Memes

Genuinely answering:

A decade ago, there was like, Netflix and Hulu. Netflix you paid $8 a month and you got stuff from Paramount, Starz!, most television networks, Disney, the various permutations of Fox. You could watch Friends, Penn & Teller's Bullshit!, Star Trek TNG, and Mythbusters for the same $8/month in one app in one interface.

Now, nearly every network or channel wants their own bespoke app on your device, they EACH cost more than $8 a month, and now you have to remember who makes what content. And still stuff randomly disappears. Or, if there's a "purchase" system like on Amazon where you pay a price per movie/episode/whatever, some contract falling through could mean they get to unilaterally decide how long "forever" is.

I ripped my DVD collection to my NAS and I use Kodi on a Raspberry Pi attached to my (non-smart) television. I don't pay a continuous fee (or nine), I don't scroll endlessly through shit I'm not interested in, stuff doesn't randomly disappear, and it's not going to decide to start playing ads even through I paid for this.

As for torrenting? Don't need the heat. I can buy used DVDs or blu-rays from eBay or my local pawn shop for pennies apiece and have all the content I actually want, legally and conveniently. My ISP doesn't get mad, and everything continues to work.

Plus my NAS does a few other things not related to media consumption, for example it's attached to my UPS and it will send signals to several devices including the UPS and itself to shut down when it's too low on battery. It's kind of nice to have that kind of thing.