"We could always resort to the obvious old-school methods, like buying discs of music and carrying around thumb drives of our files and documents, but who wants to do that?"
I want to do that. I play my records, tapes, and CDs too. Oh no! Too old fashioned--that way lies death.
Nope.
The article dismisses such things when they are the only way to avoid being tracked. Articles like this buy into the marketing pressure to get sucked into being owned.
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@GreaterMetropolitanArea
Paying for physical media with cash is another step in avoidance of tracking.
38
Any article on rejecting IaaS and suggesting keeping your own data backups (of only important info to boot) without including commentary on encryption isn't worth finishing.
7
@Alex If you don't finish reading how do you know the articles doesn't include commentary on encryption?
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This is a great article and you are right about companies taking your data hostage (unless you go through a painful process of re-downloading them to your own hard drive). I upgraded to the 10TB Google photos plan with the intention of keeping it for one month as it is $99 per month. Unfortunately google takeout does not work on a large amount of photos and doesn’t appear to be supported anymore. I uploaded my photos and videos from multiple devices thinking that I could then have them in one place to re-download onto a 10 TB hard drive, and pay the $99 and get out. I am now on my seventh month and desperately trying to find a way to get my data back. I contacted Google and spent two hours with their team on the phone, and they let me know they don’t have an engineer in team that does bug fixes or QA on Google take out anymore. One representative thought he had the solution for me but when I opened all of the files they were simple text documents instead of photos. I would love an article investigating why Google claims they offer easy take out when this is simply not the case!
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If performers received decent pay from the streaming services it might be honorable to mention them, even promote them. But if you care about your music, you want to do better by those who create it than any of the streaming services. Buying the physical object, and copying it to your phone or pad is really the only ethical step. And for certain kinds of music, it's really necessary.
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Why don't you mention Sync.com for cloud storage? Unlike Google, Sync.com's business model is not based on spying on its users. Data is encrypted in transit and on their servers. Sync.com does not have access to your data. One of many ways to use their service is to create a Sync folder on your computer's hard drive and have anything you put in that folder automatically backed up to Sync's servers in Canada. Then, if you get tired of their service, you don't have to download your files from the cloud, because you already have a copy in the Sync folder on your computer. A free account includes 5 GB of storage. I think prices for paid accounts are reasonable. Sync.com is HIPAA-compliant and they will sign a Business Associate Agreement if you have a paid account.
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My internet service is too slow, and I’m too impatient, to back up all my files to a cloud service.
At the beginning of every year, I disengage my external hard drive from my computer (it’s been backing up everything for the year just ended), take it to my local bank, and swap it with the previous external hard drive that sat in my safe deposit box for a year.
Of course, if the house burns down during the year, I’ve lost everything up to that point, but you gotta take some risks in life. If I’m going away for an extended period of time, I’ll disconnect the external hard drive and hide it in another part of the house, but I’ll let others know where it’s at just in case.
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@Doug Only the initial backup is lengthy. Backups after that are incremental (or can be). Dropbox, which I use, is barely noticeable.
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Great article. If you want your own personal streaming service of the stuff YOU love, it's really easy.
Infuse for video and Cloudbeats for audio, both are inexpensive apps that work great (no, I don't work for them). They both will connect with stored media on google drive or dropbox (you'll have to purchase storage space), allow you to organize your library for "screen appeal" and work through your home wifi and anywhere else (of course, mind your data usage!). Both allow downloading for offline use as in when planning for a flight or whatever.
You can create your own streaming service with just the stuff you love (and legally purchased, I hope), while avoiding all the cutter (Netflix in amazing but overwhelms me).
That said, my ultimate cure for streaming / subscription fatigue is to regularly read from non-screen sources... In my day, we called them "books".
18
I'm less concerned with subscription for consistently updated services (Netflix, Amazon, HBO, etc.) than I am with the increasing number of subscription charges for what amount to one-time purchases, like many smart phone apps. Some, like password banks, operate as static computer programs and yet are now charging users monthly or yearly simply to continue to use them.
