Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

"May" drive them back?

This has already happened in my circles..

People who had cut the cord but all but walked away from casual piracy and signed up for Netflix and HBO (and probably Prime Video because they had Amazon Prime already) are openly talking about the fact they're definitely not signing up for more streaming services, and are seeking out torrenting again for the stuff that's being pulled from Netflix (especially Disney shows).

I feel like there's a business opportunity for a meta-service that automatically manages monthly subscriptions for you on different services. You queue up a catalog of shows you want to watch, and it creates an optimized schedule for you and helps sign up for the individual streaming service on a given month in order to watch the show you want.

As long as you don't care about the zeitgeist, this would probably be fine for a lot of people.

No shit. Valve worked out the key to combating piracy in the early 2000s. To quote Gaben himself:

"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."

People pirate media more for convenience than to save money.

Another factor in the mix is how poor a job a lot of the streaming services do at the mechanics of running their business.

I, for instance, pay for streaming packages from both the NFL and Formula 1, but more often than not the best way to watch the actual events is to download a torrent that some random guy recorded, edited, and posted. The video quality is just plain better. It's not missing the pre-event buildup coverage. And it doesn't randomly cut out and drop down to 160p all the time.

Now I say I pay for these services, but actually as of a couple months ago I can't even convince Formula 1 to take my money anymore. I live in France and first signed up using a US credit card. Now they won't let me put my card back in to renew, because it's not to a French address. And they won't let me buy the US or UK version of the service (as I have cards and mailing addresses in both), because my history shows I previously bought the French one.

But then really, it's not that much of a pain, since even for the couple years I paid for it I don't think I actually streamed more than a couple races. The product itself was just that awful, but still it'd be nice to be able to give them some money...

No surprise. Even we (HN) predicted this the moment the first content company withdrew their content from Netflix.

Two reasons:

1. People only have so much money.

2. When people compare it to what they used to payit seems unfair. People complain when gas prices increases by a few percent, no wonder they complain when they suddenly have to pay twice or even three times for the same content they used to pay one low monthly fee from.

Oh, and they probably also compare to Spotify.

I see three ways this market can work that immediately feels fair to me:

- all you can eat/listen/watch (Spotify model)

- pay per view but a lot lower than today. (Can work even with multiple streaming sites.)

- a hybrid approach where you pay for a number of monthly credits that works (should be somewhat cheaper than the Spotify model)

> “Consumers want choice — but only up to a point,” said Kevin Westcott, Deloitte vice chairman and U.S. telecom and media and entertainment leader, who oversees the study. “We may be entering a time of ‘subscription fatigue.'”

Missing the point hard here. To the degree that "consumers want choice", I would expect the choice they want is the choice of media, not the choice of subscription services. People don't subscribe to Netflix for its own sake, they subscribe because it lets them watch something they want to see.

Germans/Europeans might feel with me: I had the pleasure of using Sky to watch Game of Thrones and a few movies and it was the most abysmal experience I have ever had.

Your account is an email combined with a 4-digit NUMERIC-ONLY (!) "password" and once you are hyper-securely logged in the amount of usability pain a single piece of software can cause will immediately become apparent.

How can anything paid by a big corporation be anywhere near as bad as the Sky apps is completely beyond me.

Their iOS app is somewhat usable and I was happy I could just cast GoT using my Google Chrome until I noticed that casting can only be done in German. The English original version wasn't available for casting but perfectly accessible on PS4 app, Mac app and web app.

I watch movies once a week with a few friends. We have Netflix, Prime and 3 other smaller providers I can't recall the name of. We still have to look for 50% of the movies we want to watch "somewhere else".

It's even worse because most providers geo lock their content. So the movie might be available on Netflix US but isn't on Netflix Spain, or it's available on prime but only in _foreign language_. When the movie is available the service is slow, you get intermittent disconnections, the subtitles aren't available, &c. It's a running joke for us now, we have an hassle free movie night once every three month I'd say.

It's basically cable TV 2.0, it's such a pain in the ass.

Perfect example. I have Netflix, Prime and Hulu. Thats already too many as most have a bunch of crap and a few shows I like, some have duplicate content.

I watched One Punch man on Netflix and can also watch on Hulu. Season Two was released on Hulu. Well that works for me but what about people who had Netflix, Like OPM and now want to watch season 2?

I've been binging Star Trek. I'd also like to watch the new series on CBS. Of course CBS had the bright odea of starting their own streaming service. The cost is $5.99/mo with commercials or 9.99/mo without commercials. No.

So all the idiots taking their toys home and starting their own streaming biz are driving piracy. I used to download TV shows all the time but streaming made that unnecessary as I could pay a little money to have legal access to plenty of things I want to watch. No one wants to juggle multiple streaming services just to watch a few shows. People don't want to go back to spending $200 on TV and internet. I'd rather spend no more than $25/mo on tv and $50 for >=100mbit internet. Thats an ideal number considering I spend less on electricity each month.

