There is concern that subscribers might be negatively affected if Netflix acquires Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD’s) streaming and movie studios bu.
  • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    28·
    3 days ago

    the HBO/MAX evolution has been ridiculously shitty to the HBO brand. they had their own film line and original series for years that was in-house and distinct from the broader studio system, cultivating relationships with talented actors, writers and directors. they were taking chances in serious budget, serialized dramas long before that was being done anywhere else. and they definitely had a golden age with stuff like True Detective S1, Barry, The Leftovers, going all the way back to The Sopranos, Carnivale, and Deadwood.

    the whole WB induced MAX/Discovery thing simply injected that impressive library with a metric fuckload of complete garbage. so much unscripted trash tv and true crime slop, all appearing right on the heels of the GOT flame out.

    they are clearly spinning out, and now this netflix merger is set to take it all the rest of the way into the gutter.

    so glad i started my transition to self-hosting and jellyfin over a year ago. hbo is my last and only paid streamer since last year, and i look forward to cutting it in response to a final straw.

    • Grapho@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      The saddest part is their animation projects are by far the best of the major studios but they keep killing them in the cradle

  • oscardejarjayes [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    21·
    3 days ago

    pirate-jammin

    I already stopped using Netflix a long, long time ago. I don’t have any of those subscriptions now. There’s already more available movies than I will ever be able to watch, of good quality. I don’t need to watch the latest stuff right away, but I still usually can thanks to the hard and good work of amazing people.

      • FumpyAer [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        9·
        3 days ago

        There was an open invite period after a large public torrent network went down. I think I get a single invite after a few more milestones but I’m not sure how long it will take to get.

        • LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
          4·
          3 days ago

          what if you waited until you got that invite and then just made a second account, do you think you could pass it around like the Bureaucrat people were doing without it impacting your original acct

          edit: to people you trust obviously, can’t let narcs in

          • Majestic@lemmy.mlEnglish
            6·
            3 days ago

            I wouldn’t.

            They’ll ban you if they catch you doing that and they may very well do basic browser fingerprinting so even switching IPs behind your VPN may or may not help if they think you’re using two accounts yourself or established two.

            In practice no. I don’t think you could do that account sharing as most private trackers would notice a whole lot of IPs including sometimes at the same time using one account in an anomalous way. In particular seeding from multiple IPs looks very strange unless they’re hosted seedboxes and even then many trackers restrict you to 1-2.

            Inevitably a bad actor would do H&R’s and get the thing banned and may get the inviting account banned or in trouble. (Cabal trackers in particular will nuke a whole invite tree all the way back to the original inviter if someone does something like that)

            Private trackers are not hard to get into or stay in. You need patience and the willingness and ability to seed content for a minimum time frame. The most elite ones sure are very hard or nigh impossible but you can get into really good ones that cover the needs of all but the most obscure media collectors by just camping /r/opensignups on reddit.

            Interestingly it doesn’t look like TL has done an opening up this holiday period. Nor any of the other big ones. Might be because they are at capacity right now. Still I would bet on TL doing an open sign-up period by summer of this year (could come next week, could be in June, just have to keep checking, it’ll come). You just have to be patient and keep checking. If you can’t manage to get into and stay in good graces on TL then you can’t manage any private tracker IMO as they are incredibly easy and lax.

            You can also go the slightly harder route (but less dependent on waiting around and snagging invites) of applying for and getting into trackers like RED, establishing good ratio and parlaying that after 6-12 months into using their invites forums to get invites to other places. Though be warned it will take active management, research, study, and work on your part as well as constant seeding to go that route. Still it can open the doors more quickly to getting into the more elite trackers within a couple years as opposed to a lot longer or never going the opensignups route.

            And there is the really easy way of just paying your way in. Many decent places allow you to buy your way in with a few months of VIP though if you drop the VIP you better follow the rules and seed and contribute or many will kick you out.

            • SevenSkalls [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
              1·
              2 days ago

              This sounds like so much work lol. I wish I could just have non-shitty streaming services without having to worry about checking a reddit sub every day and being quick on the draw, or a bunch of research. Luckily I’ve gotten away with just public trackers for now but feel like I’ll have to go this route eventually and I’m already tired just thinking about it.

              If I can find one where the VIP isn’t too expensive, I might go that route. I don’t mind contributing, I’m one of those people who seeds everything I have even for public trackers until I need the room (then I only delete things with a ratio of 3.0 with more than 30 seeders already) just to be nice. It’s just the getting in part that sounds annoying.

              • Majestic@lemmy.mlEnglish
                1·
                2 days ago

                Private trackers are communities. They work because people contribute, interact, etc all within a set of rules and expectations of behavior (don’t start fights, seed, follow H&R rules, don’t be inactive too long, etc).

                I won’t lie, a lot of the good ones are only open for 24-48 hours unfortunately and there’s the additional fact that sometimes people don’t post them being open on reddit until there’s a day left

                TL on the other hand is often open for nearly a week (it’s based on available slots they open up in their case and it usually takes more than 72 hours to fill). So you don’t necessarily have to check every day if it’s just them you want in.

                TL usually has the fact they’re open on the right side of their home page in the news section with a code you paste so you can just check them directly. (Many other trackers don’t put any big signs that they’re open out, sometimes even not telling their userbase)

                Once you see an opening you need to be ready. Have your special email set-up for this (one not used for anything connected to your real identity) and sign up as soon as you can.

                Beware of charge for entry trackers. There are scammy trackers that are of bad repute, low or no quality that you don’t want to pay, places set up just to get people who are willing to pay for a private tracker and which will ban you or extort you for more money forever to stay a member. The only reputable ones I know of that offer direct pay to get in are HD-Torrents and IPTorrents (though they’re only barely reputable, not that good and in the past have done malicious things using user pw/emails to harass other sites).

                TL doesn’t directly offer joining for money, rather it has a promo where you pay a partner (who pays them) for a seedbox and it gets you an invite code. A number of sites like the 'az sites (cinemaz, aviztaz, etc) also have a similar offer. This is actually not a horrible way to go IF YOU’RE INTENT ON PAYING ANYWAYS as you want to stock up on ratio if you can and a seedbox will allow you to do so efficiently. Beware though you’ll likely be given the boot more quickly than someone who signs up through open sign-ups or recruitment threads so be sure to build ratio and participate early on after dropping the seedbox sub.

                I’d recommend skimming this page: https://redlib.catsarch.com/r/Piracy/wiki/guides/private_trackers

                And these are also decent resources:

          • FumpyAer [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
            2·
            3 days ago

            Funny as that would be, I’m pretty sure they would catch on quickly. They know what torrents you download and they track your seed rate, I assume by adding an account identifier to the torrent file. Because they know it’s you despite your IP being cloaked by a vpn. They also track who invited whom so I’d be screwed too lmao.

  • buckykat [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    19·
    3 days ago

    Reminiscent of that time Microsoft was pushing always on internet DRM on the Xbox One and said the solution for people without reliable internet was to buy an Xbox 360.

  • LeninWalksTheEarth [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    10·
    3 days ago

    good thing ive been a digital klepto for 20+ years. paying for slop to entertain me? nah. my gf has streaming services but i never use them.

    AirVPN is great, ive had it for like a decade plus now. They have frequent deals where you can get a year or two for like $3-$4 a month.

    i sometimes use https://fora.snahp.eu/ but i think its had registration closed forever. i can get a free invite for $10 but that’s it.