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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2019 17:21:34 GMT -5
Companies prefer streaming because then you don't actually own the content and they can squeeze more $'s out of you in the long run.
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Post by Emig5m on Mar 16, 2019 20:54:57 GMT -5
Fuck all that streaming bullshit, just plonk some mp3s on it. I would be all down with that but it would take me a lifetime to rebuild my entire music collection onto my smartphone complete with playlists and cost an arm and leg to purchase all the newer music that I don't own and triple the time trying to have it all synced between my laptop, main PC, and phone and then the real salt in the wound which is lose my perfect integration with my car stereo with Android Auto. Like right now I can just tell the car to play something and don't have to physically touch a thing and don't have to own all the music and still have full control of skipping songs right from my steering wheel controls. Going back to having to mount my phone in the way on the windshield and having to scroll and navigate through a phone touchscreen while driving and not have access to pretty much all music out there on demand and with a simple voice command and lose full integration with my car's stereo controls and voice commands is going to be a major step backwards for me. Not to mention, just like with downloading random game demos and falling in love with a game that I would otherwise not even try if it had not been for the free demo, I'll be missing out on a lot of music discoveries because it just wont be there for me to try without hassle. I don't listen to the radio anymore because of audio quality and too much yip-yapping and such so I basically would be cut off from discovering a lot of new (and old) music where in say Google Play, it all just shows up and is there automatically as it gets released and I can just try old stuff that I never listened too on demand. Having one music account that's automatically synced between all devices and has full integration with your vehicles stereo system makes things really nice, easy, and convenient. Going back to even pirating music for free I would dread the thought of being stuck with audio files of questionable quality, the time consumption of sifting through newsgroups or p2p, downloading and copying them to this device and to that device plus trying to also sync playlists across all devices, grrr... noooooooooo waaaaaaaaaay!!!! I don't have the time and enerygy for all of that! Like right now I could turn on my old notepad that I haven't even turned on in 2019 and yet all of my music and playlists would just be there and wouldn't have to copy a thing - major time saver! And it's not like I'm my father who basically listens to the same old 20 or so classic rock songs over and over again and shuns everything else - that would be very easy to manage manually but my music listening is VERY diversified and I like randomly searching for new music constantly and having it on demand and on all of my devices instantly!
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Post by Emig5m on Mar 16, 2019 21:05:45 GMT -5
Companies prefer streaming because then you don't actually own the content and they can squeeze more $'s out of you in the long run. I don't think they're squeezing more money in the long run. If I purchased every song on just my playlists since I've been using Google music it would of cost ten fold more than the $7.99 a month that I pay for the service not to mention that you have instant access to everything out there. AS LONG as the service is something that you could expect and rely on to stay in existence for your entire lifetime, I would say that it's a lot cheaper in the long run! I can't remember how many times in the past that I've given nearly $20 for a new CD just for ONE single song that I liked and the rest was throw away! I totally embrace music streaming for the power user (listener?). If you listen to A LOT of music and are diversified in what you listen to, I think it's much cheaper to stream in the long run. Agreed you might not own it, but even when you paid for it you still don't technically own it. Upload a video with music that you paid for and "own" to Facebook and watch it get auto flagged or the audio automatically disabled. You don't really ever own shit in this fucked up reality. Not even the land that you think you paid for and own. Stop paying property taxes and see how long you own your own property.... I don't consider anything that I have to be owned by me anymore when the government can just come along and take it away any time that they want to....
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Post by Emig5m on Mar 16, 2019 21:12:47 GMT -5
You know what's funny? I bet most of all of you has paid to stream TV service whether it be cable or satellite which is extraordinarily more expensive than music streaming and still have to watch commercials and be dictated on specific times and days in which you can watch what you want to watch but somehow I guess it's OK to pay to stream video (TV) service but somehow doing the same for music is shunned? Hmm..
