"Widevine Dump":Leaked Code Downloads HD Video from Disney+, Amazon, and Netflix

> torrenting today is as good as the experience of buying music on a physical medium in the 90s

You meant to say "it's much better than buying experience has ever been". You throw an RSS feed into your torrent client once and get desktop or email notifications when a new episode is downloaded and ready to play. If there's enough disk space, you can add whole categories in there and have hundreds of shows available locally at any time.

Plus, it's free.

Or, you get a small server and download a package... with a little finangaling, you have a service that will catalog shows and movies you want to watch, download them, sort them and push them to your own private "netflix" server ala Plex.

https://github.com/sebgl/htpc-download-box

put it behind a VPN (included) and bam... all your stuff, globally gotten and none of the BS with "Wildvine" and it's ilk.

This is not a good experience. I cannot order a box like an Apple TV and just hook it up to my new TV and go. It’s never as easy as anyone says it is, there’s always more steps involved than logging into iTunes and/or subscribing to some service with my credit card. Plus there’s always the chance of a lawsuit hanging over my head.

For a tech illeterare person maybe. using `docker-compose up` to start a preconfigured sonarr, radarr, transmission with VPN , Plex or jellyfin is almost all you need. the only addition is getting a VPN service such as mullvad... If that's too involved for a software developer I'd call that person pretty incompetent, honestly.

Jellyfin's Syncplay and Roku app work as well, making group video watching easy

I have an Android TV and streaming subscriptions. If I want to stream something I have to find out what service carries it, open the right app, and attempt to type the title with the arrow keys on the remote. For me, it's much easier to torrent.

You got downvoted but once setup it really is easy. We have a little VM with deluge and a VPN. Couple little IPTables rules ensure it can’t even route traffic except over the VPN interface or the one VPN endpoint, making sure no traffic leaks. I’m more worried I’ll stub my toe and it will hurt than my traffic leaks. I showed my wife how to use it, no problem. Sketchy browsing happens with Guacamole and a browser in a (separate) VM that wipes itself every few days.

> using `docker-compose up` to start a preconfigured sonarr, radarr, transmission with VPN , Plex or jellyfin is almost all you need.

That "almost all you need," is exactly why I'd rather just plug in an Apple TV. I'm not technically incompetent, I just have better things to do with my time.

>with a little finangaling

This is the part that you're wildly underselling, and missing the whole point by doing so. Netflix is just a better UX for anyone that doesn't make a hobby out of tinkering with tech

This is exactly my point. I can do all these things. They’re the last thing I would ever want to do in my living room. This is analogous to the PC gamer master race thing. I have gaming PCs. I have consoles. The consoles are by far the better experience. They always will be. It’s the difference between “it just works” and “just have to”. You just have to do this, then that, and that… and then it’s just as good … oh until this or that update breaks the entire stack, or some weird quirk of the hardware or it’s OS kicks in and you’re in jank city when you really just wanted an elegant solution.

It's not a question of competence, it's just a drag...like the construction expert who procrastinates minor home repairs. I'll stay up all night teasing secrets out of locked boxes but when it comes to entertainment I lose interest after about 30 seconds so I just don't bother to pirate stuff unless I find a torrent in the first 30 seconds. I could just be reading a book instead.

Plex is pretty damn good. If netflix is "better", it's marginally so.

There is learning with the above... docker to start and NZB/Torrenting... server management...

If you know those things already? or are close? great learning experience (my case).

is it worth ~$14/month for Netflix? Prime? Disney+? HBO Max? etc? maybe... but at a certain point the 'nickel and dime' gets to a point to where learning how to do the above becomes more worth it.

You don't need an expensive computer/server to do all this... just time and a desire to learn. once done? you control your own library and no need to worry about losing your content if you stop the monthly payments.

Streaming used to be pretty good, when Netflix was basically the only one (with most content), but it's so fragmented now, that you need so many subscriptions that it's not cheap, and pretty annoying flipping between apps to find the show/movie you want to watch, then to find it expired last week, and you have to find out who still streams it.

I mean, don't get me wrong... streaming is still pretty good. Fragmentation of content aside, there's more good content than there's ever been. So I'm not a 100% doom and gloomer...

but...

Getting that content has the "provider" problem. As you say, whack'a'mole to get the movie you want.

People always bitched that "Cable is horrible! Why do I have to pay for 400 channels to get the 3 I watch!". And here we are... able to pay for "Ala'Carte" and it's exactly what everyone wanted - and expected: Paying more for each bucket. Instead of $100 (or whatever a full cable plan is)... you're paying $75 for internet, $15 for netflix, $10 for prime (or whatever it amoritizes yearly), disney+, hbo max, Discovery+, etc, etc, etc.

Finding the EXACT movie you want is a hassle... and that hassle is what drives me to Plex. Radarr/Sonarr/NZB/etc all roll together to make a massively good platform that, learning aside, hands all the power back. I do have to pay for some stuff (NZB, Plex, internet, time learning, etc) but it's my time and worth it.