# FAQ — press & public

Short answers for journalists, comments, and DMs. Operator setup → `docs/operations.md`.

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## Positioning

### What is TV Anarchy?

A native macOS app (plus iOS companion) for a **personal home media stack**: browse
your library, play on local or remote players, manage downloads — on hardware you
control.

### What does "Napster for Netflix" mean?

It's a **press tagline**, not a feature list. Netflix set the UX bar; Napster
named peer-access to a shared catalog. TV Anarchy targets that *combination of
feelings* for a library **you own** — not a Netflix replacement and not a
revival of Napster-the-product.

### Is this a Netflix competitor?

No. There's no streaming catalog, no subscription, no studio deals. It's client
software for files on your server.

### Is this a piracy tool?

It's **library and playback software** for media you store and play under your
own responsibility. We do not market acquisition of copyrighted material. The
download pillar exists to keep *your* files alive on *your* disks (custody,
seeding) — lead with library + watch in public copy.

### Didn't streaming used to be cheaper than cable?

**Originally, yes** — Netflix's early model disrupted Blockbuster on **flat
pricing and convenience** (documented in disruption case literature). As studios
fragmented into separate SVOD services, prices rose and consumers **stack**
multiple subscriptions. Industry surveys report **subscription fatigue** (Simon-Kucher:
42% feel they have too many) and **rising total spend** (Bango 2024: ~$77/month
average across subscription categories for US respondents). Simon-Kucher explicitly
warns streamers risk repeating **cable-bundle dynamics**. TV Anarchy targets
**ownership economics** for households that already keep media — not another monthly
stack.

### How do you respond when studios say this enables piracy?

**Press-short:** TV Anarchy is home-stack client software, not a public catalog or
streaming service. Users are responsible for the media they store.

**Founder frame (full argument):** The same industry often normalizes advertising
and tracking data that, in practice, is available to governments at scale for
mass surveillance. As long as that business model stands, platforms fail a basic
duty to consumers while criticizing personal infrastructure. TV Anarchy is built
local-first — no ad IDs, no vendor-held watch graph — to shrink what can be
collected and later subpoenaed. See [privacy-positioning.md](./privacy-positioning.md).

---

## Product

### Who is it for?

Homelab operators, households with an always-on media server, and technical users
who want Netflix-*like* UX without renting the library.

### Who is it not for?

People who want sign-up-and-stream with no server. Users unwilling to run or
maintain home infrastructure.

### Mac only?

macOS is the **primary** full experience. iOS is a **companion** (library,
downloads, remote). Linux/Windows exist as CLI helpers; not the consumer pitch.

### Does it work without friends or a mesh?

**Yes.** The first GTM story is a **single home install** (laptop + server). Friend
federation is roadmap.

### What's the iOS app do?

Browse the library, manage downloads, remote-control playback on the Mac/server.
It talks to a bridge on the home network — not a cloud backend.

---

## Technical

### Why native Swift?

Low-latency player control (VLC HTTP, mpv over SSH). No Electron shell for the
primary UX.

### Where does the library live?

On your media server / indexed paths. Cached index and metadata under local state
dirs on each machine.

### What is "Net"?

A planned pillar for syncing **TV facts** between trusted installs: intro skip
markers, grouping hints, quality prefs — as small **editions**, not video files.
See [technical-appendix.md](./technical-appendix.md).

### Do you upload my watch history?

**No central service.** Future Net observations are content-keyed facts with
explicit trust (`friends` vs anonymized `network`). Paths and raw watchlogs are
not published to editions.

### BitTorrent?

Used for **retention and sync** on infrastructure you run — media custody on your
server, small edition files between friends. Not the headline for press.

---

## Privacy & safety

### Why talk about surveillance when asked about piracy?

Commercial streaming and ad stacks collect fine-grained behavioral data. That data
is routinely subject to **government requests** and breaches — it is an input to
mass surveillance, not a side effect. Founder position: criticizing home-library
software while operating that surveillance economy is an asymmetric moral stance.
TV Anarchy does not run ads or centralize your viewing history. Details:
[privacy-positioning.md](./privacy-positioning.md).

### What leaves my machine?

Today: whatever **you** configure (SSH to your server, bridge for iOS on LAN).
No vendor cloud for catalog. Future Net: only configured edition parts, with
trust rules and k-anon for network-tier aggregates.

### Adult content?

Supported as a library category with the same local-first model. Net design
forbids path-based keys to reduce fingerprinting risk.

---

## Availability

### Is it open source?

**Strategic intent: yes** — **arg 3** in our positioning (tagline + three args) is
that personal media infrastructure must be **forkable and unkillable** (no sole
vendor chokepoint).
License and public repo URL: *(set at release — root LICENSE TBD; helper `search/`
is MIT today).*

### What does "unkillable" mean?

Not legal immunity. Means: if the maintainer stops, lawyers pressure the project,
or a company pivots — **source remains**, operators can self-build, community can
fork. Proprietary streaming is a remote kill switch (catalog, account, app binary).
OSS **fork governance** literature (Nyman et al.) and EFF **public interest internet**
cases document systems outliving proprietary products. See
[academic-research.md §10](./academic-research.md#10-open-source-resilience-and-unkillability).

### How do I install?

Operator documentation — not distributed as part of this press kit. Inbound
install questions mean tier-3 docs need to be ready before a broad post.

### Is there a "v2" release?

**v2** is an internal engineering organization (pillars + Net). Public narrative
ships **capabilities** (skip intro, cross-device sync), not version numbers.

---

## Comparisons

### Plex / Jellyfin?

Those are primarily **server-first** media servers with clients attached. TV
Anarchy is a **native control app** for a stack that already includes torrent
custody, multi-device playback targets, and (roadmap) install federation. Overlap
on library; different center of gravity.

### Stremio / Popcorn Time era apps?

TV Anarchy assumes **you already curate files on disk** you control — not a
single aggregated streaming catalog UI.

### Infuse?

Infuse is a polished player for existing libraries. TV Anarchy adds home-stack
orchestration: downloads, custody, governor, device registry, queue, Net roadmap.

---

## Roadmap (public-safe)

| When | What |
|------|------|
| Now | Solo home: watch + library + download |
| Next | Local skip-intro learning (Net phase 1) |
| Then | Cross-device TV facts on LAN (editions) |
| Later | Friend-install federation; thin clients |

---

## Press logistics

### Demo assets?

[demo-script.md](./demo-script.md) → record `assets/demo-90s.mp4`. Screenshots
in [one-pager.md](./one-pager.md).

### Interview contact?

*(Add contact / email / mastodon.)*

### Can I see the architecture?

[technical-appendix.md](./technical-appendix.md) and optional public `v2/` tree.