So… you prefer owning your media, as was said many times here. Great.

Right, so what is the relevance of this in the context of owning your own media versus being milked for money by corporations and having what you paid for removed at their whim? You’d have to be familiar with common usage of media players up to today to give a knowledgeable comparison on what was and is normal or impractical in that area, let alone the meaning of digital, which you don’t appear to be. My point that owning is better than allowing corporate exploitation for convenience sake still stands.

I didn’t understand this for a long time myself. And I can’t rightly remember when I first learned about this sort of thing. But once I did, information just seemed to flow to me from multiple directions. Maybe look up classic tactics around sales and marketing, then deceptive, yet typical, psychological sales and marketing practices. There’s a book on credit cards I enjoyed years ago “How to Take Advantage of the People Who Are Trying to Take Advantage of You: 50 Ways to Capitalize on the System” by JSB Morse (Though long story short, avoid debt and credit cards). One video on YouTube turned me off of buying ink cartridges once I found out what they truly cost versus the exorbitant amount they sell them for. Capital rip offs.

Bills/expenses are important in the following order:

1. Rent / roof over your head
2. Electricity and gas
3. Food (fresh food, frozen food, canned food. This is also the order of the speed this food goes bad with fresh going off first and canned lasting the longest. This can also be the order of nutritiousness with fresh being the best. The reverse on cost with fresh usually being the most expensive).

Saving money is more important than moving out unless employment prospects are nil back home or it’s psychologically taxing to be around family. That saved money, whether using retirement options via employers who may match your contribution or through your own individual bank or brokerage, provides freedom to move out with more choices, or travel, or quit a sucky job, or deal with an emergency etc.

Owning my media is what’s significant and I do in multiple ways that have been listed. It’s not an issue which one I use. What’s important is that media not being locked up by a corporation after I’ve “bought” it.

I don’t see the disagreement here.

Digital includes digital optical or video discs (DVDs). DVDs and downloads are preferable to the situation posted by OP which is what I posted in this thread. The choice is convenience or not being taken advantage of and owning your media.

And an aside, have you never had a portable CD player or minidisc player or mp3 player, nevermind a tape player? Are you familiar with Walkman? Sony still makes that.

Another DVD plus is never having it go pixelated or buffering while watching due to some streamer error or widespread cloud downtime or other issue. That one time purchase and watching it whenever I like for as long as I like, and not some corporation, is an impeccable experience.

Netflix’s lowered revenue growth is the highlight. That’s what they and their investors focus on, with subscriber satisfaction being an afterthought. The price hikes haven’t shown any effect on that downward trend either. But hey, keep hiking I say. Fires burn bigger when fuel is added and these people can’t differentiate water from gasoline. Having washed my hands of this company, I’m looking forward to further scrambling when revenue growth is nil and then negative and the stock drops and drops and the corporatists wail.

Sounds great. I stopped using Facebook years ago. This can only bring their demise faster.

It still comes down to choosing convenience over not being taken advantage of. Building a computer, for example, has many benefits over buying one. It’s a matter of what a person places value on.

Why follow corporations’ timelines for obsolescence? I’m sure if they could erase the technology of media players from people’s minds, corporations would. Best to keep people completely hooked up and dependent on their “services” so they can be milked of their money continuously.

As long as the method and means to play the media is available, physical is my preference. Vinyl, CDs, DVDs. Cassettes and VHS quality over time leaves much to be desired and is the only reason why I wouldn’t add them to the list.

These aren’t dependent on a network, internet, cloud. Own forever, build and repair.

Sounds like Netflix is panicking and scrambling. The frequency of their subscription hikes increases and increases. Perhaps they think they can price hike their way out of the dissatisfaction they have delivered to subscribers. Keep trying Netflix, find that magic subscription price point that will surely cover for all the subscribers you’re shedding with your idiocy and will definitely not hasten your arrival to 0% revenue. Increasing that price won’t lose you more subscribers right? Of course not. Burn Netflix burn.

Gift cards and store credit = “we keep your money.”

The reality is that they didn’t give the customer back anything. It’s the usual corporate sales speak.

“50% off” and “Save $10” aren’t actually real either. $10 doesn’t appear in customer’s bank accounts after a purchase and customers often have no concept of what the item originally cost before it was marked up and brought to market by the the corporation. It’s sales and marketing psychological games that many people can’t see through. $9.99/$59.99 is cheaper than $10.00/$60.00 true and people somehow feel better buying the former versus the latter as though that penny isn’t only a penny and they didn’t give the corporation the 99.99% of the money they wanted.

Steam came to my mind with this situation as well. I assume the outcry would be loud if this happened there. But it gives another good reason to shift habits.

Abusive is a perfect description. Exploitative too. I’ve always viewed store credit as a sucky refund policy. Offline. Whenever I discovered these, usually because I needed to return something, these shops lost my business.

And the above is not even the same situation when you really look at it. This person didn’t want to return something. They made a purchase they wanted to keep. Then Amazon just said, “oh, we’re repossessing that media and keeping your money. Feel free to use this store credit on something else for which we can repeat this scenario all over again at will. Have a great day!”

I’ve always felt uncomfortable about “buying” digital media that stays on a cloud. Vudu (Walmart) offers this as well as Google I believe. Renting digitally bothered me less because the notion that it’s temporary is inherent to renting. The above situation solidifies my concerns. I’ve “bought” some media this way but I will never do so again.

Cancelled Netflix as of last month as well and I won’t be keeping up any streaming subscriptions long term. One off month subscriptions will serve in a pinch as I travel but with the games corporations play with blocking use between locations, they’ve rendered themselves as having no purpose.

Wow. This is why owning DVDs is better. And if you can’t buy, download via torrents. Imagine these bastards rolling up to your home and reclaiming a movie you physically purchased. We gave them too much power. Time to withdraw it. Convenience is not worth this shit. Get uncomfortable and get your entertainment away from these streamers who don’t give customers what they paid for.

DVD rental stores could surely make a comeback given these new developments. Libraries still loan movies as well. Remember, Barnes & Noble didn’t run all independent bookstores out of business. And after Amazon savaged Barnes & Noble, Amazon Books suddenly came into existence (2015 - 2022). Greed driven corporations aren’t the answer.

I first read the enshittification post during the Reddit blackout. It’s on point.

Ahh, may they join Netflix in their journey to 0% then negative revenue. These corporations look at their subscribers with disdain and assume no matter what they do, subscribers will be dumb enough to be treated poorly and still pay them. Netflix is losing subscribers who pay $16 - $20 and replacing them with those that pay half as much. Then they shout from the rooftops that they are gaining subscribers. They’ve set their trajectory towards their doom. Watching them all burn will be great.

I learned about this at university. Wasn’t sure I’d find mention of it online but it’s out there. One of the many examples of corporations extra psychotic behavior in the Global South. IIRC they were keen on getting mothers feeding their babies formula particularly so their breast milk dried up and then they would have no alternative, becoming dependent and stuck in a financial bind.

And the baby formula scandal. https://www.businessinsider.com/nestles-infant-formula-scandal-2012-6?op=1