I’m one of those hipsters who doesn’t use streaming services.
I did, a while ago, but I quit using them because the experience is kind of awful, and I’m happier now for it. I collect physical media and watch it using Jellyfin on my Linux-based home theater PC, and I’m completely satisfied with how it works.
I’m making this video because I am really troubled by algorithmic helplessness, and I feel like corporate-centralized streaming media makes that worse. Maybe this video will encourage someone else to cut the cord and rediscover an appreciation for owning your media and being choosy about what to “watch next”. Or maybe I’m just wasting time. Who knows? I suppose, you know, you’re reading this description, right?
If you read the description, say “algorithmic helplessness sucks” in the comments. That’ll make me feel better.
I mean… that IS how restaurants work. If people don’t order the fish of the day then they buy fewer and fewer fishes until it is no longer a thing. Even the speed people eat DOES matter since restaraunts tend to be designed around each customer spending a certain amount of time dining. Too short and they will never order a dessert. Too long and they are costing you money while they nurse that coffee.
And similar happens with even buying blu-rays. If nobody bought Master and Commander in 4k then you can be sure that experiment would be over. Instead? That thing sold like toiler paper during COVID and we’ll likely see more “prestige” releases with a huge dose of FOMO.
As for up fronts versus long tails? Guess what is motivating all those revivals “nobody asked for”?
Don’t get me wrong. I vastly prefer to rip blu rays to my NAS and watch via plex. But the idea that you are somehow no longer part of the marketing cycle is just… wrong.
The only way to stop corporate greed is to stop consuming. Easy to say, hard to do, but not impossible. I’ve lived most of my life striving to be as self sufficient as humanly possible, and that has carried me over into self hosting.
Sorry, but revolution is a far simpler way to stop corporate greed than trying to change everyone’s buying habits.
You first.
Go hiking, exercise, play sports with your mates. Take up a physical hobby like blacksmithing, electronics even woodworking. Spend the weekends on small projects, DIY drones, a wooden sculpture, a small knife made from recycled corrugated steel. Join a volunteer group, do charity work, help out in the soup kitchen. Nowadays it’s easier than ever to not consume content.
Not the person you’re answering to, but: You say this as if everybody enjoys manual labor, sports and/or outdoor activities. None of the proposed activities elicits the least amount of interest for me, for example.
And many of those activities include consumption. If you’re doing more than casual hiking, you probably aren’t using second-hand shoes from the thrift store.
Open source/selfhost projects 100% keep track of how many people star a repo, what MRs are submitted, and even usage/install data. And many of them are specifically designed to fulfill a role that industry standard tools aren’t (or are too expensive for) and… guess where the data on that comes from?
The reality is that you cannot escape consumerism in the modern world. You can pretend you are but… you aren’t. What you CAN do is focus on supporting tools and media that you want/approve of and making your own life better as a result.
And a big chunk of that involves actually thinking through consequences.
I feel it is important to make a distinction here, though:
GitHub, the for-profit, non-FOSS, Microsoft-owned platform keeps track of the ‘stars of a repo’, not the open-source self-host projects themselves. Somebody hosts their repo forge on Codeberg, sr.ht, their own infrastructure or even GitLab? There’s generally very little to no algorithmic number-crunching involved. Same for MR/PRs.
Additionally - from my knowledge - very few fully FOSS programs have extensive usage/install telemetry, and even fewer opt-out versions. Tracking which couldn’t be disabled I’ve essentially never heard of in that space, because every time someone does go in that direction the public reaction is usually very strong (see e.g. Audacity).
Didn’t downvote you but, I guess what I was leaning heavily on was ‘striving to be as self sufficient as humanly possible’. Sure, even though I grow my own food, garden crops, beef, chickens, goats, et al, I still have to buy things. I didn’t mean it like I had transcended commercial consuming. But, do I really need a iPhone 17 pro max as much as AT&T says I do? Do I really need the cutting edge computer when the 14 year old one I built serves me just fine for what I do? That kind of stuff that people just seem to be compelled to purchase.
I’m commenting on literally being watched though, so let’s say you get up to go to the bathroom after your first bite the chef marks that as ‘didn’t like his burger’ because you took a bite (watched 1 episode) and didn’t continue to binge eat the burger (binge the whole season by the end of the month), BAM because you had a life event you couldn’t control, you now hate the burger and hate the show.
This is not a fun way to consume anything.
I mean… depending on how new an item is and what “tier” the restaurant is? They are 100% watching for stuff like that and probably making a note that you got up after eating only a quarter of your burger. Because if the burger were good, you would want to finish it. Is it too sloppy? Did you feel the need to wash your hands mid bite? Did it make you nauseous?
Same with taking out your phone. Does it look like you are telling a friend what a great burger you had? Or are you feeling bloated and trying to digest a bit before you eat more?
This level of market analysis is not at all new. Streaming services just have a much easier time automating it but… give it time until startups are selling cameras to monitor the dining area and automate analytics based on who ordered what and did what.
I guess I should put more mindfulness into how I’m consuming restaurant food then, lol either way I think we can put this hypothetical to bed.