The pirates are back - Anew study from the European Union’s Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) suggest that online piracy has increased for the first time in years. In fact, piracy rates have bee…::We analyze a new study where the EUIPO suggests online piracy is on the increase within the European Union.
The shift really proves that Gabe Newell was right and that piracy is a service issue and that, for a time, the many services available were worth paying for.
It was honestly really crazy to me when I was excited to see a game on sale, only to remember how I used to pirate everything. Steam has made it legitimately easier to buy games in so many cases.
I sometimes still do pirate games, especially if it’s from a publisher I don’t respect or the cracked version is known to run better, but I buy almost all of my games now days.
I’ve actually started setting up a home server for pirated movies and shows and getting rid of the couple streaming services I have.
I still Piraten EA games, just because the forced origin injection into their games on steam is so fucking annoying, especially if you’re on Linux.
I fucking hate origin, yeah
I know a lot of people idolize him, and that’s probably not healthy, but he just gets it. Provide value and convenience for consumers, and consumers will stick around. Be an inconvenience while squeezing consumers for money, and we’ll leave with a parrot on our shoulders and a one-finger salute.
That’s what happens when you’re not beholden to shareholders.
He’s a weird case, Steam has always been good for pc gaming and Valve releases nothing but polished games without anything predatory.
He just seems to be interested in maintaining a successful business instead of squeezing more money out of people constantly.
cough CS2 cough
Valve releases nothing but polished games without anything predatory.
Counterpoint: Artifact.
(I mostly agree on everything else though)
I honestly forgot about Artifact entirely.
I think Valve would appreciate if everyone forgot about Artifact as well
Removed by mod
CS2 is great tho
Removed by mod
Sadly most companies are focused on short term profit over long term growth, Steam is the best example of the opposite.
The EUIPO speculates that financial pressures, like inflation, means that people have less money to spend on entertainment. This can be seen in the way that fewer people are signing up for Netflix or Amazon Prime – and some are even cancelling their subscriptions altogether.
Ah yes, that’s the only reason. Not that streaming services are offering less content and functionality for more money, that can’t be it.
I’m sure that economics is part of it. But I think the larger issue is the fact that you need 9 streaming services now just to see the shows you’d want. And then these streaming services are starting to remove the things people paid for. I set up a Plex server and just use that to watch things now.
And that’s only talking about streaming.
Everyone wants to be Netflix now: Microsoft Office? Monthly subscription. Adobe? Monthly subscription. A simple weather app? Monthly subscription. Cloud backup? Monthly subscription.
Fair enough for cloud storage as it costs real money to keep rust spinning. The rest not so much.
Yes, kinda. But take Windows for instance - the native backup tools got deprecated and are pretty much hidden, the systems constantly wants the user to use OneDrive.
So yes, it makes sense to pay for cloud storage - but many people didn’t even need it before, and now it’s another new expense.
eh, everyone should be using some form of cloud backup, with the small exception of like people with extreme privacy needs, and even then you have to get to a fraction of a fraction before the answer isn’t encrypted cloud backups.
That said, Win11 basically turning into an ad platform is gross as hell.
I think with quite a lot of software, monthly subs are really the best way to do it, and I think if you look at the history of things software is cheaper than it’s ever been. Aside from the obvious things that just cost monthly money to operate (cloud storage, even weather apps don’t keep working without servers) the reality is that we expect software to stay up to date and keep getting better. Aside from the fact that prior to sub fees for this type of software, the “one time” purchase cost used to be several orders of magnitude higher, and you would still basically end up “subscribing.” Meaning, you didn’t just buy Office in '95 for $300-$500 and keep using it until even 2005. MS would change a file format or upgrade a thing or something, and suddenly your $400 Office suite needed an upgrade, so you paid another $400 in '97.
People have never liked paying for software, but I think this is the most equitable, true model of the actual cost. I like it less with the bigger companies, but especially with smaller devs, the software I rely on I’m happy to pay a monthly sub on because I know that’s a much more stable model and will encourage the dev to keep the software up to date and releasing new features.