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Post by ForRealTho on Mar 17, 2019 11:44:21 GMT -5
You know what's funny? I bet most of all of you has paid to stream TV service whether it be cable or satellite which is extraordinarily more expensive than music streaming and still have to watch commercials and be dictated on specific times and days in which you can watch what you want to watch but somehow I guess it's OK to pay to stream video (TV) service but somehow doing the same for music is shunned? Hmm.. I don't think music streaming services are a bad thing at all. Nor are they too expensive. Is there anyone who can't afford $20 a month for something? I've just been doing things the same way for 20 years and I'm comfortable with it. If I find music I like on internet radio at work or whatever I will download it, and make sure I drag it over to my phone as well. Typically I download discographies not just one album. I don't use voice navigation on my phone, I think it can be setup in PowerAMP but I haven't tried. I use MusicBee as my PC music player, you can do some crazy shit with Foobar2000 and I used to be a big foobar fan but MusicBee does everything I need out of the box with a solid ui. It "Just Works" basically. Not having to worry about data is nice.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2019 13:57:51 GMT -5
It's not that any one service is too expensive, but having too many services can be quite expensive (and, as you mentioned, the data can add up). Also, not everybody consumes content at the same rate. Some ppl might be happy with trying just a few songs every so often when they're in the mood, in which case they might actually be paying more with a streaming service. It's like signing up for a gym membership and then rarely going. Why pay for something you don't use? Of course, if you use it, then it's a good deal. For others, slowly building an mp3 collection like Cop suggested would make more sense.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2019 14:38:39 GMT -5
You know what's funny? I bet most of all of you has paid to stream TV service whether it be cable or satellite which is extraordinarily more expensive than music streaming and still have to watch commercials and be dictated on specific times and days in which you can watch what you want to watch but somehow I guess it's OK to pay to stream video (TV) service but somehow doing the same for music is shunned? Hmm.. huh? I said "streaming," not music streaming. You're right, the same principle applies to all of these digital services. I'm not slamming you for using it either. Most people these days use streaming services, including myself. I'm just say'n companies have done profit vs cost analysis and figured out there's more money to be made with streaming services (vs selling content piecemeal). Even Nintendo hopped on board with their competitors (last year I think) and started charging customers for their online gaming services, as well as selling season passes for their games. It seems every content provider has some sort of paid membership service these days. Look at one service and it seems cheap. Count up all your services, then you realize it adds up (possibly hundreds every month). I've got "high speed" (dsl that sometimes acts like dial-up) internet, phone with unlimited data, PSN, XM radio, Amazon Prime. That's five services right there, which is plenty for me. Cable and satellite are the worst. I don't even have cable or satellite for the reasons you specified. Not to mention their notoriously bad customer service. I'm not crazy about Amazon Prime, but I keep it because family likes to watch to movies when I visit them. It's convenient that they allow you set it up on multiple tv's regardless of address/geography. If they cut that benefit, I'd probably drop it and, instead, collect more dvd's/blurays the way that Cop does.
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Post by Emig5m on Mar 17, 2019 19:00:26 GMT -5
Yea I don't spend much a month on streaming and entertainment services compared to what you can actually spend. I haven't subscribed to traditional TV since the early 2000's (DirecTV). The only thing I would watch on traditional TV anymore is Supercross and Motocross in which I get the entire season/year streamed live and commercial free online for $59.99 ($4.99/mo average) which is so much better than traditional TV because you get so much more than they air on TV like the early practice sessions and you can go back and rewatch any race whenever you want. I pay only $7.99/mo for Google music because I got in on the early promo price when it first came out and I absolutely use the hell out of it! In my car/2hr round trip commute, at home while doing chores I have my phone with music streaming and Youtube Premium is included with that price I might add so it's a great value to me!
