My running commentary on underground internet technology. Topics will include usenet, bittorrent, security & VPN's, open source, and pirate entertainment). Check the technique...
Ugh.
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I just found out I'm the same age as Mark Shuttleworth, the creator of Ubuntu. He's also worth north of $500 million. I'm not. Damn.
As a TV cord-cutter, I have gone mostly legit. One of my G+ buddies Keith Wilson , posted an article recently showing the drastic reduction in bittorrent traffic over the course of a decade. His question was, what happened to all the pirates??? I have never believed that content piracy was about a lifestyle or philosophy. It's always been about ease of content acquisition. The classic example is pre-2000 Napster vs post-2010 Spotify. At it's peak, OG Napster was king of the pirate apps and there were virtually no legal alternatives. Today, pirating albums is trivially easy, but the vast majority of music consumers buy from iTunes or stream from Spotify. Why? Because the legal options are abundant and pervasive. Spotify works on my phone, car, home and work with zero friction and benefits like social sharing features, playlists and such. It's taken a while, but TV has reached a similar nexus. Barely five years ago, cord-cutting was synonymous with piracy. One of
I remember the early days of Hulu when all it had was the Daily Show, Family Guy, and a bunch of anime. I was an early cheerleader and vocal supporter because the promise of on-demand streaming TV anywhere was and is so important to the cord-cutting movement. Hulu has come a long way since then. It's library is huge, it now boasts some impressive movie titles, and it's now possible to subscribe and watch media on your TV, tablet or phone. And this is ultimately what is so frustrating about Hulu. Despite all that the streaming service has achieved, it fails to deliver consistently on its promises. So what do I mean by all this? Let's say you want to watch an episode of The Outer Limits (90's version). Hulu has every single episode ready to stream. In fact, they are the ONLY ones with the streaming rights to this series. You can't even *buy* an unedited DVD for anything past Season 1. Usenet and bittorrent also come up empty. Bottom line, if you want to
So, for any new readers that I gain via G+ or wherever, here's a quick FAQ about me. 1. Where are you located and what do you do for a living ? - I'm Atlanta-based and I work in the consumer electronics industry (go figure). I know that anyone who is anyone who blogs about tech needs to live in San Fran or NY, but I figure now is a great time to start bucking that trend. Atlanta is a huge and growing city, all the major tech players have a presence here, tech startups are everywhere, we have 4G LTE coverage from all the carriers, the food is good and the cost of living is cheap. You do the math. 2. Why are you blogging about "underground" tech? - Because there's a gap in the tech media right now. Every other blog is talking about Apple this, or Samsung that. They are reviewing the latest iteration of five-inch black slab of plastic after five-inch black slab of plastic. But very FEW blogs are talking about cord-cutting and how the various programs, prot
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