What used to be buyable, it seems, can now merely be rented, without a commensurate change in the product.
How long before we can't own things at all anymore?
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@Will Go analog. You can own your own books that way, for example. They are very satisfying to hold in your hands, and it's a real pleasure to turn the pages.
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If you made Plex work for you in an Apple world I’m impressed. Over and over Plex takes a walk and elaborate handshaking has to ensue. I love what it should be doing but I hate PLEX.
1
It comes down to what is your time worth? Do you spend days building and maintaining a media server? Or do you spend $4 to steam the movie on demand? You need to find a balance between living life and backing everything up. Besides, when you're dead... no one will care about your data. Especially if you have multiple terabytes of it to weed through.
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I can't imagine anyone who cared about their personal stuff (photos/movies/music/etc) to back it all up to someone else's "cloud". And this long long list of Programs & apps a person needs to watch or listen to something is ridiculous.
You get a few -very cheap- 1 or 2 Terra HD's. for Music or movies or photos -you name it. You create a very simple file system. You click on a file in a category or just click an individual tune and ... Whoosh ... it plays just like that. How simple can it be ?
EX: Have you ever stayed in a hotel these days ? Ever noticed how absolutely slow it is to even go through the guide to find anything of interest ? Of which there never IS anything of interest. You simply plug your HD in the TV, go to an Aux input & you have an endless playlist of the music or movies you have. Granted, the initial work setting all this up is very tedious & time-consuming. But in the end -you are beholding to NO ONE. Not a single App ever needed. But then again, I am one of those weirdo's who wouldn't ever consider watching a Movie on a Tiny phone screen.
There you have it, yet another way to free yourself from the slavery.
6
Just don't use them and cancel the ones you've got. Real life is much better, you ill surely find.
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Passport, which is the streaming and archive service of PBS, is $5 per month (more if you like) and it's tax deductible. Their archive is huge.
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I solved the streaming problem of too many sites. I have Netflix and Amazon Prime. I go in and out of HBO and others if they have anything I want to watch. Save a lot of money that way.
4
@Chris I also use Netflix and Amazon prime and also passport for PBS and I have them loaded on my Roku. What I found is that Roku search will find anything I want across all platforms, which is useful because now my husband has additional streaming apps from library sources. Roku tells me where anything I want to watch is located and I choose the cheapest location and get right there from the search results.
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The big unspoken of scandal of PASSWORDS! They can be declared non valid, new one required, and guess what, future sign in will invalidate the new password for unknown reasons. (Re- signing in for no reason is also a scandal). Ergo, multitudes of passwords for many many sites that are changed by elves on some celestial time schedule. The fault may be in myself at times but not always. We are at their mercy, progression through life has become dependent on passwords. There must be a better way. We evolved to this point after thousands of years unencumbered by passwords -can we not hope for a password-free future?
19
Here's an idea: don't bother to stream anything. If you have physical DVD's or a library of interesting classics, why bother with this stuff?
It won't be long before your fees for various streaming services will rival those of cable or satellite services. Those outrageously high fees won't disappear altogether. There's too much money to be made. Remember those $175.00 bills?
Also, they make it easy for you to sign up, and unbelievable difficult to cancel. Why bother? Keep your data for yourself.
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I’d be curious to learn the average total amount per month that families are now paying for all these entertainment streaming services. In order to match the selection of old movies that you used to get in an average Blockbuster store it seems like you have to subscribe to half a dozen or more streaming services. (Of course, streaming and cable offer new shows as well).
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For those of you who are into art house and foreign films, I highly recommend Kanopy, a streaming service available from many public libraries. You can look up films by distribution companies as well as the usual search criteria.
