installed userbase and the inertial resistance of individuals users (and even more so as a group)

Hey, fellow PlayOn lifetime subscriber! I feel you and not everyone needs to feel the way I do about this. But, I’m fine with it. That may change, but it’s where I am now.

I’m fine with this. The old model was great and unsustainable. They are switching with the explicit goal of not taking VC money, which is a good thing in any context.

From the mid-80s onward you’ll have little to no difficulty finding most things on usenet trackers, there are even a few that specialize in classic TV (think 50s-70s) and those may be good spots for more obscure shows from 20-30 years ago.

torrents are last decade, and newsgroups is where it’s at for this stuff

100% accurate. There are a ton of guides online to getting your indexer and providers picked and set up. It’s a much better space than torrents. I’m never going back into the muck with those things.

Namecheap, Namesilo, and Porkbun are the ones that people around here seem to like.

Not legally, but I never use a VPN for newsgroup downloads.

The chip struggles at higher bitrate files particularly when there is a more complex audio codec and HDR video. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed, it’s an extremely common complaint from owners online.

I really hope so. We’ve been extremely happy with ours. And, IIRC you’re right. I think the Switch has a slightly newer revision, but it’s almost entirely the same chip.

Shield Pro on the TVs, but they’re starting to show their age. If no one puts a powerful chip into a new Android box in the next year or so, I’ll probably move to AppleTV units. I wish there was an alternative, but nothing else has the horsepower that they do.

This is all going to depend on your risk tolerance, overall attack surface, and network topology.

Even on Windows, you only get full bitrate Netflix playback in the UWP Windows Store app.

SAAS is a scam

pCloud sells itself as a privacy-focused alternative to Dropbox, Google, iCloud, etc. They’re running a deal right now on lifetime accounts, too.

Brah, how often are you logging into services on your set top box?

Thales was kind enough to provide a link:

I’d like to see the breakout in the Fediverse for Mastodon vs. all others.