The problem is not to many streaming choices but the increasing fragmentation of which videos are available on which platforms.

IMHO the increasing coupling of video producers and streaming services isn't a good idea at all as it again produces (quasi)monopoles for certain brands/shows (e.g. Disney).

Through then IMHO the trend of tech companies increasingly expanding in a way which couples different kind products together is a worrisome trend (e.g. hardware producer couples with os producer coupled with application producer, or content producer coupled with content delivery services, or "shared" online marked places coupled with them starting to sell their own "featured" products, or coupling of ebook store with ebook reader, etc.).

My guess is that this will lead to increasingly large companies with increasingly less chances for real competition giving this companies more and more (mainly implicit) power over people and economy and with this also influence in politic.

Sure currently for streaming services it looks like it will lead to better competition, but my guess is that this won't be long term and in a view years we will be left with a oligopol of a small number of companies now dominating both production and distribution of high quality video entertainment content, without there being any real chance for any new competition (except if there is some form of interactive video revolution (I don't mean video games) coming from outside the video industry.

There's something to be said for the cord-cutting software ecosystem supporting more-than-casual piracy experiencing huge improvements. If you have the hardware, you can host your own media using Plex as a server, and Sonarr to manage your library and automate acquisition of new TV episodes.

Plex is one of the best pieces of software I've ever used. It Just Works™. You need a decent internet pipeline to support remote streaming, but LAN is a breeze to setup. It's so feature-rich I don't know where to begin. I honestly prefer it to any other streaming service. Apps on just about every platform you can think of (they had yet to release apps for Nintendo consoles last I checked).

I have my whole family set up on my server, and it doesn't cost them a dime. The primary drawbacks from their perspective are that they need to request shows and movies to be added, and I naturally don't have Netflix-level availability, but hey. Shit's free.

So when a cord-cutter with enough savvy to pirate video can actually replicate the services rendered by Netflix et al. on their own, why would they pay five times for something centralized that they can get for free[1]?

[1] Plex has $7 month premium features, with the option for a lifetime pass equal to about 2.5 years of subscription.

That the funny thing I have HBO, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime but sometimes it's easier to watch something on a pirate site than searching for which service has what.

I am from Brazil and here I am seeing the rise of "IPTV", with many service claiming they have deals with all streaming providers and movie companies, and you can pay them to watch just-released movies or any show on any provider...

I am strongly suspecting they saw the proliferation of streaming services (and here also "cable" services) as a opportunity, but are creating their services illegally, for example I know a person that got "IPTV" and I couldn't find anything about the company, and their PC "client" is actually just a modified VLC (that also for some reason only works on Windows).

Why don't major services (Netflix, Disney, HULU, etc) come together to build a best of breed shared service, that operates vendor-neutrally, and each gets to keep all the profits from people watching their stuff?

Each could still have its own promotions, bundles, etc (e.g. pay X more to watch new movies from Disney), but at least the base proposition can have a single subscription price and some pay as you consume more scheme, single analytics, etc.

In my ideal autocratic regime, they'd be forced to work under such a scheme, like power companies are forced to ultimately connect to the same grid (at least in some countries).

Is this the final state of attempting to maximize profits? It feels like it's converging back towards the cable model [0]. Especially now with ad-supported streaming plans on Hulu [1] and increasingly more and more service exclusives [2] (same site as OP).

Streaming services are slowly but surely becoming cable "Channels"/"Packages" now, and of course that's going to increase piracy - we've seen it happen before. If you make something people want, but make it overly expensive or inconvenient to consume, piracy is an attractive (albeit morally grey) alternative for many.

Sure you can buy the disk set for whatever shows you like and skip out on the streaming services, but that in itself comes with a level of inconvenience (and cost) - why use physical disks when you can just download the content, share on a NAS/Plex server, and have it on any device? Once you've made it more inconvenient than people are used to, you've again made piracy an option.

I wonder when we'll start seeing bundles of streaming services for a single price!

[0]: https://www.itproportal.com/features/is-streaming-in-danger-...

[1]: https://help.hulu.com/s/article/how-much-does-hulu-cost?lang...

[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190627/11202942488/strea...

Streaming "choices"? It's fragmentation and rent-seeking behavior. It is simply a case of the supply not meeting the demand at a reasonable price point, when there is an alternative.

"Choice" here is just a euphemism for "yet another $10.99/month subscription". The more services, the less content I want each has. The more services/apps/etc I have to engage with, the less I want to engage with any of them. That is to say, it's not just as expensive as corded packages, it's harder to actually use. It's the opposite of what it should be.

