Technology

After over a decade of giving up on physical media, I'm now back to collecting it primarily because of this major issue with streaming services.

Welcome to the age where you own nothing! If it's digital and not accessible offline, on your own device, you can lose it on a company's whim. This is one of the major arguments for piracy: it's often the only way you can "own" digital content.

Richard Stallman already talked about this Here is the article: https://stallman.org/amazon.html

shocked Pikachu face

Did customers really forgot the ebook 1984 event or assume they'd "just" get "better"?

Honestly kind of deserved, don't buy from Amazon! Wondering why? Read Chokepoint capitalism but TLDR their business model is monopoly and monopsony. They're terrible.

I mean... yeah? That's one of the main reasons why you want to have your own Plex (or, Jellyfin) library, that way you control what media you have and it can't be taken away from you at any second.

Google is just as bad, trying to do the right thing and support the movies we love, and now Google has locked all my movies so only I can watch them. I can still load them on the telly in the lounge, but I specifically bought them to be shared amongst my kids, who now can't see them. They make it impossible to follow their rules. It's become impossible to buy digital. I'm tempted to go apple and try Apple store, for all my purchases. I just want it all in one place and to actually own what I purchase. They're talking out both sides of their mouth. On one hand they lambast you for taking a copy of something, but if you buy a copy they can take it away at any time and you don't own it. There is no contract where money is traded for a product.

That's bullshit

This is why I don't buy digital media (other than games).

I pay the fee to stream but I won't give them more money to "buy" their movies or "rent" them.

you've never purchased anything digitally, from any of these motherfuckers, just rented them for sometimes what turns out to be an extremely long time, and sometimes not. step right up folks, one born ever minute.

Of course, most digital goods providers are set up this way. You're not buying a copy of a thing, you're buying a limited perpetual license. If you want to actually own a copy of a digital good, pirate it.

You will own nothing and be happy about it!

How is this a surprise? How is anybody surprised? Why is this news?

This is the way it has been working for quite some time with all digital distribution networks.

The shocking thing here is that you get compensation, Apple e.g. has never done that, in the past they did not even send a notification if they deleted something from your library.

Yes, the whole concept is scummy. But Amazon at least tries as best as they can in the context of licenses from third parties...

What they did to me was:

When I went to watch a movie I had purchased, a message came up saying that it was no longer available on Amazon prime and to watch it I had to download an app and watch it on another service. The app was free and I didn't have to pay anything to watch it but I want to say there was something else wrong with it, like the service was free or it had commercials or something. Not sure.

Blu-ray FTW