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As an artist I keep an archive of photos and scans of my work. A recurring nightmare that this archive might in some way disappear has lead me to a five part solution. First, it resides on my everyday laptop. The laptop has a hardwired drive. Next it resides on a special laptop used for art purposes and that is not connected to the internet (yes, I use flash drives to transfer files between machines). Then I regularly backup to a cloud service, BackBlaze. Finally, I have a website provider, ArtMejeur, that includes an archiving function with, and this is important, ability to download original files of my work as needed. Now I can sleep at night.
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Keeping track of these subscription services and what they charge can be a real pain. Here's what my wife and I do: We secured a low credit line charge card to use only for subscription services. When the bill comes in each month it's all there for a quick scan and adjustments if needed.
Then there are the pesky passwords for which we secured a password manager. So for us only one unique password takes care of all the subscriptions.
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@Jimmy "Then there are the pesky passwords for which we secured a password manager. So for us only one unique password takes care of all the subscriptions."
Until your password manager gets hacked. I still can't believe the blind faith that many computer-saavy people put in these things.
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I have *two* external hard drives. They can die, you know.
I bought my first because my photos (over 50,000 original and scanned) no longer fit on my laptop's hard drive. Once I bought the hard drives, I backed up everything else onto them, too. Nice to have!
I also back up regularly on Drop box and Google Drive. Belt and suspenders... Or, um, two belts and two pairs of suspenders! Works for me.
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@MLChadwick And keep the second hard drive at a neighbors. We swap as "off site storage".
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@poslug Great idea!
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Better idea: refuse to dignify the joint "streaming"-"cloud" cartel. You don't need to keep up with watercooler zombies.
"he still consumed the vast majority of music and movies from paid streaming services"
And can we please drown that concept of "consuming media" in a bathtub? It plays directly into the subscriptionists' hand.
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I subscribe digitally and in print to my local newspapers. Some of them ask me, "How do I like to consume my news?" Shredded with a light vinaigrette.
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Art is ephemeral but the data imprint you leave on an apple or google platform, "private" or not, is forever.
In our house, we don't try to squirrel away anything entertainment related. It comes and goes, as all art always has.
We're enjoying a few things on Netflix right now, when we're done, we'll unsubscribe for a while and see what's on offer elsewhere. Factor in live performances, film classics, books and social events and there are centuries of entertainment available right now, and only our single lifetime in which to enjoy them. I don't feel the slightest need to be organized about this aspect of my life and I'm not trying to save anything. What are you saving it for?
If I had been this organized in the past, I would have missed so many of the films, books and music I cherish most, and my world would be smaller. My advice would be to ignore the urge to organize your art. Step out of your little box, shake off the clouds and let serendipity take the rudder. I think most people would be happier if they did.
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@Stephanie unless it's your own art that you produced as an artist, like Jimmy, above.
Otherwise, I'd rather treat it as I would going to a movie or in the past renting a DVD. No need to keep track of it.
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So terminating a subscription that gives us cloud service for our photos is akin to a house fire that destroys generations of family photos. Thanks for the article. I am now making plans to get my own backup.
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Oh and there is also MUBI for arthouse film lovers and Filmatique, which is for hardcore cineastes. They have many films that have not actually found a distributor.
I have no idea why the author felt the need to convert all his DVDs to be able to watch them digitally. How difficult is it to pop in a DVD or Blu Ray?
Why would anybody keep their films and music on a cloud? Call me 20th century, but I have other things to do and I like to keep things simple.
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@Rax
CDs degrade over the years. I spent a couple of weeks' worth of evening methodically ripping 300-400 CDs and 200 DVDS. Some obscure, lots of foreign language, some personal, some dross... anyway. Most of my media is now via streaming but the first twenty years is on a linux server at home that I can access from the road along with 200 DVDs. It's partly an archiving habit. I ran a studio and archive hundreds of projects recorded onto 1/2" and 2" analog tape, DAT tape and what not. Dealing with the CDs at 20x rip with two drives running required 20 hours (?). Worth it.
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@Rax The day may come where you have a hard time finding a DVD player. I know they are older but good luck finding a VHS player or tape.
