Also it's unlikely it actually almost died

I was thinking this while setting up RomM a few months back. Each media stack I'm running has a bit of a different reasoning behind it, but at the end of the day it's more about convenience and owning my own library than anything cost-related.

My Jellyfin server exists because streaming services are a nightmare. Overpriced as hell, extremely limited libraries, things constantly coming and going.

I use Navidrome because Spotify supports genocide and Tidal felt too limited, and neither pays artists well. While most of my library is pirated, I make it a point to buy directly from the artists whenever possible - whether that's digital downloads, vinyl, or merch, direct support goes much further than streaming services ever will.

RomM is about preservation and convenience for my emulation library. These aren't hard to find online, sure, but knowing I have my own copies feels like a safety net in case of more shutdowns and lawsuits.

I'm thinking the same - i for example have nearly every fitgirl release stored and backuped. there is no way i can ever play them all, but last time i checked i have quite a few games that are not available to buy anymore because they were pulled from steam/gog/epic. sometime in the future i will work on making all of these games available again.

If it wasn't for piracy I would have just kept reading books. Instead, I just watch all the bullshit.

EDIT: Most of the time, the people who make shows have a much better imagination than mine

I get a stellar service from my mate's Plex server that he doesn't charge me to access. If there's something I want, I request it through some automated service he has and within no time at all it's ready to watch.

Feels like there's more to it than that. But yeah, we did believe the ads and want what we were promised.

The second that valve goes public and gets horribly enshittified , it will grow exponentially.

Music piracy, while still a thing, is basically nil at this point, because the record industry didn't fuck up streaming (for the consumer). The artists don't get paid enough, but from a consumer perspective you don't have to sub to all the services to get all of the music.

We were so close to that with Netflix back in the beginning. Then the studios got greedy, and here we are.

How exactly is Steam consumer friendly? Or is the bar so low that companies that don't shoot themselves in their feet by mistake because they were actually aiming for the customer are considered "consumer friendly"?

I thought that crazy terf was cracking denuvo games?

I do have the feel that gaming piracy is on a all time low. At the moment there isn't even a single active denuvo cracker while there used to be like 3-4. Probably because stores like steam and gog, which are consumer friendly with fair prices for most products and not linked with stupid subscriptions.

I don't know the numbers so I can't comment on that, but you do realise the vast majority of games don't launch with Denuvo right? And plenty of games that do only have it for the first 6-12 months because it's a subscription for them, before taking it out...

I've played Baldur's Gate 3 and Avowed recently, pirated, right at launch, because they didn't have DRM. Isn't it still true that nothing on GOG has DRM at all?

There's a workaround for Denuvo: buying a copy of the game with pooled funds and sharing the game with all the participants using online activation. It's not exactly cracking, but it is one way around it. The issue is knowing where to find such groups, or starting one yourself. I can get you into one, If anyone is interested. Just send me a PM asking to join.

You can get older stuff for free as well. Practically everything is free, but you'll have to wait longer with the newer titles because people who donated funds take priority.

Note: Unfortunately, this takes place in a Discord group. You'll have to use Discord and you'll have to have an account that is at least one-month old to be able to participate.

The corpos:

"This is outrageous! This is unfair!"

This comment made my day

Hoping for the Netherlands!!!

Newbie here - Can you recommend a good Linux VPN? (For totally legal Distro Torrents, of course.)