Content needs F/RAND licensing, possibly with a temporary block on creators self-distributing to try and right the market and get some competition going.

If you think it's getting bad, just wait until Disney starts flexing.

I will always pirate shows. I cut the cord 11 years ago due to my objection of cable company billing practices. The entire industry is greedy. I was a netflix subscriber for awhile but I burned thru all the good stuff and left.

I was never patient enough for piracy as it takes diligence to find reliable sources. One thing that does irritate me is this general antipiracy attitude on the web today. It's like the entire population works for Big Tech. It used to be if you did enough searching, you could find pretty much anything you wanted, but now everyone acts like the piracy police and gets all offended if you even insinuate piracy. Probably sounds rather antisocial, but I think that attitude is dangerous as it gives corporations way too much influence, beyond what we've yielded them already. Maybe it's just the places I frequent.

For me, I've realized that 80% of media is not worth my time. Unless it's something that is 'can't miss' like Martin Scorsese's movie that is debuting on Netflix or Planet Earth II, I can skip it. I use my family's Netflix account, I don't have my own.

I've tried to keep up with the Marvel universe but it's next to impossible at this point. All my favorite shows (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Sopranos, Game of Thrones) are completed now too. I go to the movies once or twice a year now, at most.

Hasn't driven me to piracy. It has, however, driven me to subscribe/unsubscribe as needed. Paid for a month of HBO, for example, mostly for the Chernobyl series, watched that and a few movies, unsubscribed.

I think that pattern might hurt these services more than piracy.

The only ethical pay-per-view system I can think of would be to stream directly from the production source (production house, artist), some sort of a paid RSS-like feed.

Here is my personal movie subscription list:

For animes: 1. Crunchyroll 2. Animelab 3. Funimation

For movies: 1. Netflix 2. YouTube movies

5 streaming sites and even than not all movies and animes are available to me because of geoblocking. Then when I go back to my home country only Netflix works, and for some weird reason in my country only the first 3 season of Race to the Edge is available, even though it claimed to be Netflix Originals. No wonder piracy is everywhere

The last remaining video rental stores are closing down just as streaming services become so fragmented that making a short trip to rent any major film or TV series you want for a few dollars is starting to look okay again.

10'ish years ago I remember people being mad at the cable companies for bundling all the channels together into all-or-nothing options. Why did I have to pay for ESPN when I just want the SciFi channel? Here we are today with lots of options where you only pay for what you want and now people want them all bundled back together again!

In 2018, there was a report published by Sandvine saying that BitTorrent traffic had increased on their network for the first time in years (Engadget link: https://www.engadget.com/2018/10/03/streaming-exclusives-may...)

It seems perfectly rational to me. Streaming platforms' competitive advantage vs piracy is convenience (being legal and easier to use). As their convenience declines, users who are not averse to piracy will naturally gravitate back towards it.

This is precisely why I recently decided to setup a home streaming box/NAS.

Currently, I have an RPi 4 running Sonarr/Radarr, NZBGet, Transmission, and Emby, with a reverse proxy on top so I can access it all remotely[1]. But an RPi is not enough when it comes to transcoding and larger storage, so I'll be upgrading to a custom-built microATX server. The estimated total cost for parts is ~$600, including 6TB of storage. Monthly recurring cost is about $7, not counting energy consumption.

I'm also starting to use Kodi + RD to make it easier to stream stuff without downloading it.

[1]: My config is available on my GH profile.

I didn't know [we] PC and VPS users went anywhere, if anything the already established and really skilled release groups were solidified while others were extricated, or in some cases and very unfortunate, immured. I would make a partially substantiated and educated guess that a driving force in any potential, acute, theoretical or otherwise increase in freedom of information; The renaissance of the information era, our time, is suddenly presented with a market filled with VPN providers, most of them blatantly crude in their pitch. With promises of hosting end-points in nations unburdened by draconian laws, well outside any jurisdiction legally obligated to abide by federational - european, american or otherwise - demands or requests of private information. They also always make it a big deal to point out that they don't even generate logs of user activities. The latter sounding unlikely since it's crucial for any service providers survival and growth as well as preserving the capability to offer an equally distributed quality of service.

Piracy is not a fitting name. There's no rape, murder, malintent or even direct physical, psykological or directly provable damages made by sharing information. The argument that one album downloaded automatically equals the loss of one sell. That is similar to comparing bank-robbers to successful hedge fund managers because they aspire to collect currency or assets in large numbers. Wait.. That actually is comparable.. Well, I digress.

I already started buying used DVD's & Blu-Rays for use on Plex. Too much fragmentation and the risk of having your favourite shows and movies pulled for some other service.

I was discussing with a friend that in some bizarre alternative universe where things had played out differently, cable would seem like the great alternative to all the streaming services we have now. You only have to pay one monthly fee, and you have thousands of choices available to you! Sure, it's not on demand, but with so many options, and many things on a regular schedule, finding things to watch is easier than ever.