4
Cloud, schmoud!
I kept all of my DVD's and Blu Rays. If it was worth buying in the first place, I will probably watch it again.
Criterion is an ok streaming service, but their policy of making only some titles available at a time is quite annoying. I have most of the Criterion films on DVD anyway so I doubt I will renew.
Netflix is mostly junk, but once in a while they offer something great, like Mati Diop's ATLANTICS, which makes it worthwhile.
Amazon Prime has a lot of great stuff to stream. I got Hulu recently too, and I have found a few good things on Hulu. I had Kanopy for a while and that is a great streaming service, but we no longer have access to it, sadly.
Even with all the services I stream, I still do not pay anywhere near the money we used to throw away on cable, so I am glad we cut the cord on cable.
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Is there no possibility -- at all -- that data stored in some corporate cloud can itself be lost? Do Google and Apple and others back up our files on multiple drives in multiple locations? From time to time, I wonder too about our financial assets -- in banks and in other fiduciary institutions. My own financial assets, for instance -- the truth is that they "exist" only insofar as this institution and that institution have records that they exist and recognize that they exist. Put in a different way, what are minimum conditions that would cause all these digital resources to be lost? A comet? Nuclear war? Something less than that? Should a person worry even a little? Or does security -- implausibly -- far surpass anything I can imagine?
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@Buziano Used to be, you could walk or drive to your bank and withdraw funds in cash--they had it right there (amazing thought).
You're correct: all it would take would be the lethal cyberattack that Russia is surely planning even now, and POOF! The records of everyone's savings would take from months to years to reconstruct.
Being unable to access any sort of income would make our lives... difficult.
Banks are deemed "too big to fail." The Feds would rescue them again. Somehow. Especially if some President happened to be working in collusion with Putin.
You and me? Too small and unimportant to protect.
Billionaires' wealth would magically be untouched. They'd be the aristocrats. The rest of us would become their serfs (or die).
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@MLChadwick We are already the serfs. :)
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@Buziano You should always keep downloaded copies of the three most recent financial statements from each of your bank/investment accounts stored locally on your computer, as well as in your personal cloud. I too am afraid of the looming cyber attack that will wreak the global financial system. With three continuous months of records, you will be among the first to recover your financial assets.
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Call it a conspiracy theory if you want, but I think companies like Apple removed DVD drives from its laptop computers force its customers to abandon physical media (DVDs and CDs) and start streaming content from Apple for a monthly subscription fee. I believe for the same reason Apple eliminated to plug audio devices into the audio jack (It was a headphone output and audio input.) It probably cost pennies if anything for Apple to provide that functionality, but it literally and figuratively pulled the plug when it started its streaming service.
Companies like Apple will argue that their compressed music streaming sound just as great as uncompressed music and HD formats but that simply is not true. What I can’t understand is why companies in the music industry don’t transition to releasing only HD music files. It surely shouldn’t cost more to record and distribute at higher bit rates. They pushed CDs over vinyl records and almost made LPs obsolete. Why not do the same for low quality digital music? I should note that Amazon now offers hi-def music streaming although I haven’t tried it.
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@Greg
Drives were removed because they were becoming obsolete. Optical disks stalled at 4/8 GB and 8x/24x transfers. Too expensive and too slow.
A 500 GB SSD external over Thunderbolt 3 is 200x faster and 20x cheaper as storage. A blank DVD cost about $12, or $4 per GB and takes 20 minutes to write. Same file to SSD external over Thunderbolt 3 or USB-3 costs $0.20 per GB and transfers in ten seconds or less.
Streaming seems full of possibilities: limitations on quality, given ISP and cloud-serving, are market-driven not technical as Netflix's HD, Apple's TV, and Primes' current HD offerings show. Dolby Atmos or 5.1 of surround/HD for many existing movies and current run shows are more than adequate for my small screen habits.