Cellphone service with 8GB/mo data with rollover is $45/mo for ATT. No more landline phone but landline internet is $45/month which if I didn't do a little online gaming (ping times) or wireless didn't have such a low 8GB/mo limit I would drop the landline DSL all together because my cellphone data is multiple times faster than my DSL (if I'm short on time I'll actually use my phone plugged into my PC to download a game that would normally take all night on DSL in which my phone will pull in about 30 mins so I feel your pain about being stuck on DSL in which I consider DSL the modern dialup, lol). I do have Netflix which is $11.72/mo which I should probably cancel since I don't use it often so all that totals about $115/mo for everything, landline net, cell phone, netflix, Google Music, and SX/MX yearly season pass which isn't bad since I used to pay that a month just for a smartphone from about the S5 and back era (I was actually paying $120/mo for my S7 off the start with insurance but now I buy my phones outright and use a prepaid plan which lowers the monthly bill by A LOT all the way down to $45/mo). When I read of people complaining about having $200/mo cable bills I think I skate by cheap for ALL of my services combined! The only reason I keep Netflix around because it's so cheap already and isn't going to effect my lifestyle in any way shape or form in the next million years and sometimes I get on a show binge and watch all the shows from season one till the end or sometimes you get some nice exclusives like the Taylor Swift Stadium Tour and sometimes I get on an old movie kick and netflix has a lot of old movies that I otherwise wouldn't bother purchasing. So yea some months go by where I don't even use it but then there's months I'll use it at least a few times a week but I could probably drop it and not miss it but that $12/mo ($144/year) isn't going to make or break me and it's nice to have when you need it....
I absolutely refuse to pay to play games online when I already pay for internet so my PS4 is just to play single player exclusives. The day PC games charge to play online is the day I stop playing online. I'll pretty much only play one game online at a time for a LONG time anyway. I think the most amount of games I can handle playing online at a time is two but I don't even play first person shooters anymore so I just MX/SX bike race online anymore and can't remember the last time I fired up a UT game and I loathe military shooters, lol. I don't mind streaming movies and video content over owning it because to be honest, I'm not much for rewatching many movies or shows anymore - once I've watched it, time to move onto something new. I do have my select few favorites that I'll rewatch from time to time like who grew up in the 80's and can't rewatch Goonies or the Karate Kid from time to time but mostly movies are throw away to me.
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Post by ForRealTho on Mar 17, 2019 20:02:46 GMT -5
Ugh DSL. For a while when I lived in Arizona I was on 1.5 meg DSL, which is like 125 k/s on Steam. Absolute nightmare.
At one point I had 300 meg cable which is 30 m/s on Steam, a bit over kill for me. Now I am on 100 meg Verizon FiOS. I don't really need faster.
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Post by Emig5m on Mar 17, 2019 20:13:47 GMT -5
Yup...
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Post by Cop on Mar 18, 2019 12:42:55 GMT -5
It's not that any one service is too expensive, but having too many services can be quite expensive This... It's only €10/month, it's only €20/month, it's only this, it's only that, before you know it you're paying €200/month. I'm too materialistic to pay for services, I want to hold what I'm paying for, I want to have it. That's why I have the movie collection I have, that's why I have the music collection I have. I don't mind paying for it, but give me something, even if I rarely use it, like CDs. First thing I do is rip it to mp3 for easier use, but I wouldn't want to pay the same price for those mp3's if I didn't have the CD to go with it. Movies are the same. I like collecting the discs. And with blurays you have the added bonus of them being overall better quality than the downloadable and streamable ones. I'll illegally download them but if I like them and I can find them for a decent price, I'll end up buying it anyway and the stuff I can't find or they won't release: too bad for them, I would've bought it if you made a physical version easily and afforably available to me... I feel like I support the business more than enough to allow for a few free ones. I always say: if only everyone was like me, the movie business would be booming but sadly most people never buy anything and just pirate everything... ...that being said, Netflix and the like do appeal to those people just because it's easy to use and they still don't feel like they're spending any money.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2019 18:19:52 GMT -5
I apply the same philosophy to old games. If the company that owns the rights to it makes it available on modern platforms at a reasonable price and it's a game I want, I'll buy it. If it's not available on modern platforms, then it should be automatically deemed abandonware and fair game for pirates. This should be a lesson to big game companies like Nintendo that shut down their Wii store. I've never owned a Wii. But if I did and I had a digital games library built up on the Wii store, I'd be pissed. It's especially bad because I read that a number of the games were only available digitally and never had physical releases.
