making a post about the build sometime?
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Basically dead at this point
For free users though, there are some of us who paid for Lifetime Plex Pass tier a long time ago... I do wonder if Lifetime really means forever though.
Narrator voice: "But it did not last forever..."
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Stremio is everything I could ever want and more.
I love it, but I wish there was a way to still seed while using it.
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This post did not contain any content.
Wrong community?
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Advertising isn't the problem. And before I get my balls cut off, I'll back away slowly while explaining myself....
We've always paid for ads. Back in the old days you paid for a cable subscription and got to watch ads every 15 minutes. That's not a new phenomenon. Hell, television was designed around the advertising break. The entire one hour series 5 part script model was created with the "cut to ad break" in mind. You think about your CSI:Miami "sunglasses of justice" stinger, or your fourth ad-break plot-twist as the Romulan war bird uncloaks and the music dun-dun-duns into a commercial for cheese-its...
That's not a problem in and of itself. In fact I kind of miss it when shows were written that way. Heck, Tubi and Pluto TV do it and no one complains about that. And if Netflix wants to add those back into their free tier, more power to 'em.
But advertising is not about getting served a few commercials every fifteen minutes anymore. It's literally in front of the content, within the content, etc... It's not about "hey look, it's an ad break, let's go refill our 7-up and take a piss", it's inlaid with the content, as well as taking up as much, if not MORE time than the actual content itself. and THAT'S part one of the problem.
Part two is the fact that if you're going to make more money by making me pay for your service AND watch advertisements, you better damn well be giving at least some of that new money to other creatives that are MAKING those advertisements. Make a commercial with actors and actresses; pay them. Hire a writer to create ad-copy, just like we used to do. But if you're going to charge me AND make me watch lazy shit you made with A.I. slop, than THAT is where I'll happily take my ship and head onto the high seas.
I'd be perfectly happy to sit through two or three traditional advertisements every fifteen minutes just like we did in the old days. But what I WON'T stand for is watching five minutes of lazy A.I. ads after every five minutes of actual content and be expected to PAY for the service on top of that.
There are no ads on the CD I bought from the merch table at a concert last week.
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I totally get the anger with Netflix. I fucking hate them as a filmmaker. But I really don't think a long term solution is pirating content.
BUY CONTENT YOU LIKE
Is it more expensive? Of course it is, that's part of an equitable society. Also it means you end up with content you really like and not a bunch of junk.
If there was a Bandcamp for film and TV, then I would buy stuff there. DRM free.
But until then...
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Yep, link it with real debrid As you are, sailing the seas in style.. Great UI. Evan has a calendar to keep track of your series.
I am an old pirate and I cringe when people bash debrid services for their pirate pride, honestly it is a life changer if you are willing to switch to fully stream (I still seed the content I gather with the Arr stack for my Plex).
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I love it, but I wish there was a way to still seed while using it.
While using Stremio alone without a debrid service?
I think you do... perhaps not in the healthiest way, but it is something.
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Just because something always used to be some way doesn't mean it's automatically acceptable.
TV might have been designed for the ad break but what if it wasn't? You give Star Trek as an example, and here in the UK growing up I watched TNG episodes on BBC2, which is a tax-funded station without adverts. Did the lack of adverts make my childhood TNG experience worse? Personally I'd say it made it better.
Even in the cable TV age, to have adverts in something you are paying for is still horrible, and to me it's unacceptable.
I will do everything in my power to not expose my brain to a barrage of advertising, and that includes not using any service where I have to subject myself to it.
Totally agree.
Broadcast TV shows where designed with advertising in mind because it was the only way to monetize it at the time (except for tax-funded of course).
When cable TV started, one of their selling points was that it didn't have ads, at least on the "cable-native" channels.
But after a while, they started putting ads everywhere, and that of course lead to the shitty experience that made a lot of people "cut the wire" when streaming services started.I'm wondering what's the next thing that will replace streaming, and eventually repeat the cycle.
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Trakt too π«‘
Yeah.. Trakt also started in the enshitification path though (for some it has been there for a while).
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Stremio is everything I could ever want and more.
I love Stremio it is so simple to use and relatively easy to set up, I like the set it and forget it format it has (and your settings and setup are synced across all the devices you like).
With that said, geek me can't leave aside Kodi for good, I have a Nvidia Shield TV Pro 2019 and that is where I use it, even when the setup I've for it is somewhat heavy (it makes my Shield struggle sometimes) I love thinkering with it, because... there is fun thinkering right?
My gf does Stremio almost always though.
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Nah fuck that. Ignore this guy, everyone pirate everything until they fix it again.
People donβt pirate music, guess why?
People don't pirate music
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Yeah.. Trakt also started in the enshitification path though (for some it has been there for a while).
idk its free and it lets me subscribe to lists so I can find stuff easily. Until they break that I won't notice.
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People don't pirate music
βοΈThe days of Oink and what.cd are long gone. I'm sure people rip streams, but most will just actually stream.
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Totally agree.
Broadcast TV shows where designed with advertising in mind because it was the only way to monetize it at the time (except for tax-funded of course).
When cable TV started, one of their selling points was that it didn't have ads, at least on the "cable-native" channels.
But after a while, they started putting ads everywhere, and that of course lead to the shitty experience that made a lot of people "cut the wire" when streaming services started.I'm wondering what's the next thing that will replace streaming, and eventually repeat the cycle.
wrote last edited by [email protected]It's quite hard for me to imagine at this current point in time that anything could replace streaming.
Every major shift in how media is consumed has always come because of evolutions in the technology used to deliver it - going from just a few broadcast channels, to cable, to "on demand" cable and satellite, and finally to Internet delivery.
And it's just really hard to imagine what delivery technology could provide any new capability beyond the always-on, bidirectional, high capacity data stream in your pocket that is the Internet we now have.
With streaming we've already achieved what should in theory be the best way to watch - and with the studios all having their own streaming platform now, there's not even any middleman to undercut anymore, like there was when the cable companies were cut out by Netflix at the dawn of streaming. This is endgame.
The only thing left now is enshittification.
The one thing that could save us from this fate is if new programs and content are produced that are competitive in quality with what the current giants are putting out, giving people other places to go and forcing competition.
This is what we've already seen with indie studios and single developers disrupting the games industry, and perhaps with ever more achievable 3D animation, AI and other accessible production techniques we'll start seeing this disrupt the film and TV industry too.
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I'll buy music directly from artists on bandcamp and such, especially since they offer unlimited DRM-free FLAC downloads, but any other media at this point is just absurdly inconvenient. Everything's just tied to dogshit streaming platforms.
If there were a DRM-free option to buy and download movies or shows for life, I'd definitely be buying what I can here and there. But everything is so locked down or encumbered with other bullshit that it's not a viable option.
buying physical media and ripping yourself is the only viable option but it's so inconvenient