I know many enjoy the cinema-grade 4k and Blue-ray quality but the optical disk has become a consumer niche product, a bit like laser disks of yore. Apple TV's foray into 4k HD streaming seems like the most likely delivery in the future, no?
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@Greg
I believe there is some truth to what you say about Apple and other companies. They want to force people to purchase new products in order to generate continuing revenue.
It's the same with refrigerators and other appliances that used to last 20 years and now die much sooner. Generate more revenue.
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@CJ For many of us, drives are not obsolete, and won't be in the forseeable future. Ditto for wired devices. I will not buy an iPhone that does not have a headphone jack.
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There's another problem with subscriptions services, which can prove very expensive: stopping the charges.
Most subscription services use automatic billing for their monthly fees. Very convenient for both consumer and company - when it works. But it can be a major inconvenience or worse if you stop a service, but the charges to your credit card or bank account keep on rolling in.
Neither your bank nor your credit card companies a means for consumers to block charges from specific vendors. Charges can be contested after they appear, but this can be time consuming and very inconvenient to manage. Further, banks and credit card companies often seem more likely to favor a corporate entity over a consumer when there's a dispute. Further, once they have your account information, vendors can also charge mysterious fees, in addition to monthly subscription costs. These can be a nightmare to contest.
Caveat emptor before you give out your account information.
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@Alex
Bank of America used to have a service where you could get a temporary alias credit card number so you wouldn’t have to give your real credit card number to a seller. You could also set the expiration date to just two months in the future so automatic renewals would be prevented. Unfortunately, and fortunately I guess, their fraud protection software improved so they stopped this feature, including the flexibility in setting an expiration date.
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@RandallP I wonder if a prepaid credit card would work, the kind you use for gifts. There is a purchase fee.
Automatic CC payments are a pain and hard to stop... suggest have CC company replace your CC with new one with new number (that will be done if you ’lose’ your card. May take a week or so to get a new card, but knowing that those automatic payments won’t work MAY work for you
3
Linux has a program called I drive which syncs Google drive folders.I use multiple laptops and multiple Google accounts to create redundant backups.Similsrly Dropbox, for the files I use most (musician backing tracks mainly). All these folders are also uploaded to mega nz which offers encrypted files and many GBs free. Multiple hardrives also litter my apartment, and I will someday burn some DVDs to go with the dozens of USBs I have with my writing and documents.No doubt, clutter is the curse if the prolific...
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@Jay
I really recommend a NAS for cheap, expandable storage.
My digital home life came together adding a Network Attached Storage (Synology NAS). It's a full-blown Linux server configured as a 16 TB raid (redundant) drive, hot-pluggable, expandable and accessible from anywhere online. It's got 30 years of projects and media stuffed on it. 3-2-1 of course means two local backups (one bootable) of each home computer, plus one one offsite backup. The NAS is local backup number 2. An encrypted copy is stored at work offsite, with a trickle sync from the NAS.
Running the Linux server leverages the full capabilities because you can employ services like Apache Web, Wiki, Wordpress, photo management, file sharing, FTP, mail, dynamic IP and remote management, all securely and easily from home. No need to trust to the cloud. The Diskmanager (DSM) operating system is user-friendly, just plug-and-play to install and start services.
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I am more of a Windows-Person myself but do have an IPhone6s b/c my daughter uses Apple. AAR WRT the Apple iCloud , this App stores one's iPhone Data "automatically" to one's iCloud Account. IDK (I Don't Know) whether other Apple Devices (iPod, MacBooks) can use iCloud.
@Uscdadnyc
Yes. That is the beauty and goal of iCloud, etc. Accessible to all devices that are approved by the account holder. I've got 3 iPhones, 3 iPads and my Mac all on the same iCloud account. We keep my hubs work iPhone on a separate iCloud account to limit work/home issues.
Call me old-fashioned or ultra-conservative, but I am perfectly content to live without any subscriptions. When my wife and I want to see a certain film, we either order it from something like Amazon or borrow it from a local library.