However, these days, even if you buy a physical copy of a game, you don't own the complete & fully patched version. i.e. they release tons of patches and DLC after you acquire your physical copy. So when they take their servers down, you're left with broke/unpatched games that have sparse content.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2019 18:34:35 GMT -5
I recall from a Business Law course in college that, in order to pursue litigation, they have to prove financial damages or losses. I don't see how they could pull that off against an individual pirating games, in regards to games that the company doesn't make available and isn't even trying to sell. If the would-be pirated game/s are currently being sold as new on modern platform/s, then I'd exercise caution or just don't do it.
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Post by ForRealTho on Mar 18, 2019 20:10:08 GMT -5
Thread derail but speaking of streaming....
I wanted to see this new HBO documentary on Theranos called The Inventor that premieres tonight, I read the book Bad Blood and enjoyed it.
There is a free 7 day trial so I figure I will sign up for the free trial, watch the documentary, and cancel HBO.
So 9 pm rolls around and it goes live. I hit play. Its 2 hours long. I decide to go take a shower so I got to hit pause............................You can't.
Thats right. On a web browser on a video in 2019 I can't just pause it, go do something, and come back. WTF. Fail HBO fail.
EDIT: Actually you can but I had to click on a different link. There is "watch live" then the library, I hit watch live. Still. Let me press pause even if its a live broadcast.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2019 20:54:22 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2019 21:03:54 GMT -5
I guess this is why my Finance teacher said (to the class), if you have the opportunity to make millions by committing fraud ("Enron" was his example, as I recall), go ahead and do it. You might go to jail for a few years if you're caught, but you'll still have millions when you get out. Perhaps the caveat is defrauding investors and/or customers (but not the govt on your taxes, since you can't win against govt in the courts). Of course, I don't know much about it tho. That bit of his lecture was odd, so I'll never forget it. But I'm fairly sure he wasn't joking.
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Post by Coolverine on Mar 22, 2019 10:29:15 GMT -5
Yeah I had to pay my own taxes for a few years, made sure it was all saved up and then paid it when it was due. I don't want to mess with the govt when it comes to taxes.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2019 12:34:27 GMT -5
Yeah I had to pay my own taxes for a few years, made sure it was all saved up and then paid it when it was due. I don't want to mess with the govt when it comes to taxes. Don't f' with the IRS, dudes. They can ruin you and send you to prison for tax evasion. I recall during the Obama presidency, there was an abuse of power issue being raised about Obama directing the IRS to target and investigate Republicans. Funnily enough, I received this (job/consulting opportunity) yesterday in my work email (quote below), which outlines a class action case currently being pursued against the IRS for a fee-based scam they perpetuated on tax preparers. I added the bold and removed all contact info. I don't have any problem sharing this because I'm not interested in the job, since I've never done consulting work before and don't know much about the cost of building databases (I just build them).
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Post by Coolverine on Mar 22, 2019 12:51:22 GMT -5
Heh it was funny, a family friend prepared my taxes for me and I owed about $6,000 to the IRS for last year. When they called to let me know how much, they were actually surprised that I had it. I guess they get many clients who end up back-owing. I've known people who have gotten in trouble with the IRS, it's bad.
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Post by ForRealTho on Mar 22, 2019 22:01:37 GMT -5
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Post by Coolverine on Mar 31, 2019 16:16:45 GMT -5
The latest update to Android is very ugly, it made everything look very ugly.
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Post by ForRealTho on Mar 31, 2019 16:27:55 GMT -5
The latest update to Android is very ugly, it made everything look very ugly. I like the dark/night mode. Also I am using Nova Launcher so it is a bit customized. Been using Nova Launcher for years.
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Post by Emig5m on Apr 5, 2019 18:53:33 GMT -5
My question is why do they want an old used phone? Are they going to snoop around on it with data recovery software or something or test and learn how it was used? Good deal though, I would of done it! If I have that option to get the new phone every year ($500+ credit for old phone) I think I might switch from upgrading every three generations to every generation. I do normally like to keep my last phone as a backup and normally bring it with me on road trips with maps downloaded offline just in case I need a backup GPS. My 2nd to last phones I've been giving away to people who normally have cheap and crappy phones. Oh if that's for some locked in "plan" I don't do that anymore. I buy my phones outright and do pre-paid plans with autopay discount. Only paying $45/mo for my phone service with 8GB/mo with rollover data. I was thinking about spending the $75/mo for unlimited data but it's limited to 10GB/mo when using as a hotspot so that wouldn't even help me download stuff faster on my PC.
