And here I am this morning sipping on coffee watching Tubi. I’ve been done paying more for less for a while now.
Don’t need to pirate. If this gradual enshittification has done anything to me, it’s been to make me lose any and all interest in keeping up with the latest shows. It’s turned my TV into mere background noise while I do other things.
Maybe Tubi and Pluto and Freevee will eventually go away. Maybe then I’ll just stop staring at a screen altogether.
I read a six hundred page physical paper book last weekend, cover to cover. I’d completely forgotten how pleasurable that is, and I can buy paperbacks by the pallet for next to nothing these days or attempt to borrow from the library before they become completely illegal.
I also remembered that it’s entirely ok to read a book that isn’t some centuries old work of ethereal literature. Run of the mill pulp fiction can be mighty entertaining even if you don’t get to brag that you read the unabridged version of Beowulf in the original language at your next craft cocktail party
Even if I wanted to stare at a screen: there’s hardly anything worth watching coming out of the streaming world. Everything is just cheap, cliche ridden garbage, printed out of the exact same molds again and again.
Same! Pluto TV, Tubi, and live tv on Plex are all ‘good enough’ replacements for me. They’re even quickly becoming my replacement for the hours of YouTube I used to watch a week. It may be a bit ironic but YT seems to plop commercials in the middle of someone speaking and then you’re stuck. At least with Pluto, you can flip over to another channel during a commercial. It’s just like actual broadcast television, but for free; which is kind of nice. I’m at the point with YouTube where I’m unable to watch more than a third of a video.
If you’re just starting out, skip Plex and go right to Jellyfin. It’s a bit less powerful and less polished, but FAR more reliable.
There’s this thing in Plex called the “Plex dance” (https://www.plexopedia.com/plex-media-server/general/plex-dance/) that you have to do every once in a while because something went wrong and you have to reset your library. But it also means you lose any customization you’ve done on your library, like setting specific covers (e.g. matching TV season posters) and you lose all your watched/unwatched data. I got sick of doing that and moved to Jellyfin. Haven’t had to do it since.
I’ve been using Plex for over a decade and Jellyfin for a few years, IMO Plex is the better of the two, but that’s only because it’s an actual company not an open source project like Jellyfin is.
The fact that Jellyfin is written in .Net makes it a pain in the ass to install on Linux (if you’re not using some sort of containerized installation) and it always floods the logs with gigantic stack traces anytime something errors out, and it’s usually only helpful to the devs, not the end user.
Isn’t Jellyfin something that I have to run through a computer, phone, or tablet? My living room TV is just a Walmart special with a Roku box. I’m too lazy to get more technical than that.
Edit: I stand corrected. I see it on Roku. I’ll see what it does. Thanks
That’s just the Roku client (which is what I program for). All it can do is pull data from your Jellyfin server using the server’s API. You’ll need to have the server software running somewhere and point the Roku client to it.
I don’t know about that side of it, I just run it as a docker container and play it on my PC or cast it to my Chromecast from my phone to play on the TV.
General rule - I’ll give you money or I’ll watch ads. I won’t do both. And as I’ve implied, I find myself actively watching shows less and less. So the giving money part becomes less attractive. I’m also entirely underwhelmed with Netflix offerings in present day. It’s like they gave up after the success of Making a Murderer and decided that everything would just be cheap to produce true crime dramas. The actual shows categorically get cancelled when it comes time to pay the actors for their success so we never get closure. Looking at you, Santa Clarita Diet.
My only problem with big physical books like that is they’re a pain in the ass to bring with you anywhere and they get tiring really quickly when holding them at eye level.
And here I am this morning sipping on coffee watching Tubi. I’ve been done paying more for less for a while now.
Don’t need to pirate. If this gradual enshittification has done anything to me, it’s been to make me lose any and all interest in keeping up with the latest shows. It’s turned my TV into mere background noise while I do other things.
Maybe Tubi and Pluto and Freevee will eventually go away. Maybe then I’ll just stop staring at a screen altogether.
