Piracy grows when it is more convenient than legal consumption. I'd rather download a torrent of a DvD I own than go and fetch it, put it in a cd tray, play it with shitty un-skippable intro etc. However - I'd rather spin a film up on Netflix than go hunting through a shitty folder structure of my own idiotic devising. I'd rather watch a series on netflix, which remembers where I am in the series and auto-plays next than manually load up episodes on the odd evening when I've got time.
Admittedly Netflix seems to be going out of its way to make the UI intolerably aggravating, but at some points it seemed pretty well done.
There is desktop software that does all of this locally, including auto-play, intro skipping, remembering where you were in a media file, even auto-downloading subtitles and displaying them. Nor do you have to navigate through your own 'idiotic' folder structure as you put it, because software like Everything exists.
Just because you never bothered to set it up doesn't mean this functionality doesn't exist.
2. I want to support the artists who make my media financially, and doing that on an individual basis would be too inconvenient.
3. I know what I’m getting, P2P was always a gamble.
4. Current streaming services (movies and videos) have a significantly better UX that isnaccessible to anyone.
Once this process is compete and the silos are created Napster will rise again.
In my case it's strictly a case of availability - I happily pay for Netflix, Amazon Prime and Spotify as well as whatever software I use. I wish the content creators would wise up to this - Steam solved this issue for gaming years ago.
Napster's popularity was not because of P2P or something else. The only reason Napster succeeded was convenience. Bittorrent cannot be the successor because it is not as convenient.
> In my case it's strictly a case of availability - I happily pay for Netflix, Amazon Prime and Spotify as well as whatever software I use.
Everyone pays now because it is convenient to pay at 2-3 places for all your needs. Once you have to start paying at a separate place for every different series/movie you want, you will stop paying. It is not only about availability. It is about availability AND convenience
And Steam is facing the same issues as Netflix with Epic Store and Origin breaking away because EA and Tim wanted more money.
Video and other content is much more of a mixed bag with very fractured availability and simple lack of availability under a subscription for a lot of content.
I think the TV and movie industries haven't felt the effects of piracy like the music industry did in the heyday of P2P, there's a big difference between the behavior of the music industry who'll sign a contract with any reasonable streaming provider and that of say, HBO or Disney who want full control of their content.
That is like eating in McDonnalds to support the workers there.
You mean you want to support the big media corporations that make good artists available to you...
Just making sure that you know what you are doing.
I understand this is a Napster thread and as a result the most enthusiastically pro-piracy, anti-capitalist contingent of HN is going to show up and wave the black flag but at least try to be honest about the pros and cons for both. Streaming services do have their dark patterns and anti-consumer practices but they still offer something of value to the consumer, and despite what people want to believe, are more convenient than piracy for many people.
I mean that with subscription services one is unable to backup, or even "come back" repeatedly to the content. Let's say watching the same movie from time to time - it's not possible because service providers go out of business, copyright deals change, markets become more/less prioritized, different platforms are supported, the repertoire within the subscription changes over time. Thus watching the same movie requires buying it over and over again.