I'll go ahead and duck now from the tomatoes but there is a middle path as well...

Using CheapCharts and buying Movies and TV on iTunes. Yes you don't "own it" and yes there are the rare occasional license revocations but it's not often enough for me to care about that--They still remain in your library anyways.

I have been diligently collecting quality, fun, and beloved movies over the past 2 years when they go on sale. That or buying bundles when they go on sale. I've amassed a solid collection of quality media, a lot of which is not on any streaming platform. I even have a lot of Disney titles as well!

I can watch it wherever, whenever and I can download it to devices.

Eat your heart out Disney, Netflix, etc...

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8by3 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Not if you move countries. I moved from the UK to Canada, updated my payment method and all UK purchased content was gone from my itunes account

And yes, there is some elaborate workaround to create a brand new account and share the original with the new but fundamentally I could no longer access what I purchased because I moved. And no, I didn't get a refund for the years of purchased content.

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sellmesoap 21 minutes ago | parent [-]

Geez, I feel like the default behavior for that move should be to refund the content that is removed, does the content become available if you move back?

	▲	dijit 12 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yes they do. I have a little "dance" I have to do to change my store back to the UK (I'm British) and you need a valid british credit/debit card and address to switch stores to the UK store... I live in Sweden now and I got a bit bent out of shape when I moved and discovered this was the case. Btw, buying things doesn't mean they won't remove it: https://blog.dijit.sh/importance-of-self-hosted-backups/

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pncnmnp an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have recently started doing this too - I prefer r/iTunesMovieDeals for discovering stuff on sale. What I have been trying to optimize for is a low cost per hour and a high critical rating.

For example, I recently got the entire bundle for HBO's Rome for $9.99. That is ~50 minutes per episode (22 episodes), or $0.54/hour, which is not a bad deal! For a casual viewer like me, who might spend <6 hours each week watching TV, this should last a little more than 3 weeks. Recently, The Sopranos went on sale for $29.99, or $0.38/hour.

For streaming vs. buying to work, you just have to be patient about nabbing ~1-2 purchases per month and not be tempted to buy every single day.

The best part is the reduced cognitive load - you don't have to spend time browsing for content every day, and there are no ads, too.

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thought_alarm 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah, my iTunes library is over 20 years old and it's more valuable to me now than ever. The iPod halo effect lives on.

Once or twice a year during the holiday sales season I'll buy some new shows/seasons from iTunes. These are always downloaded and backed up, so I never have to worry about license changes, etc.

For old shows (20+ years) I will either rip the old DVDs or torrent guilt free.

When I travel, I load up my iPad or an SD card with my latest queue of shows so I can stick to my weekly TV schedule..

And I spend nothing on streaming.

	▲	reactordev 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The issue is when they censor the version they host

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nemomarx an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

iTunes is more trustworthy for this, but keep in mind not every service where you can buy things will be. Sony did just revoke movies this year and I wouldn't really rely on Google or Amazon for it at least

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jjtheblunt 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> buying Movies and TV on iTunes. Yes you don't "own it" and yes there are the rare occasional license revocations but it's not often enough for me to care about that--They still remain in your library anyways.

agreed : have been doing that since 15ish years ago, works fine, no time squandered on stupid ass "ask your doctor about ___" ads, and that time saved is hugely valuable.