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Frame from This is Cuba's Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify – all without the internet Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

This is Cuba's Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify – all without the internet

18 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
1 HN user recommended this documentary1 month2016–2026 score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN uses it as the standard example of sneakernet media distribution via hard drives.

A Vox report on El Paquete Semanal, the weekly offline bundle of shows, music and news that is smuggled and sold in Cuba. It shows how people get media without internet access.

“I'd recommend watching the video that is linked” (HN, 2016)

1 recommendations · 2 citations · Documentaries · partly dated

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@placeybordeaux Aug 2016 Recommends
on HN thread The Cuban CDN
I'd recommend watching the video that is linked: [this video] It talks about the mechanics, largely it looks like someone in Miami is consistently collecting stuff until they get close to 1TB or a week has passed, then that 1TB is flown out to Havana and it's copied and passed around after that.
Explains how Cuba's weekly packet distributes media offline via flown-in drives

Citations, criticism and jokes

@29athrowaway Apr 2023 Cites it
on HN thread Internet in a Box
This is how people consume content in Cuba [this video] If you like this story, I recommend this documentary: [link] (Chuck Norris vs Communism)
Shows how Cubans consume content without internet

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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