I read a six hundred page physical paper book last weekend, cover to cover. I’d completely forgotten how pleasurable that is, and I can buy paperbacks by the pallet for next to nothing these days or attempt to borrow from the library before they become completely illegal.
I also remembered that it’s entirely ok to read a book that isn’t some centuries old work of ethereal literature. Run of the mill pulp fiction can be mighty entertaining even if you don’t get to brag that you read the unabridged version of Beowulf in the original language at your next craft cocktail party
tl;dr fuck these streaming companies
Even if I wanted to stare at a screen: there’s hardly anything worth watching coming out of the streaming world. Everything is just cheap, cliche ridden garbage, printed out of the exact same molds again and again.
Same! Pluto TV, Tubi, and live tv on Plex are all ‘good enough’ replacements for me. They’re even quickly becoming my replacement for the hours of YouTube I used to watch a week. It may be a bit ironic but YT seems to plop commercials in the middle of someone speaking and then you’re stuck. At least with Pluto, you can flip over to another channel during a commercial. It’s just like actual broadcast television, but for free; which is kind of nice. I’m at the point with YouTube where I’m unable to watch more than a third of a video.
Today I learned that Plex exists, so thank you!
If you’re just starting out, skip Plex and go right to Jellyfin. It’s a bit less powerful and less polished, but FAR more reliable.
There’s this thing in Plex called the “Plex dance” (https://www.plexopedia.com/plex-media-server/general/plex-dance/) that you have to do every once in a while because something went wrong and you have to reset your library. But it also means you lose any customization you’ve done on your library, like setting specific covers (e.g. matching TV season posters) and you lose all your watched/unwatched data. I got sick of doing that and moved to Jellyfin. Haven’t had to do it since.
I’ve been using Plex for over a decade and Jellyfin for a few years, IMO Plex is the better of the two, but that’s only because it’s an actual company not an open source project like Jellyfin is.
The fact that Jellyfin is written in .Net makes it a pain in the ass to install on Linux (if you’re not using some sort of containerized installation) and it always floods the logs with gigantic stack traces anytime something errors out, and it’s usually only helpful to the devs, not the end user.
Isn’t Jellyfin something that I have to run through a computer, phone, or tablet? My living room TV is just a Walmart special with a Roku box. I’m too lazy to get more technical than that.
Edit: I stand corrected. I see it on Roku. I’ll see what it does. Thanks
Yeah, you need a Jellyfin server with all of your media to make Jellyfin on there useful.
That’s just the Roku client (which is what I program for). All it can do is pull data from your Jellyfin server using the server’s API. You’ll need to have the server software running somewhere and point the Roku client to it.
By itself, the Roku client will do nothing.
Yeah I learned that when I tried to open it.
The Plex thing has straight up streaming material like Tubi, so that was neat.
Highly unlikely I’m going to go the lengths of learning to sail, storing my booty, and transfering it to a server I don’t understand.
I don’t know about that side of it, I just run it as a docker container and play it on my PC or cast it to my Chromecast from my phone to play on the TV.
Oh my. I’ve had a Plex server for over ten years now. Enjoy! 😄
Tubi, Freevee, etc. show commercials. A big draw of Netflix, unless you’re paying the lowest tier, is that there are no commercials.
If you want to watch commercial-free TV and you don’t know how to pirate or don’t feel safe doing it, paying for a streaming service makes sense.
General rule - I’ll give you money or I’ll watch ads. I won’t do both. And as I’ve implied, I find myself actively watching shows less and less. So the giving money part becomes less attractive. I’m also entirely underwhelmed with Netflix offerings in present day. It’s like they gave up after the success of Making a Murderer and decided that everything would just be cheap to produce true crime dramas. The actual shows categorically get cancelled when it comes time to pay the actors for their success so we never get closure. Looking at you, Santa Clarita Diet.
My only problem with big physical books like that is they’re a pain in the ass to bring with you anywhere and they get tiring really quickly when holding them at eye level.