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Im28xwa ,

Same as everyone else I wouldn’t pirate floatplane content

HumanPerson ,

I don’t know, but I also don’t think you should. They are one of the few reasonably ethical platforms so unless you truly can’t afford it or have an ethical reason I don’t know of I would pay. They do occasionally promote proprietary software but are still far more ethical than any other platform.

Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever , (edited )

LMG (the parent company) are pretty shameless about advertising and their former CEO (currently CCO with a controlling share of the company) outright tried to weaponize his community to actively advocate against their own consumer rights. Personally? I “ethically” think they are fair game. They actively fuck over consumers so… fuck them.

But also? Who cares. This is not stealing a loaf of bread to survive. This is grabbing content to entertain ourselves. From an ethical standpoint, it is REALLY hard to argue that theft (because piracy IS theft) is the ethical choice in this case but not any other… unless your personal ethics boil down to “I don’t like this person so fuck them. But I like that person so it is not right”

And… who gives a shit? If you want to pirate, pirate. Just don’t pretend one choice is “ethical” when another isn’t.

h3rm17 ,

How is piracy theft for you, as in, what definition of theft are you using?

HumanPerson ,

Could you provide a source? I had not heard that about weaponizing their community.

Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever ,

The gist of it is that LMG released their (massively overpriced, heavy, poorly engineered, and low capacity) “tech” backpack. And the first wave of buyers realized there was no warranty and questioned that. For context, it is incredibly common for any backpack in that price tier or above to have basically a no questions asked lifetime warranty (with the general idea that if you care enough to file a claim with Osprey or whatever, you are a big enough fan that you’ll probably buy another one anyway).

On the WAN show (I am not sure if it was that week or the next one), Linus spun up some sob story about how warranties aren’t fair because if he dies then his family will suffer for having to deal with that. And then he (and to a lesser extent Luke) started rambling about how written warranties aren’t worth anything anyway and you should just trust individuals… who were telling you to not trust them a few weeks back and are now talking about how they can’t commit to any written policy because they might die some day.

This went on for a few weeks and led to the infamous “Trust me, bro” meme/middle finger. Eventually led to (Computer Jesus at) Gamers Nexus dedicating a large part of a news update to explain why consumers SHOULD want a written warranty and that, going forward, they would be treating LMG as just another company even though they were friendly with Linus and the staff because they weren’t satisfied with how much they felt they needed to tiptoe around the bullshir. And GN even explained why they initially didn’t have a warranty on their screw drivers (?) but that they are now extending all existing purchases to have the same coverage as their mod mats and the like. I assume Rossman also went to town in between ranting about libertarian bullshit and how mean New York is and it is probably worth a listen. When he stays in his lane, Rossman is awesome for consumer rights.

And, for what it is worth, LMG did eventually do a written warranty for the backpack (and I think screwdriver?). But it was very much a “kicking and screaming” situation that highlighted that LTT will pretend they are pro consumer and “fighting for your rights” right up until it affects their bottom line. At which point they will spin sob stories and try to convince fans to actively not want what few consumer protections there are.

Can’t be arsed to look up which WAN shows involved Linus ranting but here are the GN videos. Obviously I am inherently biased toward those because… I care more about my rights as a consumer than what some whiny millionaire wants.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdxVtAiYeL0&t=95s is the GN summary and www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsX3tUA-wJk&t=71s is their follow up that also includes a discussion of how they will be handling LMG different (as in, like every other company) going forward.

PipedLinkBot ,

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): piped.video/watch?v=OdxVtAiYeL0&

piped.video/watch?v=jsX3tUA-wJk&

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

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HumanPerson ,

That is unfortunate. I used to watch their vids and assumed that their general ethics as a company have gotten worse based on their size, but it is sad to hear nonetheless.

Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever ,

Its one of those things that is incredibly obvious in hindsight. The actual “incident” was the same as any “hot take” over the years: Someone calls out Linus’s bullshit. He takes it as a personal insult, goes full Influencer to get the audience on his side, and does a “not really but really” call for action against whoever wronged him. Like, there are still some tech youtubers who “catch strays” any time the LMG community remember that they had the audacity to talk about how interacting with Linus was incredibly uncomfortable and unprofessional and so forth.

This was just extra “interesting” since it was a call to action against the people being called.

And I think it was this particular debacle that made people realize that the unofficial LTT subreddit… has a lot of LTT staff as mods. And that came up as an argument that LMG require staff running their subreddit in case someone tries to dox them at 2 am. Which… ignores that reddit has other message boards AND has really bad implications on work/life balance expectations.

But yeah. I still skim the occasional LTT video because… their bullshit six figure house mods are solving similar problems that I have and I can find a way to get that down to three figures. But I am definitely glad that the big computer companies are broadening to work more with the “b tier” computer youtubers like GN and Jay and the like. Nice to be able to get a fab tour without it needing to be a travel vlog by a millionaire.

xdr ,

I have a question.

I never pay for Netflix, prime or whatever. Only watch movies on yts for example.

There is no reason for me to “pay for floatplane” because I don’t have that kind of money coming from a third world country with a much less purchasing power to US$

The end result is simply, if I am pirating some content, I wouldn’t otherwise pay them because I don’t have the means.

The “lost sale” argument doesn’t hold when I have to go through dozen hoops.

So, what does “ethics” have to do with this? Let’s talk about floatplane only.

The pirater who leaks the content paid for it once and suppose I acquire it, why does it matter have I paid for it or not? Its not a case of bread from a bakery shop that they can’t sell so what gives?

Why should I have ethical issues with pirating it?

