The streaming service I did nothing to deserve

We live in an era of ever more available streaming services, but they all have one thing in common: You have to pay for them.

Well, they did all have that in common, but not anymore.

The Melbourne Public Library Service, of which I am a proud and regular member, recently signed on to participate in Kanopy, the streaming service you get for free through your library membership. I'm sure a lot of Americans are already familiar with this, since I first learned of its existence at least six months ago on Filmspotting: Streaming Video Unit. Then I kind of forgot about it, until it materialized here.

Lord knows what the profit model is for this service, but it exists, and last night I partook in it for the first time.

And I'm one grateful bastard for its existence.

I haven't explored half of its offerings yet, but it has already given me a clear benefit over some of my other available sourcing options. The auteur whose films I'm watching in April for my Audient Auteurs series, Robert Bresson, has two films on Kanopy, neither of which I could find conveniently available elsewhere -- not even on iTunes, if memory serves, though I won't swear to that. I watched Au Hasard Balthazar last night, and will follow up with a viewing of Mouchette upon my return from an upcoming trip to Bali to celebrate my 10th anniversary.

You might expect a free service to be glitchy, difficult to navigate or in some other way deficient, but nothing could be further from the truth. It streamed perfectly, which is really saying something, given that my internet sucks and we probably need to consider replacing our router. And I had no trouble finding anything or interfacing with it in any way.

I had been in a hurry to watch Au Hasard before our trip, which starts on Tuesday, on the irrational fear that Kanopy was too good to be true and they would take it away from me. But it looks like it's here to stay.

And in looking only at the featured movies on the front page, there are other things I want to watch, including my #1 of 2016, Toni Erdmann, which I need to (and also want to) watch again before deciding on my favorite films of the decade just over 18 months from now.

What did I do to deserve Kanopy?

Not a damn thing.

And that's what makes it so miraculous. When monetizing and profiting are the key motivators to any internet venture, even the free ones, it's hard to know exactly what Kanopy is getting from me, except possibly the data of what I've chosen to watch. There are no ads in the middle of the movies or anything like that. It's just free, and it's glorious.

Which is a good complement to our library. Libraries everywhere are great, but the Melbourne ones are particularly first-rate in terms of their wealth of free offerings. Not only do you have a massive collection of movies, books and music to choose from, but you can keep those things for three weeks, and renew them multiple times. (You used to be stopped at two renewals, but recently I accidentally renewed something a third time and the system let me do it.) Then there are the in-building amenities, like all the video games you can (and my kids do) play, which include VR games -- my first-ever VR game experience was at a library. Oh, and did I mention that they have a 3D printer, and you can print things for free as long as you are willing to wait for them?

I may not deserve Kanopy, although maybe we all deserve something for free in this day and age when the world sucks us dry of our time, money and clicks.

And until the other shoe drops and they take this marvelous thing away from me, I'll be enjoying the hell out of it.