What do you prefer to do when it comes to consuming WAM content here?

Purchase for sure. You get more for your money with streaming (sometimes hundreds of videos) but I'd much rather have a copy of a video to keep forever and watch whenever I want than have to keep paying to access it.

Streaming, if the streaming site is up to date with the download site. Say a video is released today, it gets released to both the download and streaming store. I'm more likely to pay extra for a permanent copy in the download store if I get to watch it in the download store. Kind of like testing a new game on Xbox Game Pass and then downloading it to keep when I decide I like it. Streaming sites are usually way behind though, and understandably, since I would assume download stores are more profitable (selling you 1 good video at $13 vs selling you 200 good videos for $20)

Purchase. I am struggling to find space for all these HD & 4K files which streaming would solve but I'd still rather have that offline file.

Too many good producers to be able to afford several monthly subscriptions, you have to pick and choose your favourite clips to have. If there was a way you could have one subscription to access multiple producers content then it would be more attractive.

I've seen some producers pack up over the years and wished I'd bought more when I had the chance. Always hear how it's hard to make money from this and how most do it for the love of the art, you never know who's gonna stop next. It's bad enough when a show or film gets pulled from Netflix but you know it'll wind up somewhere else or back on it at some point. But when a wam production goes, you ain't finding that again.

Purchase, definitely.

Two main reasons. Firstly some of the biggest names in WAM over the years have closed their stores down. You could spend £20 per month streaming from your favourite producer, they close down and you have nothing to show for it and none of their scenes are available again.

Secondly my tastes span a number of producers, and as each of those cater to a wide range of tastes I will never find all of their scenes to my liking. As such I prefer to buy scenes which meet my tastes from a number of producers. I could never afford a £15 - £25 outlay per month for each producer to enjoy their streaming services.

The only benefit to me would be saving space on my hard drive, but I'm still heavily in favour of purchasing.

Can't decide. It's nice to have the purchase and not have to worry about buffering (sometimes that's an issue), but it's also nice to be able to stream a ton of stuff and figure out which videos check off all your likes and which ones to avoid.

I do think the great thing about UMD streaming, tho, is you can have the best of both worlds, as most /all producers give Streamers a massive discount if they download any scenes to keep, whilst they are a subscriber. UMD facilitates this by allowing you to offer subscribers a mega discount code.

So, for example, my main streaming package (SS Plus) includes a discount code for 65% off any downloaded scenes bought whilst a subscriber. (I think most producers follow a similar model but do always check!!). So subscribers get to download the stuff they really love, at one third of the normal price.

Streamers really help keep me afloat, so it's great to be able to offer them some additional value, and with the UMD streaming model, if you have a producer you love who offers this facility, streaming can very often pay for itself if you download a few scenes a month (as well as giving you the ability to stream 100s of scenes, and effectively try before you download, ensuring you are only buying what you really love).

I am not sure how well known that UMD model benefit is, so I felt it was worth calling out here.

So I voted streaming (the UMD model)

I grew up on a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction, starting with the BBC "Day Of The Triffids" in 1981, featuring Emma Relph in a stunning yellow jumpsuit - see attached pic.

So I've always assumed that at some point I'll be surviving after the fall of civilisation and end of the Internet, in a bunker somewhere with a bicycle-powered generator and batteries to ensure I can still play my mp3 music collection, and watch my downloaded WAM videos, on a laptop.

Of course whether I or anyone else will have the energy or desire to watch WAM vids after a day's hard manual subsistence farming in the storm-lashed radioactive wastelands of the future, is anyone's guess. But it means I'm a firm believer in stuff I can download and keep.

Always purchase!

The only downsides are storage but that's not so difficult these days.

Much better having a proper copy. Streaming sites can go down and also if they close/vanish then old content is lost.
My connecting is slow sometimes too so streaming anything can be a nightmare. Downloading a large file may be slow at times too but you only have to do it once.

I voted for purchase but would like to also mention the need to keep at least one backup copy of all your purchased videos. I have two backup drives, one of which is kept in a different building.

Absolutely. Anyone with any kind of WAM (or digital media in general) collection should have a subscription to backblaze.com which costs just $8 a month and backs up your entire PC system, no fannying around selecting folders, it just takes the lot. That gives you an off-site on-line backup, and it's securely stored and encrypted so no-one can go looking through it.

And then also have an external USB drive backup that is updated periodically but otherwise kept powered off and disconnected, in another building - at a friend's house, in a locked drawer or locked box in the office, at a storage unit, whatever.

That way your are protected against fire, flood, ransomeware attack, or just about anything else that might harm your data.

There ain't no such animal as too many backups.

Always backing up and arranging files. Kind of enjoy it in a nerdy way, something satisfying about it all being neat, organised & backed up. Twice.

Purchase, definitely.

Sure over the years I've lost a few hard drives, but I'd rather have something on my local network

Purchase!

Because with cloud storage capabilities, you can turn your purchase into a stream on all connected devices, whether you have Google Drive, Dropbox, or iCloud.

For the past 4 or 5 years, I've been purchasing my favorite videos. But yesterday I purchased a streaming plan from my favorite producer because they have dozens of great videos, and cost less than to purchase them all. Plus I'm running out of space on my hard drive.

Also great with Mega.nz and Plex. I keep everything backed up on Mega but I use Plex to stream my stuff to my TV or phone.