I think perpetual fallback licenses hit a decent middle ground. Pay a subscription to stay up to date, but have the option of stopping and retaining the current version. Of course, FOSS is better, but we have to take what we can get.
This is a good point.
we expect software to stay up to date and keep getting better.
Well, we’ve been conditioned to expect that… Just because that’s how it’s been doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. It made sense in the past, applications were limited by the hardware’s technical capabilities, which kept improving over time - but we’ve reached a point where for the most part, the hardware is good enough to meet the needs of the software. That’s not saying it won’t continue to improve, but it’s not the limiting factor it once was. At some point, at least in theory, a product should be able to be “finished”, as in it has all the features it needs, possible exploits have been found and patched. Compare to buying tools - you don’t need to buy a new hammer every two years, well, maybe you do if you abuse the shit out of it and break it, but you don’t need to because of ongoing development in the techniques of building hammers.
Corporations don’t want competition, they want monopolies. If the good they are selling is in unlimited supply, like music or shows in digital formats are, they create artificial scarcity through exclusivity deals.
Netflix has +9 million users in the past quarter
That’s not enough growth. It’s never enough. It literally can’t ever be enough.
So they raise prices and pay for astroturfed articles blaming everything but the executives charged with infinite growth forever.
First thing that came to mind. I want to see back to back to back quarters of falling subscribers
As someone that went initially got back into piracy for the “no you just raised your prices for this one service I only use for this one show anyway, I’ll download it instead” reason. I have significantly increased my piracy because it’s honestly a much better user experience. For me to easily set sonarr/radarr to grab what I want and have a beautiful and customizable UI/UX like jellyfin to consume that content, which works on all my devices. Fucking Hulu, Disney, Amazon, peacock, max all suck in comparison from a pure UX perspective
The article wonders why would anyone pirate, let us give him the reason:
- Ads
- Multiple streaming services costing many times more than food. With nothing to see except for re runs and rehashes of old content.
- Ads
- Rising prices for poor service and shit content.
- Ads
- Geoblocking
- Ads
- Low quality videos even if you are willing to pay just because you don’t wish to use their specified player or browser. Why can’t I stream it to VLC player without the overhead of a browser.
- Ads
- All the while the CEO and the executive of the companies raking in billions on the money they are saying charging us for the artists.
- Ads
- Low Video Quality because you don’t want to install Windows
- Craptastic UI
- Forcing me to buy a new TV because my current one is suddenly an “unsupported device”.
- Not allowing me to watch Netflix in my summer house because they’re “cracking down on sharing accounts”.
Is 14 really a thing? Or are you talking about having to buy a new smart device that may or may not be included in your TV and that in any case can be replaced but a separate device?
Yep. Very much. Translated to English it says “Netflix is no longer supported on this device. Visit netflix.com/compatibledevices for a list of supported devices”.
This is when hitting the netflix button on the tv remote. Worked until a few days ago.
I’d chuck that up more to “smart TVs are trash”.
They have crappy processing power and TV makers support them for the shortest of timespans. I’ve solved that but turning my smart TV into a dumb screen and an NVidia Shield TV as its brains (NVidia has so far been exemplary in supporting Shield TVs).
I don’t disagree that smart TVs are trash, but this wasn’t the TV not keeping up, this was netflix deciding that I couldn’t use it anymore.
I give them money, why are they making it hard for me to use their product.
Vendors should be entitled to withdraw support on particular hardware, but they shouldn’t be allowed to brick the service as a result ‘just because’. All it needs is a TOS/EULA update prompt advising that viewers with X hardware are on their own as of now. I’d be willing to bet this denial of service practice originates in kickback discussions between TV manufacturers and streamers.
It strikes me as another case where corporate can inculcate learned helplessness in the customer by having him think disallowing and withdrawing support for are indivisible.
I wouldn’t mind using proprietary apps if they weren’t so fucking horrible to use.
Goddammit, if you’re going to force me to install your shitty program just because I want to watch a show you own the license to, at least put a semblance of effort into the UI…
I forgot to add
- Removing content when it is not making enough money.
