I’ve been back to the high seas for a while.

Before I get into it, I’ll give an honourable mention to the RIAA/music industry, which is largely just putting all of the music on every platform and letting users choose which one they want to use. This is the way, and I’m happy to pay one service to get access to the stuff I actually want to hear.

Back to video/MPAA. Are you all on crack? I saw this coming back when Netflix was the only licensed media game on the internet… I was subscribed and enjoying some shows, the shows then… Went away, they disappeared. After looking into it, the show I was enjoying was pulled when a copyright was revoked by the publisher, so Netflix no longer had the right to distribute the show.

I saw the writing on the wall. That publisher was going to make their own Netflix competitor with their stuff on it, to try to extort more profit from the streaming stuff. Clearly their c-suite thought that people would be willing to pay for just their content separately from Netflix. I saw that writing and noped right the fuck out. Grabbed my tri-point hat and flag from storage and set sail, and I’ve never looked back.

The copyright holding asshats, ruined internet streaming, because everyone wanted to be their own thing. They splintered the entire online streaming thing into a bunch of disparate platforms all with some subset of the media available via streaming. It’s worse than cable, honestly.

IMO, the only good move that’s happened for streaming (but horrible for so many other reasons) was Disney gobbling up all the other media studios and production companies, then putting all their stuff on one service. There’s a few holdouts, but by and large the two biggest players right now are Netflix (the OG) and Disney (+)… So a bunch of good media ended up on D+, and so it’s kind of “the” streaming service… For better or worse (mostly worse, as OP points out).

I’m still firmly on my ship, sailing the high seas. Unless they go the way of music, and allow all shows on every platform and you pick your platform based on your preferences, I’ll stay on this ship. Thanks.

Hey, don’t point it out! People are blissfully ignorant of how much they are owned. Don’t try to educate them.

• corporations, probably.

Mine are.

Remember you absolutely must not go to these specific sites.

Do not do it.

See you all tomorrow for class.

But how else is he going to pay for his yacht… I mean, pay to feed his children… Yeah, that’s relatable with millennials and zoomers that are so far in debt and earning so little that they can’t afford kids, right?

Well, I’m probably going to try to get my ccnp for kicks. I’ll re-do my CCNA, then do my ccnp. By the time I go for my NA cert I’ll pretty much be ready to go for the np cert.

I’ll build a new resume emphasizing my network stuff, though my resume is already fairly heavily focused on networking as is, and try again.

I’m pretty happy with my job in almost every way, I know most of the things I would need to know to be successful, despite it being a more generalist position, and my co-workers are cool. Management is better than most, and the pay is more than the last two generalist positions I’ve worked, plus it’s work from home, so I’m pretty comfortable where I am for now. The pay, despite being higher than I’ve gotten previously, is a pretty far cry from what I probably deserve, just way too low, under $55k USD (I’m not in the US, but the conversion puts me under 55). From what I’ve seen online, median salary for a systems admin, which is basically what my job mostly entails, is around $73k USD… So I’m around $20k/yr shy.

I know network admins are similar, depending on the complexity/importance of the network they administrate. I’m aware of people in networking that are making more than 100k USD a year; and right now I consider that to be where things start to cap off for networking. I’d be pretty happy with $73k USD.

What, like the CCNA? Which I achieved and it expired last year, and got me nowhere?

I prefer linkin_park_numb.mp3.com

It just hit different

I feel this, especially since I’m more into networking, but my work is more generalist.

I open my mouth about networking and people’s eyes glaze over. Even very experienced senior people can’t really understand what I’m talking about when it comes to some of the more intermediary networking concepts. Meanwhile I tune into a podcast that’s networking focused and they’re basically speaking Latin for me.

There’s so much that I don’t know. I get the broad strokes of things but I’m hopelessly lost on so many of the more nuanced bits of networking.

I really want to break away from generalist work and get into a network focused position, but after 10 years as a generalist in various MSP companies, most places won’t take me seriously as a networker and won’t even sit down for an interview.

I’m good at other stuff, damn near expert level with some things, but my passion is networks and the workplaces I’ve been at just don’t care to help me learn any of it. My current place barely has any networking more complex than a profile based L2L VPN… Switches are basically ignored, and VLANs are rare.

I facepalm every time I discover that the guest network is just bridged into the same subnet as the LAN. I’ve raised the issue a few times and never been given the green light to fix it, often because the network isn’t able to be managed remotely.

You kids. Got off my lawn. Leave me in peace with my scour.net.

I don’t think either answer is wrong.

Unless the recipient literally rats you out, I don’t think they’ll even try to…

I would think that cyber ops would be more concerned with fraud, underage sexual content, sexual predators… That kind of stuff.

Usually the MPAA sues people for distributing video content, and in many places, they’re not super aggressive about it.

I did this for a coworker not too long ago.

I think it was for Firefly…

They gave the USB drive back too. Win-win

Well, this one is moving up on my steam wishlist.

I’ve seen pirates put in a modified version…

This. It’s like “Let’s wreck the paying customers! Ha ha, that will show those pirates.”

WTF?

I feel like this is what bungee was going for with Halo infinite. Multiplayer is free, but if you want the story/campaign, you have to pony up for it.

Too bad infinite was not the strongest game for Lanning… And that it’s requirements are kinda silly… And that it’s huge, even just the free version.

It looks great if you have the hardware for it, but the guys I usually LAN with are all working professionals with bills and mortgages and stuff… No time or money to keep up to date on the latest gaming hardware.

The RIAA drove me to piracy in the early days.

Then stuff like Google Play music came along and I stopped because I can actually pay for basically any song I want to listen to, all at my fingertips and that is still true. It makes me happy to support the artists and their music though I know they don’t get very much of the cut.

The MPAA was much of the same story.

Then Netflix happened and I was all set for the same thing to happen, but it didn’t. Now streaming is almost as fractured as cable TV packages, and I went right back to piracy.

Screw it. I don’t feel bad about it because they haven’t shown any regard for the people they continually exploit, namely their customers. They don’t give any shits if I financially sink while trying to afford to enjoy the things that they make, so I won’t give any shits about their financial situation while I enjoy it anyways. Fuck them.