Streaming Vs Torrenting

Last night at dinner we got to talking the film Barfly, which came out the year the Gotham Gal and I were married, so a long time ago now. We decided to watch it after dinner with our family and friends we are quarantining with.

Well it turns out that Barfly is not available to be streamed on any of the many streaming services we have on our AppleTV (at least ten of them). After a frustrating twenty minutes figuring that out, we thought about torrenting it and watching it that way.

But for a bunch of reasons, we decided not to do that and went with another film.

A decade ago, I wrote a lot about how streaming would kill piracy (it largely has) and how I feel about piracy when I can’t consume legally (I am fine with it).

This morning I was talking to one of our friends over breakfast and said that I am going to put a bitorrent client on the Mac Mini that is connected to our family room TV because if we try as hard as we can to pay for a film legally and cannot, then I feel OK with getting it some other way.

I am just a bit shocked that is even necessary to do in the golden age of streaming.