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Post by ForRealTho on Apr 5, 2019 19:49:29 GMT -5
I buy my phones upfront too, the last time I used swappa so I saved $300 on the S9+ back when it was still the flagship last year. I considered getting the S10+ with the trade in deal but the adult in me is like why? The S9+ is still crazy fast and does everything I need.
I was paying for unlimited data but I typically only use 500megs - 1.5 gigs a month so I stepped down to 5 a month with rollover.
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Post by Emig5m on Apr 6, 2019 11:48:38 GMT -5
I buy my phones upfront too, the last time I used swappa so I saved $300 on the S9+ back when it was still the flagship last year. I considered getting the S10+ with the trade in deal but the adult in me is like why? The S9+ is still crazy fast and does everything I need. I was paying for unlimited data but I typically only use 500megs - 1.5 gigs a month so I stepped down to 5 a month with rollover. I once left my GPS app set to satellite image mode and almost blew through all my data for the month on one road trip because it was continuously downloading high res satellite maps as I was driving...lol. Last month I don't know how I did it but I managed to blow through my entire 8GB in two weeks and get throttled for the first time....128KB/s is totally unusable these days! 2hr daily commute + streaming music at 320KB/s and then streaming Youtube videos too...doesn't take much to add up. It sucks because my DSL only has a 0.7MBit upload but it's true unlimited and my phone has a 22Mbit upload where I live but that damned data cap. 22Mbit up and down would be great if I could actually use it because it took me 36hrs to upload a concert video to Youtube on my DSL!
But being on a S7 that was actually a reburbed insurance replacement that didn't even seem to be functioning correctly I was definitely due for an upgrade and if I can get $500+ credit on trade in, I think I would start upgrading yearly because it would be the same cost as waiting it out two to three years and paying full price but being stuck on the same tech for multiple years. Still curious why they give so much for used phones and why they would even want them?
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Post by ForRealTho on Apr 6, 2019 12:13:47 GMT -5
You can actually set a warning on your phone when you go over. I have the verizon app on my phone that shows how much data I used. That is the reason I got rid of unlimited, I wasn't leveraging it at all. Even driving across Canada + USA last year I just used the music on my phone + podcasts to pass the time.
Also 2 hour commute is nuts. I was pissed when I went from an 11 minute commute to my current 25-35 minute commute.
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Post by Emig5m on Apr 6, 2019 15:46:45 GMT -5
Well it's a 2hr round trip if that makes a difference...
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Post by ForRealTho on Dec 18, 2019 10:56:37 GMT -5
So about a month ago I was getting out of my car in the parking garage and I thought my phone was in my pocket but it was my wallet and my phone was hanging out of my pants, it flipped and landed face down on the cement and for the first time ever using a cellphone I managed to crack my screen. Its only a tiny crack and you can barely see it. A perk of my new job is that they will buy me a brand new phone once every 2 years(as well as giving me $70 a month for my phone bill) so I am planning on getting the S11+ when it drops. That 5,000 mah battery is ridiculous. Funny thing is tho phones have got so fast my S9+ is still decent in phone benchmarks: I have zero complaints about performance. All my apps load instantly and everything "just works". Even tho I cracked my screen Samsung will still take the S9+ as a trade in. I might just preorder when the preorders go up.
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Post by Ambience on Dec 18, 2019 11:20:09 GMT -5
It's important to have 60fps on your phone.
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Post by ForRealTho on Dec 18, 2019 11:30:25 GMT -5
It's important to have 60fps on your phone. Funny thing is I actually don't play phone games at all. There were a few phone games I really liked back when I first got an Android phone but the company that made them went under and you can still find the .apk and play them but Android 4.3 broke them and you cannot save your progress. I'm sure if I spent some time digging in the Play Store I could find something I like but meh. Can't miss what you don't know about.
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