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Several years ago, I invested in a Synology NAS, 60TB (yes you read that right), to hold all of my media. I have Plex installed on all my devices (plus sharing with a couple of friends so that they have access as well). Now I can stream any of my media basically anywhere I am with a WiFi connection. It was fairly labor intensive to get it all up and running (lots of YouTube videos), but worth the effort to not be sharing anything with Google or Amazon cloud.
I also set up a cloud folder with important documents easily accessible in case of emergency, etc.
But yes, I still have Spotify, Netflix and Amazon Prime as fill-ins.
3
Is there any streaming service that shows movies that have gone from the theater to DVD, i.e. recent movies?
I currently have Netflix DVD service for relatively current movies, but if Netflix can stream other(usually older) movies, why cant they have a subscription for streaming current movies?
@bob.gambo: WRT Netflix Streaming and DVD-mailers,
it depends upon the Licensing Agreement in place at a particular time. Movie/TV-Shows move IN/OUT of the Netflix catalog all the time. It is "Catch as Catch Can".
Send me a Gmail at my NYTimes Moniker for more Neflix Tips.
@bob.gambo Kanopy, a streaming service available from.many public libraries has a large collection of art house and foreign films.
Yeah, all well and good but before you buy come and check out my basement, full of useless technology that was recommended to us to purchase over the years! And my husband works in tech and "knows" what is useful and what isn't. My PhD thesis is on an Iomega disc and we still have the drive. We have many, many thumb drives, camera chips, etc.
Idc if they have some of my data, it makes economic and environmental sense to not have all this junk lying around and use cloud services because, you know, obsolescence...
1
@MomT Progress goes in S shaped curves. There's an almost flat period of incremental change, then suddenly a steep period of transition when the change looks exponential, then a leveling off to a new stability. A collection of the artifacts of the transitional period, when we're all floundering around looking for the new stability, makes it look like change is constant and bewildering, but it's an illusion. That rate of change is only true in that period. Other things are classic and don't really go away. Floppy disks and videotape were ephemeral, but how long have CDs and DVDs been around and still going strong? Various early image formats are long forgotten, but we've settled in to jpg and png. Mp3 and mp4 aren't going anywhere. And the greatest of them all, txt, will be eternal.
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@MomT
The Zip drive and the Sony CD discman were my two favourite gizmos of the 1990s. Oh, we revelled in our Zip disk collections, the nifty carry bag and quiet whir of the 100 MB swappable external drive. The perfect storage solution for an interdisciplinary MFA student in 1994.
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@MomT Beware the dreaded 'click of death' with the Iomega. It'd be a good idea to have a duplicate backup of that somewhere. (And how do you attach it to a current computer?)
I'd just like to say that it is totally possible to lose things stored by Google. I lost a passel of files I had stored in neat folders on Google Drive. Most of my folders had been opened and contents scattered. Numerous documents lost. Even with google's "help" they were gone. Permanently gone.
6
@Beth cherne: Yes Google Drive HAS/HAD problems. A few years ago, there were Photos that my Son had taken. But Never upload. I never "shared" my Google Drive w/ him. The only common denominators were: Both he and I had Gmail Accounts and we both share the same WiFi/Router. How hard can it be? In a previous life (many years ago) I was a UNIX Administrator. drwxrwxrwx File/Directory Permissions
@Beth cherne Odd.Was that due to being hacked? Was the associatd Gmail account interfered with?
1
@Beth cherne “Even with google's ’help’ they were gone. Permanently gone.”
It hardly seems possible, considering how many times and how many places you have been warned about the need to back-up your data, that you didn’t have multiple backups of your data.
I hope that you learned from your error; not less than two backups (that’s three hard drives, total) at home, at least two cloud backups.
Setting up a Synology is going to be beyond most casual users out there. The $300 price listed in the article is misleading. $300 gets you the device, but you’ll spend that much or more again to put hard drives in it and make it functional.
7