Quote:
Originally Posted by conan50
Up until a few years ago that was my thought, it was practically in my dna. But after a serious health threat, and starting to think about where all my junk would end up, and if it was all even necessary, my thinking started changing.
If I were starting fresh now, I would do the following:
Buy no print books, and only buy ebooks I could not get with a subscription service or through library loan. Buy no music, subscribe to Spotify or some other music streaming service. Buy no videos, only rent what I want to watch and stream: Netflix, Hulu+, and Amazon Prime. Local news with an over the air antenna, no cable, only Internet service.
Less cost, less hassle, and less clutter :-)
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Well, one can only rent what is been offered that time.
Nobody will ever provide you all the books, movies, music one would like to see. I would like for instance to see special interest movies, like Faust (1926), or special interest books, or special interest music. Since people like me are a few, while the rest of 7 billion idiots (sorry) want to see The Hobbit just because it's 4k, won't make the distributors acquire the rights for those movies, songs, books for a handful accesses (bulk licensing is based on 7 billion users - it would cost extra to keep track of use profile for each item).
Then it comes down to access. As indicated below
Quote:
Originally Posted by crossi
I don't want to be dependant on an internet connection or a third party that can change the availability of items I want.
I'm replacing most of my paper books with the ebook versions and 5 or 5000 of them take no more room. Even the digital items I buy I prefer to have backups in my home and on dropbox.
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It then comes to price. As below
Quote:
Originally Posted by conan50
I gave much thought to purchasing some favorite movies rather than renting them, and decided even there I will just rent them. It is around $9.99 to buy a digital SD movie, and about $2.99 to rent that same digital SD movie. If I watch that movie again every 2-3 years, let's say 3 times in 10 years, it still is only the price of having bought 1 digital SD copy. In 5-10 years it will be in a different, maybe better format, and I figure why buy it in a format now that is useless in 5-10 years? I've already been down the VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray road. 4 K or whatever will be next, making anything we buy now useless in a few years. I tried to watch a VHS Christmas movie on my HD TV awhile back, it looked really bad.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wearever
I would rather own my books, I don't mind streaming movies & T.V. shows, Music I want to own also. I have noticed a real trend in renting everything now. They control the( content ) which books are offered each time, and the monthly charges which will go up over time. With purchases I have more options, wait for a sale, or get it for free, for example.
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Several things nobody, so far, ever thought of.
Books and CDs and DVDs and LPs and MCs can be transferred. Can be sold and bought. Digital rights are personal. There is a nice story about Bruce Willis, read it on the internet.
Then the quality. Most music that are sold/rented is MP3. CDs and DVD-Audios are lossless. Surely, not everyone can tell the difference, otherwise they would have not use the iPhones for playing music, but there is a difference once you know it. Also the music of today isn't HiFi any longer, if it can be called
music at all. The white 5cm speakers for smartphones are also not HiFi, yet for their cost one could buy a real hifi amplifier and CD player and enjoy the music.
Movies. Movies are easier to assess. So far, no line exists that could carry a movie at it's Bluray quality to one's home. It works now, as only one or two in a block would use Netflix or whatever. Imagine 200 flats watching the same time (prime time) 200 different movies, all connected to the same optic fibre to the block. Imagine 250 mil Americans wanting to do the same at 8:00PM, after work, while enjoying a beer. Netflix will explode. So movies are often heavily compressed, and most features cut down. I like subtitles. It allows me to leave the volume down, not to disturb the neighbours. Important in particular in Europe, but less important probably in New Mexico or Alaska.
Finally - once everyone will get Netflix, how about commercials? One gets commercials in exchange for free reception. PayTV often drop commercials. But moving everyone to Netflix, who's gonna watch ads any longer? So Netflix will change the viewing conditions, if that would be good for them.
I used Netflix, but can be any service, like Ultraviolet. It's not a hidden ad.
Books. ePubs may help keep the amazonian forest alive
. No way. The biggest saving would be if the whole western world will cease using toilet paper.
In short, I like to own the support (one cannot own the content), rather than to rent it from someone, and obey his conditions, that would change in time. The history told us, those that paid attention to, that once an (American) company got monopoly, increases in prices would happen. No names here, these are known.
Diversity is always good.