Streaming has become cable 2.0.
It was wonderful when everything was on one, maybe two providers. Could watch everything in a very easy, very affordable way.
But everyone saw that, went “I know, I want that money!” and spent billions building their own individual infrastructures so make their own streaming services, and right around we go right back to the absolute worst days of cable and bullshit.
Only thing stopping me from saying fuck it and downloading shit I want to watch, is the fact that I no longer know what the good sites are… since I havent pirated since the heyday of the bay.
Join lemmy.dbzer0.com the piracy instance and ask around about private trackers and if there are any open signups
And the irony is that people switched to cable for the exact same reason. They got tired of the nonsense that broadcast TV pulled with subscriptions for different channels and all the ads and everything, and went to cable because you paid one bill for every channel. Then, everyone moved to streaming because you had to buy 50 different cable packages for the one channel on each you actually cared about, and there were just too many ads to deal with, etc.
Something something, those who don’t listen to history are doomed to lose profit margins or whatever.
Broadcast tv had different subscriptions for channels? Where? Free to air tv is free with no subscriptions or options.
I may be remembering that wrong, as it was before my time, but I had heard that people moved to cable for the same reasons that people moved from cable to streaming services. You bought one cable package, it gave you access to everything, and there were no ads. Then came the ads, and eventually, the packages you have to buy in addition to your cable subscription for the channels you actually care about.
TorrentFreak occassionally posts a list of sites, just use a good no logging VPN.
That and movies just suck nowadays. This is partially old man yelling at cloud stuff but also true since the death of DVD’s means studios won’t take risks anymore since they can’t recoup funds after a poor box office.
On the usenet side of the house, I think the only big change was NZB Matrix going away.
I can’t tell if no one talks about usenet because no one knows about it or because they don’t want anyone else to know about it.
I prefer torrents because it’s totally free, unlike Usenet. I don’t even pay for a VPN since I don’t care about a few love letters in my inbox. It’s not about the cost; it’s a matter of principle that I disagree with commercialized piracy.
But Usenet is a good option for other reasons.