I think it’s the same phenomenon in multi-player gaming - community hosted servers tend to have less garbage flying around compared to centrally hosted company servers.

If you run your own server, you’re far more likely to care about the user experience. And if you run your own server, you make your own rules and can manage how you’d like - no obligations.

No wait… don’t you see?

The robots have already breached our defenses.

You’ve seen what they’ve done to other websites!

And worst of all, they could be any one of us…

Yeah, Gabe Newell definitely was quite forward thinking when he came to that conclusion, and I can definitely say it works well for my Steam Library.

Honestly at this point the main force that brings me to hunt for media is subscription services, since it always feels like a rug pull compared to alternatives. I paid for things on GOG, I get to keep the installers and back them up. I bought things on Steam, I’m not charged to reinstall or use them on other devices, and I can still download games that are delisted now (RIP poker night at the inventory).

Now that Blu-rays are going the way of Google Stadia, getting phased out, all I can really do is just rip any media I already have and download what I may need. FOSS tools have already replaced any subscription software I would use for my engineering work.

If memory serves, Anna’s links to them if you check their “3rd party sources” links when doing an ISBN search.