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Comment by omg_ketchup | Hacker News Reader

There's a massive gap between the pirate service and the "legitimate" media service.

For one, you can just type something in, and get the movie you want. You don't have to navigate between 15 different services, and then find out the film is only available on mail-order DVD, or in other countries.

For television, the networks are HORRIBLE about providing their content to cord-cutters. Want to watch the latest episode of Mr. Robot, which airs on Wednesday at 10pm? You're gonna have to wait AT LEAST until 9am on Thursday morning, WITH YOUR PAID SUBSCRIPTION. Or, you can pirate it for free.

I'm not sure how many times it needs to be said, but Piracy is not a payment issue, it's an access issue.

Also, companies being greedy is a bad look. CBS hiding Star Trek behind their proprietary $10/month service is going to kill Star Trek, because the intended audience sees it as a bullshit cash grab. Put it on Hulu you greedy bastards.

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> CBS hiding Star Trek behind their proprietary $10/month service is going to kill Star Trek, because the intended audience sees it as a bullshit cash grab.

Interestingly, that seems to be US (and I think Canada) only. The rest of us get the new episode on Netflix every Monday. The new one should be ready by now.

Of course, if I want to actually watch it in 1080p I still have to resort to piracy, because Netflix doesn't want to offer anything over 720p if you use a free operating system and browser even if you have the HD-and-two-screens subscription. The reason they don't really give but hint at is that the DRM available on free software isn't good enough, and I might be tempted to go and upload the 1080p video on some pirate site. So to watch it in 1080p I have to go to a pirate site and get it there, where it's already available (of course). Makes sense.

I actually went to sign up for the CBS thing via Apple TV and was greeted with a ridiculous privacy policy saying something along the lines of they reserve the right to sell all my personal data to third parties.

You're better off downloading in that case.

The other CBS shows also look painfully bad (Little Sheldon?) - so I probably dodged a bullet anyway.

That might have something to do with HDCP

I'm not a big fan of comcast, but their x1 boxes do a pretty good job of aggregating content and giving it to you wherever it comes from. They have a deep on demand selection and include netflix access, if you use netflix.

Oh man, I used a friends X1 box this weekend. The voice search was terrible. It couldn't understand "Chucky" in a midwestern accent.

Did you mean Chunky? ...Janky? ...Chutney? ...Catchy? ...Junky? ...Chicken? ...Jaunty? ...Twelve? ...Internet? ...Antidisestablishmentarianism?

The above is probably a comment left by Comcast ... I mean what hacker newser likes Comcast?

The Orville is so much better anyways.

"not a payment issue, it's an access issue."

...

"bullshit cash grab"

So in other words, it's a payment issue?

Let's say you watch $100/month for cable, and watch about 3 hours a day. That's over $3/hour. $10/month for 4 hours a TV is cheaper than cable, it's ad-free (I believe) and it's more convenient.

It's expensive compared to Netflix or piracy, but it can certainly be argued it's not a cash grab.

I don't think its fair to boil the two points he made into the same argument. He said too many services and timing issues and one thing about Star Trek. His second point is pretty specific to occurrence, companies taking their shows off 3rd party streaming services and putting them behind their own paywall. That is definitely a cash grab and its become more common, in my opinion.

That's exactly my point. There are two issues: cost and access. The OP said "It's not a payment issue, it's an access issue." I say it's both.

You missed:

"You don't have to navigate between 15 different services"

I pay for Netflix, Prime, and Hulu -- I won't pay for CBS because there are already enough services.

Then don't expect all content. Netflix, Prime, and Hulu have more content than you can watch.

Just don't think that justifies pirating whatever you want.

Content isn't fungible. Netflix, Prime, and Hulu put together may have more content than you could ever watch (arguably, even just one of them alone does), but if it doesn't have the show or movie you want, you're boned.

I've had Netflix, Prime, and HBO for years. A couple months ago my gf and I really wanted to watch The Handmaid's Tale, which is only available on Hulu. Hulu charges $12/mo for their no-ad plan (hell if I'm going to pay for a service and still have to suffer through ads). The idea of paying $12/mo for a single show seemed a bit much to me... in the end I signed up for the free trial to watch it because I couldn't find pirated copies on Usenet.

Now Star Trek Discovery has just come out, and CBS wants me to give them $10/mo for the privilege of watching it. No thanks.

It's funny, because we've all jumped at the chance to "cut the cord" and ditch our cable subscriptions, but we've replaced it with the online version of exactly the same thing. We still don't have a la carte pricing for TV shows and movies for the most part. At this point I might be paying more per month than I used to for cable.

I already pay for CBS channels. I'm not paying them more for one show. They don't get to double-dip. I'd be happy to see any and all single-provider streaming services fail, and be forced onto some better-supported streaming service.

Not to mention that I'd have to buy another device to actually play their content on my TV; the blu-ray player supports Amazon, Netflix, and a few other big providers, but apparently not CBS. It's less about the cost of the device, and more about not wanting yet another little box under my TV that I need to worry about software updates and such for.

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