Wow that’s old.
Frankly, as shitty is a lot of that stuff was, DVDs were like the last form of media distribution that I would actually call tolerable in terms of consumer friendliness. You still got a physical disk with the actual movie that was easy to rip and share, no internet required. If it weren’t for the quality limitations, I’d still collect them as the primary physical backup to my media server.
4k Blu Rays exist. Aside from the pain of having to get a special cracked drive to rip them they are my primary backup for my movie server.
It’s been said to death but at heart, I’ve always felt that when it comes to piracy, it’s a service issue, not a cost issue.
Except for you Adobe. That’s a cost issue.
It’s why I pay for Spotify, convenience and pretty much everything in one place. For TV/Movies it’s Plex and the high seas.
I think piracy is more convenient
100000000%, beyond the fact that I don’t want to pay a thousand different subscriptions, I also much prefer having everything in jellyfin or Plex. I don’t want to mess around with all these crappy streaming apps, each with their own set of limited functionality or handicaps.
Also, why would I want to watch low bitrate streams when I can get full quality Blu-ray rips. Hopefully someday streaming platforms will offer full bitrate video, as physical media will probably go away over time.
Streaming companies are lucky that not more people know about Stremio + Torrentio + Real Debrid. That combination is a game changer and allowed me to get rid of all streaming services.