HumanPerson ,

You shouldn’t. For one thing, Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever made some valid points, also my point wasn’t that you shouldn’t at all, just that I would have made an effort to get it legally. Normally when I disagree with what someone is trying to do but can help, I tell them why I think they shouldn’t but also try to help, but in this case I didn’t have any suggestions.

5ubieee ,

your best bet is probably just seeing if u have any friends with an account that can rip them for you or share the login with you

bluegiraffe ,

Pirating a small company/org feels weird to me.

Like yeah, sure, LTT makes (at the bare minimum, the actual # is more this is just extrapolated from their lowest sub cost) like 1.5mil/yr from Floatplane (gross, ofc, not net). That’s a pretty modest amount for their team to include profits/salaries/hosting/etc.

Linus Sebastian, the individual, is a millionaire. That isn’t money that is being used to make my quality of life/other services worse, though. I don’t care enough about the exclusives to actually watch them, but if I did I’d fork out $3-5 every few months to catch up on the ones I wanted to see.

Big tech? Raise ye flags. Normal people making a living off of big tech? Feels weird to me. Not saying not to hurt their bottom line, just that doing it through a platform that (at their scale) isn’t making a ludicrous amount of profit and isn’t actively damaging your access to your services, feels weird to me.

Just pirate YouTube. It will give you the same content for free, and you’ll be stealing features Google thinks you should be paying for, like background playback, video quality, a down vote count, the ability to download videos for later, etc.

CharlestonChewbacca ,
@CharlestonChewbacca@lemmy.world avatar

Of all the people to pirate from, Floatplane shouldn’t be one of them…

SyJ ,

Why? Is floatplane free? Or just really bad.

ipha ,
@ipha@lemmy.world avatar

No and no.

It’s a video/streaming platform that pays creators fairly and doesn’t rely on ads or harvesting user info.

SyJ ,

Shit man, imagine if LTT lost a few dollars

qwertyqwertyqwerty , (edited )

It’s not that LTT can’t afford piracy, it’s that pirating content that is made using ethical and honest business practices and treats their employees well (at least from what it appears) sends the wrong message. Piracy should only be used when companies give you a reason to avoid using legal methods of accessing their content.

EDIT (8/16/23): Yeah, I’ve changed my mind given recent events. Sail away!

SyJ ,

Piracy should be used whenever you don’t want to pay for something

qwertyqwertyqwerty ,

You sound like you’d be ok with physical theft from a mom-pop-shop as long as you get something for free. It’s not in the spirit of the piracy community.

UgandaSans ,

Imagine trying to be morally righteous on a Piracy community…. Piracy ≠ Stealing

SyJ ,

You sound like you’ve just made up an unrelated example to dog whistle

Ithronmorn ,

With that attitude I hope somebody steals your TV and computer because they don’t want to pay for one. There is a massive difference between pirating from HBO or from LTT. It’s the difference between stealing from Walmart or stealing from an old lady’s bakery. You’re a shit person.

MomoTimeToDie ,

deleted_by_author

    •
    dream_weasel ,

    Besides money you mean.

    I don’t mind shorting a predatory carrier or production studio, but I don’t care to short the people who make content I want: if they don’t make money they don’t make content and we don’t get to consume it.

    MomoTimeToDie ,

    Nope. They have exactly as much money as they had before I pirated their shit. It’s a false assumption if you assume that people would purchase everything they pirate, and not just do something else free

    Ithronmorn ,

    It’s the same as sneaking into a show for your favorite small band. Your lack of paying for a ticket isn’t depriving someone of a product, but you’re a dick for not supporting them. The difference is that the actors and writers of movies and TV shows get paid the same whether or not you pirate. Someone smaller like LTT should be supported if you can afford to do so. Piracy is about freedom of information, unrestricted media, convenience, and not supporting big bad companies. If you think it’s just about free stuff then you’re more dimwitted than ever. Of course I like free, but that’s not the point.

    MomoTimeToDie ,

    Who put you in charge of diving out some grand meaning of piracy? I’ve encountered plenty of people for whom a major aspect of piracy is that it’s a way to access content they would otherwise be uninterested in paying for, for whatever reasons they have. Who’s to say they’re wrong for wanting free content?

    SyJ ,

    Piracy doesn’t deprive anyone of goods.

    CharlestonChewbacca ,
    @CharlestonChewbacca@lemmy.world avatar

    It does when they can’t keep running the service anymore because your broke asses won’t support it.

    SyJ ,

    😛🥾

    CharlestonChewbacca ,
    @CharlestonChewbacca@lemmy.world avatar

    lmao please

    CharlestonChewbacca ,
    @CharlestonChewbacca@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s a small platform that costs a lot to run. Attempting to provide a fair and ethical alternative to YouTube.

    Don’t use the service unless you’re going to support it.

    SyJ ,

    LTT is not a small platform. Let him suck it up.

    Spotify and YouTube cost a lot to run, do you block ads or pay for premium?

    CharlestonChewbacca ,
    @CharlestonChewbacca@lemmy.world avatar

    In the grand scheme of the media industry, they are. Moreover, Floatplane is a separate entity with < 50k users.

    I don’t use Spotify, but yes, I pay for YouTube premium (which comes with YouTube Music, which I use instead of Spotify). I use YouTube a lot. $13.99 is not that much money for so much video and music content.

    And I’m not saying don’t pirate anything ever. But come on, when people build a platform to try and do things right, to ethically support their creators, we ought to support those platforms.

    Banzai51 ,
    @Banzai51@midwest.social avatar

    But in order to do that, they don’t harvest every bit of your personal data for sale or ad generation, but instead you have to subscribe to individual creators (ie pay).

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