Television

Linux, and variations of it, dominated every device, because you can download the OS for free and use it without issue. Blender is one of the biggest 3D modeling tools, because it's open-source and free. DaVinci Resolve, GIMP, and other Adobe replacements, are steadily becoming the standard tools because they are freely available and people are sick and tired of greedy subscriptions. Corridor Crew put out new greenscreen tech for free to a very hungry audience, and it may end up as the de facto keying technology for years to come.

People want free. People demand free. The internet has been founded on the concept of free since its inception: information wants to be free. If you are not offering free, you are in the way, and that monopoly will fall over eventually to your free competitors. You cannot possibly beat free, especially when the ecosystem is well-established and maintained.

I'm posting on Lemmy, and hopefully, everybody here already knows this.

For me, it's the fact that every major platform, be it streaming services or the major movie studios (sometimes the same thing), is owned and controlled by greedy, unethical people seeking short term, personal profit and actively working against the best interests of their content creators and society as a whole.

If it's free, I can bypass ads, and I can donate directly to the creators... that's preferable.

Remember when TV used to be free?

I'm just not really into that style of media anymore. Big bloated projects with crazy special effects are cool and all, but the writing is so subpar I'm almost immediately taken out of the immersion. There are still a few shows that are alright, but I no longer search out for the good stuff when it requires so much effort.