- Ads
Also wanna add:
- Missing subtitles in the language you want (looking at you apple tv without English subtitles on local language movies.)
- Ads
- Only the 2 random seasons in the middle of a TV show are available. And new seasons not added.
- Ads
As a person who loves watching movies with subtitles, this is why I’m canceling Amazon Prime. The fuckers literally won’t offer me English language subtitles for some flicks because I Iive outside the US.
I don’t care if the movie itself is in English, why the hell can’t I watch with subtitles in the same language as the film itself? Holy fuck.
why the hell can’t I watch with subtitles in the same language as the film itself? Holy fuck.
Probably because the subtitles have their own copyright separate from the film itself and Amazon likely doesn’t have the license to the English subtitles outside of the USA. It wouldn’t surprise me, music lyrics have their own separate copyright from the recording after all.
The copyright system is the biggest problem here. It simply isn’t fit for purpose in the digital age, unless that purpose was to benefit a handful of legacy mega corps while harming independent content creators and stifling culture across the globe.
Had no idea subtitles could be copyrighted separate from the film/media they’re subtitling (but, it does make sense when you think about it).
I agree with you completely: the current US copyright system is a joke that serves little purpose (in today’s media scape).
I wish it was just the US copyright system that’s the problem, some nations have worse copyright laws. In France for example architecture can have copyright, and renovations have a separate copyright from the original architecture… The lights on the Eiffel Tower have a separate copyright from the Eiffel Tower itself, which is currently in the public domain. So while it’s completely fine to take a photo of the Tower during the day at night you need to have permission from the copyright holder, and they have taken action against people who have taken photos of the Tower at night.
Then there are some nations where there isn’t even a public domain and stuff never loses their copyright.
Many of these worse laws have been driven by US and EU trade policies and Trade Agreements mandating draconian copyright and intellectual property laws.
Copyright laws are just a nightmare writ large.
And rip watching a Christopher Nolan Movie without subtitles nowadays
Yep, exactly.
Fuck you - if I’m paying to watch, I should get the very basic of features. Piracy is literally a better user experience right now.
And don’t forget about the ads.
I feel like there’s a common theme here but just can’t put my finger on it…
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- Content that is pulled halfway through watching it.
deleted by creator
You will own nothing and you will like it!
You forgot about stuff that just gets taken down one day.
Edit: oh you added it in a comment.
There are a few what I’ll term magnet shows on each streaming service. They want you to pay for the service for the magnet shows and then stick around and watch other half-baked filler garbage or a seasons of a show they cancelled before giving them any hope of finishing their story arc.
Most streaming networks have abundant garbage content I’d never want to watch, knockoffs of other shows, and global content that’s often of soap opera quality with subtitles.
They also (on purpose) often offer no way to filter to the things you want to see other than search, and search is often misleading or terrible too.
It’s basically a race to the bottom just like Amazon. Junk programs created for pennies pretending to match your results.
The whole thing is a crap fest that’s quickly becoming worse than the cable network structure it replaced.
No, thank you.
True I start a new movie or a series but can’t see it past a few minutes.
If you go through the front page, there is usually only 100 shows the platform is pushing, ad nauseam. Like the algorithm is maybe some shows it thinks youll like, or shows they want to astroturf. I would really like a way to go into the dregs, the shit, the stuff netflix thinks is at the bottom of my metrics. Granted, piracy doesn’t do this either (lol how would that even work? I put everything on that server myself) but I would have considered keeping my subscription if they did.
More than food? That math just doesn’t add up for me.
It’s worth noting that although piracy is up, the rates are still far lower than they were 20, 10 or even five years ago. Whether people continue to access content illegally remains to be seen – hopefully this is just a ‘blip’ and rates of theft begin to fall again as the economy recovers.
I can’t be bothered to pull back all the layers of naive optimism in just these two sentences.
Yep. Stop making shit deals and 100 different services to subscribe to and people will go back to paying for things. Gaben is the only smart one.
