# Founder post — draft

*Personal blog / newsletter launch narrative. Edit voice to match author; keep
structure.*

**Suggested title:** Napster for Netflix (but you own the library)

**Suggested subtitle:** Why I built a native Mac app for my home media stack

---

## Draft

I still want Netflix to *feel* effortless — open the app, see what's next, press
play, the TV obeys. I just don't want the library trapped in someone else's
account, expiring when I stop paying, or vanishing when a show leaves the catalog.

So I built **TV Anarchy**: a native macOS app for the stack I already run at home.
A laptop. A always-on media server. A TV on the wall. Torrents for *keeping* files
alive on disks I own — not as the product story, but as the plumbing that makes
"mine" actually mean mine.

The tagline I keep coming back to is **Napster for Netflix**. Not because TV
Anarchy is Napster, and not because it's a Netflix competitor. Because it names
the gap: we learned what streaming UX should be, but we never got a good client
for a library that isn't rented.

### What it does today

One app. Not three tabs in a browser and a SSH habit.

- **Watch** — Continue watching, unified queue, play on the Mac or hand off to
  the HDMI box. Media keys work. Now Playing shows up where you expect.
- **Library** — Scans the tree on the server, resolves episode titles (not
  `Show.S01E04.720p.WEB-DL.x264-GROUP.mkv`), tracks watched state.
- **Download** — Search, add, monitor health. A small governor daemon on the
  server keeps custody and prefetch boring so playback doesn't stall.

There's an iOS companion too — library, downloads, remote — for when I'm not at
the desk.

### What it's not

Let's be direct.

- It's **not** "free Netflix." It's software for media you already manage on
  hardware you control.
- It's **not** a one-click product for everyone. You need a home for the files
  and tolerance for running a stack.
- It's **not** finished. The solo-home path works; friend federation is the next
  chapter.

I'm not pitching this to replace streaming for normies. I'm pitching it for
people who already have the server and are tired of duct tape.

### If they call it piracy

They will. *Napster for Netflix* practically invites the question.

My answer isn't "copyright doesn't matter." The tagline is *Napster for Netflix*
— streaming UX on a library you own. Under that sit **three arguments**.

**Arg 1 — Surveillance.** The same ecosystem that attacks personal media tools
built a machine that records what you watch, when, and with whom — ties it to ad
IDs and payment rails — and treats government bulk access as a cost of business.
As long as that surveillance economy is normal, those companies are failing the
people who pay them — and **enabling authoritarian states** that shop for behavioral
data we never meaningfully consented to sell.

**Arg 2 — Budget.** Netflix didn't win because streaming was magic. It won because
it was **cheaper and less punitive than Blockbuster** — flat fee, no late fees,
actually finish the movie. Blockbuster died. Then every studio launched its own
silo, prices climbed, password sharing became a "crime," and surveys now show
households stacking four or five services and spending **hundreds a year** across
subscriptions — with consultants openly warning the industry is rebuilding **cable
bundles** under new logos. The disruptor became the bill.

**Arg 3 — Resilience.** It has to be **open source** so the project is
**unkillable**. Streaming clients die when the company does. Proprietary apps get
deprecated, region-blocked, or lawyered off the map. Open source means the stack
survives its maintainer — forkable, auditable, runnable without anyone's permission
server. Not above the law, but no single vendor chokepoint.

TV Anarchy doesn't fix law. It shrinks the graph, the rent, and the kill switch:
local catalog, local state, no ad business, disks you bought once, source you can
fork, and a Net layer designed so even *federated TV facts* use content keys — not
paths, not exported watchlogs. I'm not asking for applause for infringement. I'm
refusing to pretend the streaming stack is the privacy-safe, budget-safe, or
survivable default.

Full talking points: [privacy-positioning.md](./privacy-positioning.md).
Research: [academic-research.md §9](./academic-research.md#9-streaming-economics-netflix-blockbuster-and-subscription-stacking).

### Architecture (why native)

The control plane is Swift — HTTP to VLC, JSON-IPC to mpv over SSH. Low latency,
no Electron. Heavy work shells out to CLI tools I already trusted before the app
existed: library scan, torrent search, enrichment. One binary for the UI; proven
subprocesses for the data plane.

That split matters for *feel*. Scrubbing, queue, device pick — those should be
instant. Indexing a few terabytes can take minutes and belongs off the main thread.

### What's next (v2, without calling it "v2")

Internally I'm organizing the product into pillars: Watch, Library, Download,
Devices, and **Net** — a new layer for syncing *TV facts* between installs.
Intro skip markers. Quality preferences. Grouping hints. Small edition files over
a friend mesh — not video bytes, not a central database, not your watch history
exported raw.

Phase one is local: skip intro that learns when I tap skip. Phase two is my
laptop and server agreeing on the same data. Phase three is friends contributing
observations under explicit trust rules.

That's the act-two press story. Act one is: **it works in my house.**

### Try it / follow along

If you run a homelab media setup and this resonates:

- Watch the [90-second demo](./demo-script.md) *(link when recorded)*
- Read the [one-pager](./one-pager.md) if you're covering it
- Dig the [technical appendix](./technical-appendix.md) if you want schemas

Install docs stay in the operator guide — this post is the *why*, not the wiring
diagram.

### Closing

Netflix won on UX. Ownership won on permanence. TV Anarchy is my bet that one
person with a Mac and a server deserves both — without pretending it's the same
product as a streaming service.

If you've built something similar, or want the mesh story when it's demoable, I'd
like to hear from you.

---

## Social thread (condensed)

1. Netflix taught us the UX. Nobody ships a great client for a library you *own*.
2. I built TV Anarchy — native Mac app for home server + TV + downloads.
3. Tagline: Napster for Netflix. Not piracy pitch — *feel* like streaming, *data* on your disk.
4. Continue watching, real episode titles, play on laptop or HDMI box.
5. iOS companion for remote. Governor keeps the server warm.
6. Next: sync TV facts between friends (intro markers) — not files, not watchlogs.
7. Demo: [link]. Details: [one-pager]. Homelab folks — is this your stack?

---

## HN submission notes

- **Title:** TV Anarchy – native macOS app for a personal media library (Napster for Netflix)
- **First comment:** Link technical-appendix; emphasize local-first + architecture; invite technical questions; point ops to separate doc.
- **Avoid:** "download any show" framing; lead with UX + ownership.