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Comment by CafeRacer | Hacker News Reader

I dont mind paying for content, but the current state of streaming makes it easier to get movies from torrents.

Like the Alien for example, some parts are on Netflix, some are not. Meaning i have to buy like 5 different subscriptions to be able to watch everything i want.

Or even better one, Dr House. I don't think we had it streamed in our country, so the only way to watch it was to pirate.

Its bad how the platforms are right now.

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I also don't mind paying for content but i want the content as it was originally broadcast. With streaming if you "buy" something they might eventually replace the background music or cut scenes that are deemed insensitive or clash with the director's new vision. Or they decide you need to view 4:3 content with the top and bottom cut off in 16:9. Or in some cases you might lose access to the content entirely because the license expired. Or they discontinue the app and roll your purchases into some different app with a horrible interface (youtube music).

I also don't mind paying for content in theory but besides your concerns I also want to be able to play that content on whatever devices using whatever software I want, without needing a constant internet connection. The Music industry has survived the switch to DRM-free content, the Movie and TV industry can too.

Both your and @yourusername are valid arguments. Movie/TV streaming services generally bad.

It's like a loot of good content is missing, but instead they're trying to make their own content that is mostly average and sometimes just bluntly bad, not even laughably bad.

Music is way better, I recently switched from Spotify to Tidal, and there were only two tracks missing from my playlists.

One thing that with Spotify is that not everything is available. For a while, the soundtrack to "The Bourne Supremacy" was available, then it wasn't for months, now it is again. This has happened with a few songs on other soundtrack albums, presumably all due to licensing issues.

The other thing is that the original version of an album is replaced by a remastered version. Usually the new version has additional songs but the remastering and songs change the experience.

It's actually bugged me a lot with (HBO) Max's streaming service that so much WB content isn't available on the service... or pieces are missing in movie collections. My hope would be that more would congregate to the service over time now it's simply less. I want to support the ongoing shows that I like, but it's hard to justify in that the couple shows a year are all I watch on any given service.

I see this gripe throughout but the streaming subscription service is more like HBO in the old cable days. They had a licensed set of content that rotates every month. You don’t get to own any of it because their whole illusion of catalog depth is based on the rotation semantic. This is less about streaming and more about royalties and licensing.

Although still imperfect as an ownership mechanism the analogy to DVDs is purchasing the content from say Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV. You can “own” a much broader catalog, the ownership rights aren’t super clear or stable over time, but the DVD / streaming video is licensed to you permanently and sits in your library.

Using contemporaneous language Netflix is to HBO as Amazon Prime Video ownership is to a DVD.

Didn't most people subscribe to HBO for its original series? In the 2000s they had Entourage, Sopranos and Six Feet Under and probably many more I can't remember.

Game of Thrones being the really big one.

GoT started in 2011.

HBO was quite old at that point when the original programming started. I remember when it started and in its real growth period it would send a monthly viewers guide of their rotating catalog with show times.

Original programming more or less started much later after they were well established and seeking marginal growth.

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