Just steal everything. The powers that be rob you blind every day in a death by a thousand cuts kinda way.
They don't give a fuck about you, don't pay them any courtesies in return.
this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2026
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Yarr!
Harr
🏴☠️
Fiddle dee dee
Do what you want, 'cause a Pirate is Free!
👉 Your local public library. You can borrow movies and books. Return them so someone else can use them too. Not run afoul of the law. Libraries are great!
Your library probably even has digital access to thousands of movies, books, and songs, so you don’t even have to leave the house!
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fmhy.net is a constantly updated directory of streaming piracy sites. Make sure you have an ad blocker and enjoy any show from any service instantly with no sign up.
Beat me to it, love fmhy
Piracy.
Your public library.
Consume less media in general.
Buy stuff once (eg: DVDs, drm free music)
Use the free service to listen to new stuff in order to find groups you like. For the sub cost you can buy an album per month and have it forever. I work in areas that don't have great data connections, so having a local copy keeps the jams going without interruption or ads.
Soma.fm and radio.garden are two streaming music service replacers. I have not used Soma, but Radio Garden is interesting because it gives you a map of every single participating radio station on the planet and lets you just scroll around the entire globe and pick a radio station.
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I never stopped. Welcome back, the waters fine.
How is this a surprise to anyone? They came to replace cable.
No, you still don't get it.
THEY CAME TO REPLACE CABLE.
At this point I'd think a good number of folks either don't remember or simply never experienced cable/satellite TV.
Hard to compare against something you've never experienced.
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Streaming is not frugal by definition since you don't own anything.
- Buy from Bandcamp, own and stream forever for a cheap price
- Torrent movies
- Torrent or Soulseek music
- Listen to podcasts, there are billions of those, it will last forever
- Free music on SomaFM, ByteFM, Radio Paradise, Shoutcast, etc.
- YouTube client like NewPipe if you have Android to listen to music
Buy from Bandcamp, own and stream forever for a cheap price
It's also important to emphasize that artists make more from a Bandcamp purchase than if you had just streamed a few times on Shitify.
You would need to listen to a song 400+ times on Spotify to earn the artist $1. Or you could throw them a buck on Bandcamp Friday and get to download it forever. Plus the artist gets paid immediately from the Bandcamp purchase instead of quarterly streaming royalties.
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🏴☠️
This. This has always been the better alternative and this always will be the better alternative!
The sea awaits you.
Fmhy net
If buying isn't owning piracy isn't stealing
For streaming, Debrid and Stremio!
Your local public library!
Buying physical media.
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And piracy is still free, just as it has been my whole life.
Cancel and setup a nas.
Truenas, openmediavault, unraid, yunohost. There are many option out there.
Many would gladly help you if needed. :)
I'd say piracy ... but it's definitely not cheaper the way I do it (at least not short term).
But if you have some spare storage and don't need a huge amount of content, that's a good option.
What are you spending the money on? Physical sever devices? Electricity?
NTA but I spend about $30/month on various self-hosting-specific services: Usenet subscription, VPN, Plex Pass, a few little recurring donations to OSSes that I use, etc.
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Yeah, personal hardware. Replaced my 2 bay (2x 6 TB) NAS that had 5 USB drives attached with more powerful 12 bay NAS and 9x 20TB drives. Luckily before the insane price hikes due to the AI hype. Still, I invest like $7000 over all at least. That's a lot of years of netflix/spotify :D
I don't even bother with the electricity, it just is what it is.
Jeeeeeesus. I've got 20TB and that feels like a lot 😅
8 of the drives are on a raid 6 and one is a hot spare and converted to 1000 based terrabyte, I'm maxing out at 109.1 TB, but max volume size is 108 TB.
But I've interacted with people that had 1.2 PB ... there is always a bigger fish ^^
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Before I streamed music I'd just download it from YouTube at the low cost of free.
Download it. If caught just say you are training AGI (Actual Genuine Intelligence) of your own.
I've been downloading for decades. I've never had a single incident, ever.
We're in a Robin Hood Economy. The rich know it, and have been in it for years. Steal everything, it's the American way.
Why subscribe? Subs like this perpetuate a worse future. Go cold turkey for two years and re-evaluate then.
Qbittorrent and a VPN, I've been using Proton VPN and it's been good.
Save up for a 2 bay NAS and a couple hard drives once you cancel your subs, if you want to keep any content that is.
Plex is still a solid choice, but there's probably other self host media options now.
Jellyfin is generally what people are using now instead of Plex, including myself.
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🏴☠️ good ol' piracy will never let you down. 🏴☠️
Jellyfin on an old computer that you happen to have lying around is free.
You can get videos to watch by going to your library and checking them out and using MakeMKV to rip them to digital format and saving them to the Jellyfin server.
Alternatively, many thrift stores and pawn shops sell DVDs usually for a buck or two.
yo ho, all hands, hoist the colors high
heave ho, thieves and beggars, never shall we die
The last time Spotify put up their prices, I told myself that I would cancel if they did it once more. If they do they would rise beyond the maximum budget I allocated to them, so to speak.
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