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Companies issuing refunds in the form of gift cards is just straight-up insulting
And it may be illegal in some states to not offer the customer an actual refund.
Remember, streaming only has a business model as long as it has a better user experience than piracy. That’s why iTunes took off in the era of Napster. When a streaming service’s user experience drops below that of digging up pirate treasure off a shitty ad-ridden torrent site, that service is not long for the world.
I cancelled Netflix and prime and went back to piracy a few months ago, it’s been a nice blast from the past
If you can’t save it, its not yours. Sail the seas.
Being a pirate is alright to be
steam scares me
if one day they go mental i will lose so many games.
i have a pc with a large ass harddisk just to download and save all single player games and never update them.
always play offline.
but they already changed it so you cant play offline really idk maybe it was just that game
I think the fear mongering on Steam is excessive. The games stay offline on your disk, and most of them don’t have a DRM. Gabe Newell has also said that, in case Steam ever shutters, an exit plan will be provided. As for the Steam native DRM, there are already open source implementations that can be used to bypass it and Valve hasn’t done anything against it in years - so the only problematic DRMs are Denuvo and similar, which Steam does not control.
GOG used to be a valid alternative, but it isn’t anymore. With CDPR themselves publishing games with DRM on GOG, on top of starting to be lenient on DRMs, they are literally having something similar to a DRM that is required for some games, a GOG Galaxy API that is completely closed source. And it doesn’t support Linux, the FOSS operating system.
The fact that after years GOG still doesn’t seem to care about Linux, CDPR releases their games for Windows only (and more often than not with DRM), and Cyberpunk 2077 only runs on Linux thanks to Valve’s efforts is also worrying from a game conservation and ownership standpoint: Windows is a Proprietary operating system completely controlled by Microsoft, who can perform modifications remotely and is allegedly planning to popularize a model where people are sold very low spec PCs that only need to stream a Windows computer from the cloud with more powerful specs… not the platform I want to entrust the future of gaming to.
All in all, Steam is still the mainstream gaming platform I dislike the least and trust the most. If I’m going to buy a game and hope it’s going to be playable decades into the future, it used to be GOG, but now it’s Steam from me.
Well said.
blu-rays are often as cheap or cheaper than “digital copies”, and ripping them to my NAS is pretty trivial these days thanks to makemkv.
the best part is, uncle jeff cannot legally break into your house and take back the disc just because of some petty rights issue.
I recently bought a 4k Blu-ray player. My brother asked me if I also bought a fax machine because streaming is “where it’s at” . Nah My 4k player cleans up DVDs really nice where streaming has artifacts and banding. Not only is it true ownership but a better quality.
4k streaming is also way lower quality than a 4k blu-ray
That is misinformation. The quality disparity you’re both pointing out is from streaming services compressing their media to much lower bitrates to ease bandwidth stress on their servers/clients and has nothing to do with a physical or digital medium.
lower bitrate == lower quality when using the same compression algorithms.
most streaming services are using h.265, same as 4k blu ray, but at substantially lower bitrates
streaming dolby vision profiles are also gimped considerably compared to blu-ray dolby vision
Doubling down on the misinformation, I see. H.265 is a high-efficiency codec, or in other words a better compression standard. Not a static compression level. This is why when you convert media there’s an input for quality, even when using HEVC. And you can absolutely stream the same Dolby Vision profile as a Blu-ray with single track double layer.
You’re still conflating digital medium with streaming services.
i am more than well aware of all of this. nothing i said is misinformation. same algorithm, different settings. the primary means by which you reduce bitrate with h.265 is by reducing the quality setting. there is no magical way to cut your bitrate by 75% using the same compression algorithm without sacrificing quality. no commercial streaming service is offering video at the same quality level as a 4k blu-ray.
few streaming boxes even support dolby vision profile 7, and no commercial streaming service offers it. so saying you can get it through a streaming service is actual misinformation.
i have literally been doing this shit for 20 years
i am more than well aware of all of this. nothing i said is misinformation
Your entire presupposition that Blu-ray quality is better than streaming quality by default is misinformation, and I’ve already explained why.
no commercial streaming service is offering video at the same quality level as a 4k blu-ray.
What does that have to do with digital media?
This is also demonstrably untrue if you take 5 seconds to research self-hosted streaming services.
few streaming boxes even support dolby vision profile 7, and no commercial streaming service offers it
Plex on Nvidia Shield. EZPZ.
there is no magical way to cut your bitrate by 75% using the same compression algorithm without sacrificing quality
I never said anything in contradiction to this. I don’t know who you’re shadow-boxing.
You know where Amazon (and any other company for that matter) can’t pull content from? My Jellyfin instance. Yo-ho-ho!
True. But your jellyfish instance only really works for you and a few trusted friends/neighbors. I would still like a comprehensive library that I can browse and select from at a moment’s notice.
The infuriating nature of Amazon / Hollywood / IP law / etc, is that these two combined goals are inimicable to the profit motive. I can’t have access to a big public library of continent, because that means someone else won’t be able to collect the real-time maximal market-rate from me to access it.
Shit happens. Tech breaks. You forget where you leave things. People outside your social circle (people you’ll never know existed) will want access to that same media at some future date. And Jellyfin doesn’t get them that.
But your jellyfish instance only really works for you
Yes, and that’s the whole point of it. It works even if my internet access goes down, and kids are screaming for their cartoons. Peace of mind.
🏴☠️