Until this month I paid more than $100 for multiple streaming services. I finally got pissed off when something I wanted to watch was no longer available. Instead I went and torrented it and canceled 90% of the services. It’s time to go back to self streaming everything.
Welcome back
Hmmmmm. Let’s see here.
People don’t like cable, because it’s too expensive and inconvenient
People start pirating
People like having 2-3 streaming services that show everything, without ads, for much cheaper even combined than cable. They stop pirating.
People don’t like having 20-30 streaming services that show only a little in each service, NOW WITH ADS!?!?! and that become MUCH more expensive than cable ever was.
People start pirating again…
I wonder what happened?!?!
It’s almost like making it nearly impossible to watch what we want and, at the same time, octupling our bills, while also increasing the cost of each would, somehow, force people into the desperation of piracy. Huh. Who woulda thunk it.
Let’s not forget random pulling of content so that you can never tell if what you want is actually on any given service at any given time. This was the final straw that led me to rebuilding my own media collection.
Wow that wording, trying to make pirating sound like an evil crime lol. I feel no moral negativity pirating. In fact, my conscience is clean and I feel morally obligated to, considering how expensive they are making services.
I think reading between the lines is the real story: when they get greedy, pirating puts them I check and causes pricing to become affordable and people stop pirating. Once people are not pirating, greed increases and pirates have to return to put them in place again.
In conclusion… we need pirates to balance things out, this pirating is a necessity in our modern age…
You are welcome everyone, I am doing my part for myself and I am doing my part for you.
Another reason why piracy is needed is to prevent pieces of culture from being erased from history to satisfy some perverse corporate accounting requirements.
Fucking rights
They call “refusing to be exploited” piracy. Generally industries where there are huge monopolies like media, groceries, and other such thing are most sensitive to this because they lack the ability to deal with outside pressures any more.
Vilifying people fighting back is the cheapest way to manage this.
I’m kinda looking forward to seeing what replaces things like Netflix and Spotify
Yeah it should be interesting. I’m also looking forward to see what new trackers come into relevance as the userbase increases.
Redacted as the only viable music tracker is a real shame. Just like everything else, we need more options not less.
I really felt like all the good stuff was only on private trackers the last few years. A few of the biggest public trackers also went down, that certainly didn’t help, but even before that I had a hard time finding some older, rarer things. If piracy gets bigger, I hope to see more reliable public trackers again with bigger catalogues.
My 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️ brother
Companies are stealing from you every single day of your life from the second you’re born to the moment you die.
No harm in returning the favor.
I 100% believe this. The video streamers are getting too greedy and pushing out too much subpar content. When it was affordable and easy to find what you want streaming was great. Now it’s expensive and stuff in on 12 different platforms.
Also most of what I watch is older so everyone on the creative and production side has been paid the only ones making money at this point are the studio fat cats.
Ads. It’s all because of ads. There is a low tolerance by way more people now, and piracy is more convenient than putting up with platforms that can’t build a UX to save their lives, and then put in ads. Fuck em, let them die.
I have subscriptions (and shared subscriptions) to… seven services that I can think of in 20 seconds.
Yet, time and time again, I try to figure out if what I want to watch is covered by one of them (not trivial to figure out), and end up falling back on piracy probably around 50% of the time.
Now that every fucking content owner has its own subscription plan, it makes subscriptions pointless because it’s spread so damn thin.
try to figure out if what I want to watch is covered by one of them
Justwatch.com, my dude.
Doesn’t always work. I’m not in the US. So shows that it says are on a service, aren’t in my country, or if it’s on a service, it doesn’t know because it’s on that service in my country and not the us. For me, Justwatch.com, has been more miss than hit. Sometimes, asking google works, but some services that are available in my country won’t integrate with Google in my country, but if use a VPN for the us on my Android TV it loads all the US features and the integration starts working and everything is correct. So yeah, unless you’re in the US, the experience of figuring out where it is what you want to watch is more miss than hit.
Oh yes this is so true. I have stopped trying to research where each is that I want to watch; if it’s not on netflix or prime video I just download it.
