Technology

although I doubt this will get much of any mainstream coverage, as someone who has been setting up/administering a number of plex servers for the last ~20 years, I have noticed a rather remarkable uptick in not only setting up new servers, but a flood of interest in membership for the handful that I administer.

This has had the interesting side-effect of renewing interest in the fact that you can borrow DVDs/BRDs for free from your local library for the purposes of ripping them. Believe me-- you may think that, in 2026, everything is available for download very easily.... no, it isn't Yes, much more is widely available at (generally) much higher quality than it used to be, but it all relies on how popular a show/film/album is (and continues to be). If you're looking to dl something new/current, you'll very likely have a 2 week - 3 month window it will very reliably be available to download. after that, whether it's available (and for how long) depends entirely on how popular it remains.

Example: The "New Trek" that most old-school Trekkies hate is less-available than, say, a mega download of all 7 seasons of DS9. DS9 is probably available (as a single download and as single seasons/episodes) much more easily than any episode of STD. Or, even, the JJ Abrahms films. Shit, even the Rifftrax commentary version of ST II has more seeders on more torrent sites than any of the 3 JJ Treks. And, to put a pin in this... Star Trek Lower Decks is even more available now than it was when it was airing.

The cool flip-side of this: I never got to see the iconic Fritz Lang film M in the pre-torrent era because I could never find a Blockbuster's that carried it in stock. But, as soon as that barrier to see it was removed (availability), I got to see the prototypical murder mystery thriller film which, still today, holds up as pretty awesome.