Justwatch has localised results for me in Australia. If your browser is anonymized it may default to US listings. You can change it in the URL path using your country code, e.g. instead of justwatch.com/us/ I go to justwatch.com/au/ and it’s been totally accurate
I use the mobile and tv app.
Cancel all those subs man. They are eating your money without return. It’s better to download the specific show you want to watch.
If not, we can expect to see legal channels raising their prices again to cover the losses caused by piracy.
what a shitty take. Well, anyone who has better memory than only one month back can realize that the reason the people turned to piracy was that they raised their prices. There is no loss caused by piracy. They only missed potential gains. And the reason they raised their prices were not because they were loosing money. Was because they needed to “grow infinitely”. If the free market evangelists are right, the free market will self regulate and the prices will go down in order to attract back the lost customers lol
You’re missing the point, the article is wrong: it’s not about the prices.
I’m not disagreeing with you—the conclusion these services have taken are indeed not logical ones based on historical trends—but I’m curious how you know these services didn’t need to raise the fees? Why have you assumed that it’s to “grow infinitely”?
From my understanding, almost all streaming video providers except Netflix have been operating on a loss. That can only be sustained for so long before the parent company will need to see it begin to generate a positive revenue stream. The most straightforward way to do that is to increase subscription fees. Furthermore, the number of subscribers of Paramount+, MGM+ or even Disney+ is certainly not trending towards “infinite growth.”
I’m not justifying anything, because with five monthly services that have been hiking prices I’m looking at what to slash myself, but I was eager to encourage a bit more discourse on this topic.
That can only be sustained for so long before the parent company will need to see it begin to generate a positive revenue stream. The most straightforward way to do that is to increase subscription fees. Furthermore, the number of subscribers of Paramount+, MGM+ or even Disney+ is certainly not trending towards “infinite growth.”
then their model is flawed. They sell something at loss in order to attract customers because they know that if they sell it at higher profit margins customers will not come. Customers are willing to buy it as long as it is in a price that they are willing to compromise at. So, when they raise their prices, customers realize that now it is above the price they are willing to pay and step out. Their model is based on hoping that the customers will forget or be bored to cancel a subscription that they cannot afford anymore. However it is a subscription that they wouldn’t had been willing to buy in this price in the first place.
So, their initial market share and adoption rate was what it was because of the price of the subscription and the rate of price/value-of-product. Customers are not willing to pay double price and they wouldn’t had paid it in the first place. They are not loosing customers. They are not loosing potential profit. They are basing their numbers in a faked artificial audience that opted in only because it was a good deal in the initial price.
And while the free market evangelists would argue that the market would self regulate, you know what will they in reality do? Ask the government for stricter enforcement of anti-piracy laws because huge loss . Loss based on nothing but their imagination of imaginative potential profit based on “if everyone was continuing buying our product with the same adoption rate we would had X billions. So since we don’t have X billions, this is a loss”. Great math skills and applying of logic.
There are certainly consumers out there with this kind of mentality, but it’s a common sales strategy to lure new customers with a reduced subscription fee for the first months only. It evidently works, because businesses have been doing this long before SVOD services, or even the internet for that matter, existed.
I expect that indeed, a significant number of customers cannot be bothered to cancel a subscription once they begin to use it, or, put another way, perceive the value of it to be justified against the increased price. I don’t think it’s fair to call this a fake audience, because these are real users of which a certain percentage will be retained.
Another factor that probably weighs into this is the competitive race to the bottom among the many SVOD offerings that are available today. Users like you and me perceive a certain dollar amount as the maximum that we are willing to pay, but where does that figure come from? If you are a new player in this space, you are effectively capped to the current market price for subscription fees, whether or not that covers your costs.
The free market effect will gradually resolve this as services that are all currently operating at a loss will correct their price models, which is what I believe is currently happening.
There are certainly consumers out there with this kind of mentality, but it’s a common sales strategy to lure new customers with a reduced subscription fee for the first months only. It evidently works, because businesses have been doing this long before SVOD services, or even the internet for that matter, existed.
Your claim that this is a tactic happening since for ever doesn’t take into account the differences between subscription model and traditional businesses. In traditional businesses, yes, a business may decrease the prices in order to lure customers, but this was never their business model. This was limited time “get to know us”. I don’t think there was for example any supermarket operating at loss for 5 years before they decide to “ok, lets put the real prices on the shelves now”.
I don’t think it’s fair to call this a fake audience, because these are real users of which a certain percentage will be retained.
of course it is a fake audience. The fact that some users will be retained doesn’t make the 100% of the audience real. And also by fake audience it doesn’t necessarily mean that the whole 100% of the audience is fake. However, when they present their numbers, and they claim that “because of piracy we lost 5 million subscribers” this is based on the 5 million subscribers who potentially would never be subscribers if they had their “real” price upfront, instead of a price in which they operate at loss.
However, when people are charged for piracy, they are charged based on imaginative loses who are based on a potential profit which would had been achieved if their 100% of customer base had been continuing paying a subscription which they would had never agreed paying if the price was not faked in order to attract them.
The free market effect will gradually resolve this as services that are all currently operating at a loss will correct their price models, which is what I believe is currently happening.
the free market will turn to the government to cover their losses and they will push for stricter anti piracy law enforcement. The free market evangelists just want a free to control market. I don’t think they will be “ok, customers are leaving after our latest increase in price, then let’s just decrease the price to get them back on board”
I am pretty sure they know how many accounts they will lose for every dollar they increase the price. It should be a net positive for them because otherwise they would not do it.
Enforcing terms and conditions that they previously did not is just another price increase in the grey area that is not directly perceived that way.
I agree that “Lost x amount to piracy” does not even make sense in that context. They know exactly what they are doing.
With regards to discounts to lure new customers, I was thinking about conventional subscription based services like newspapers or cable providers. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me that in a sector with heavy competition, such services might be offered at an initial loss if data suggests that retained memberships can recoup it.
I misunderstood what you were referring to with a definition of “fake audience.” I wasn’t giving any merit to their claims about how it all ties to piracy, clearly that’s nonsense. I’m not completely following your train of thought with a “fake price,” though.
It’s possible this might result in a harsher stance on piracy again, that’s true. Realistically, though, I think it’s more likely that three things will happen: we as consumers will gradually recalibrate our cost expectations for streaming services, production corporations will cut costs with more reality type content, and smaller companies will either be bought up or go out of business as users settle on a deliberate few services to subscribe to.
I’m not completely following your train of thought with a “fake price,” though.
you said that they now needed to correct to the “real price” in terms that it is a price that will allow them not to operate at a loss. So the previous one was a “faked” (artificial) price, that they knew was below cost, however they chose to go with it in order to lure customers.
I’m not implying that they tried to scam anyone with “fake prices” if this is what you understood.
I see. Whether or not the price covers costs, businesses will often invest into attracting new customers, for instance through marketing campaigns or incentives to switch from a competitor. In such cases, the cost isn’t visibly calculated through to the consumer.
However, since the cost is a main factor for purchase decisions, companies might similarly invest in growing their customer base by offering a pricing tier below cost. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the service as a whole is operating at a loss, because there might be higher cost tiers that offer premium content or family plans. Different plans might also have degrees of underutilization that reduces service costs. Finally, cohorts of service tiers might change based on external factors like economic recession or competitive offerings.
All this is to say that pricing models are complicated, and breaking even with a SVOD service is extremely difficult in an industry with extremely high production costs, aging licensable content that viewers are losing interest in all while being overrun with complex, regional licensing agreements that affect both. Especially when this is further compounded with macroeconomic factors including inflation and interest rates that affect both corporations operating at a loss and consumers looking to tighten their belts or user decline due to subscription fatigue, an argument could be made that some middle ground needs to be found to simply remain in business.
Nuanced post. Than you!
Why is this being downvoted? I thought Lemmy was a place for discourse? How does this not contribute to an open discussion?
Pretty common take that people feel like they’ve seen and argued in a lot of other places. In the future, ask YOURSELF why you got downvoted, not the thread. Works way better.
I have genuinely asked myself this, and can’t help but find it strange that the only comments in this thread and other almost identical threads are effectively complaining about corporate greed, and never go into any kind of depth about underlying causes and contributing factors.
Why instead is the same old empty rhetoric repeated and upvoted time and time again? This platform seems to be an echo chamber for ignorance.
and never go into any kind of depth about underlying causes and contributing factors.
sure, if you don’t agree with what is being replied to you, then these are shallow comments. Your replies here were the deep analysis. Good job
Whether or not the insights are deep or shallow, Lemmy would be an inclusive place where discourse is welcomed and civil interactions are commonplace.
Instead, any comment that invites conversation to go more in depth is downvoted with ad hominem attacks, further adding toxicity to the cesspool that is the comment section behind effectively any post on this community.
downvotes is just a way to show that you disagree with something. It is not there to punish you. People choose some topics to engage actively by participating in the comments while in some other topics they prefer to express their opinion just by agree/disagree (upvote/downvote). Now you call a whole community toxic just because not everyone agrees with you…
You misunderstand me. Your posts are the old empty rhetoric, your ideas are not new, and you come off like a parrot. After your long-winded explanation, I get the idea that you’re just young, which personally makes me want to interact with you less.
I believe it was Gabe Newell who said the best way to avoid piracy is by making legitimate purchasing easier and/or better.
In the early history of streaming services, you could get access to a lot of content in a straightforward way for not much money. People started doing that instead of pirating. The corporations got greedy, they made the services worse and increased the price to the point that piracy is preferable again.
And I don’t have the least amount of sympathy. Yarr matey.
I just cancelled my Netflix that I had for like 10 years. Total shit nothing to watch.
Now there’s a million services, everything is plus. Paramount+, Disney+, Nutsack+
Even if I wanted to pay for all that shit, everyone has their own shitty app I have to install and configure and have a login and fuck you.
It’s just easier for me to torrent what I want.
Thing is, I’m not averse to paying for good content, I like to support the creators. But
When every show is on a different app and they’re all $15 a month…buying a couple hard drives and saving every show just makes more financial sense and I don’t need 15 different login credentials so fuck off yarrr
Now there’s a million services, everything is plus. Paramount+, Disney+, Nutsack+
I think the + is to streaming services what the i prefix was to electronic junk.
I pay for them still. But still download and watch on Plex. Oh shit I meant a friend of mine does this.
Nutsack+ 🤣🤣
Removed by mod
hopefully this is just a ‘blip’ and rates of theft begin to fall again as the economy recovers.
If not, we can expect to see legal channels raising their prices again to cover the losses caused by piracy.
This is a crazy thing to write. Every streaming service already has their prices set at whatever they think will maximize profit. If they raise prices in response to piracy, they’ll push even more people away.
If anything, piracy will serve as competition, and it will cause the streaming services to lower prices.
piracy will serve as competition
for shows sold exclusively to one streaming service then piracy is indeed the only competition
Wow they’re just straight up calling it theft now. They can’t even pretend to understand the difference.
That’s nothing new. “You wouldn’t steal a car” was in the 90s…
Piracy doesn’t compete on price. Maintaining a server, Internet, and VPN access has a cost beyond the technical knowledge needed to set it all up.
Piracy competes on service. Sick of ads? Sick of your favorite shows disappearing from your services? Tired of the Disney vault (they have the content but won’t let you stream it any more) problem? Can’t find the thing on any service? Like obscure and rare content? Like fan edits? Like to curate collections and playlists? Like HD on any and every device you own? Like easy offline content syncning for when you’re traveling to a spot with spotty Internet? Like sharing your library with friends and family? Tired managing multiple streaming subscriptions and navigating the content to find what you really want to watch? Your friendly neighborhood pirate community has a solution for you. Lower prices aren’t even in the top ten reasons lots of people pirate.
Services get worse so piracy gets more popular.
Yup. The enshitification of … everything.