Just fix your FOMO and you don't have to pay for all crap you will never use.

I did not watched any episode of GoT and I don't feel like I missed something in my life. Occasionally I don't get some reference. I also don't run into people who are "omg you really did not watched any of it? so great series", even if I would run into this kind, I could not care less about it anyway.

I think the article doesn't tackle it from the correct perspective.

There aren't _many_ choices at all, because we don't hire the service for the service itself, instead, for the content, and content here is exclusive.

For instance, you have competition on the PC market: you can buy Dell, you can buy Lenovo, and while the outside may differ, inside, you have the same thing. You also have choices of Burger joints, because although we may prefer one to the other, whenever we want a burger, we can choose from anyplace.

This kind of content, TV shows and movies, however, is different. There's more uniqueness to each piece than a burger or a PC have. You can't interchange Game Of Thrones with Vikings and be really satisfied, worse, you'll probably want both.

So, right now, what we have is little choice - recent shows and movies are on a single platform, and just a few are on two or three different ones. So to have all content you want, you might need to subscribe to many different platforms.

On the one hand, I believe it's definitively a good thing that these services will be allowing for creation of niche content. I have long believed that your broadcast networks / USA / TNT just straight up cannot make good content because their expectations viewers wise are so high they end up trying to please everyone and make really, really generic television.

So yeah. I like that. But what's the endgame? Is this high profile Battlestar reboot supposed to generate enough subscriptions to cover the cost or is it just getting people involved in the NBC / Peacock ecosystem? Like, this is the same company that routinely cancels (nearly) every good show on SyFy (where, you know, I would kind of expect a Battlestar reboot to actually be) because they aren't getting enough viewers.

Now that it's a streaming service and their collecting the money directly from the viewer rather than going through Comcast does it make that much of a difference?

I'd say many never stopped.. to feel legit they maybe bought netflix and hulu, but still pirated HBO or network tv. I can see people maybe getting Netflix and Disney+ and maybe Apple ...and then streaming from tv show sites anything they're missing....

They need to have a bundled app like $60 gets you Amazon, Netflix, Disney, Apple, HBO, and Sling/Philo ...

Make it so each provider can sell the bundle and they get 30% more of the total sale...

If I had money and connections I'd love to start this startup... If you only took 6% to make it lucrative for the companies involved, then split it x ways with the bundled providers

Better yet philo or sling should do this since they already have the live tv parts, it would be a natural replacement for Cable. Or they could all just join forces and create a unified platform.

Added bonus is there's only one bill.

I hope it does, and I hope it signals that they're going too far with their segmentation of subscription services.

I subscribe to HBO. A subscription service that I have to pay for. Now they're going to introduce another subscription service called HBO Max which is going to cost more and may overlap with, but may not entirely include, content from HBO Go/NOW. Does this mean I have to buy into another subscription from the same company to access their 'new'/'original' content?

Honestly, I'm maintaining the services I currently have but not adding anything new. I have subscription fatigue. A cable subscription, HBO, Showtime, Netflix, and Prime are enough to fulfill my moral quota. Plex/Radarr/Sonarr will manage the rest of my television entertainment needs.

I'm personally fine with paying for them all, just hate that they are all separate apps with wildly difference experiences. I LOVE how I can get HBO as an add-on for Hulu, and have it all in one place to manage my "watch-list", ratings, tastes, etc. It's super frustrating you won't be able to get Disney+ as an add-on (for ad-free Hulu), as well. In the future, if there is just a universal app where I could get Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Disney+, and Amazon Prime, that would be the most superior experience. Obviously I doubt such an app would ever exist, but what they don't get is that it's more about convenience/hassle than the cost.

I don't think this is as big a threat as these comments make it seem. For the tech savvy, setting up a Plex server or whatever can be done in an afternoon's time. The majority of consumers won't go through the "hassle" of setting up their own infrastructure and will make judgement calls on what platforms align with their interests.

I'd bet on Netflix (incumbency), Prime (bundling), Apple (integration with iPhone) and Disney (best back catalog) being the leaders in this space for the next 5 years. Despite major networks getting into the game its hard to see them going all in and cannablizing their TV business just yet

I really have to ask: Is everyone in the comments apart of an organized troll? Because I feel like I’ve lost my mind reading most of these comments.

It seems like everyone here thinks torrenting is as easy and simple as using streaming services actually is, and that streaming is as complicated as torrenting actually is.

I used to torrent stuff all the time. Constantly. I have several HDs laying around filled with torrented movies and tv shows. Why? Because I was in college and couldn’t afford them.

The day I started making enough money to just sign up to services and buy copies of the movies I wanted I stopped torrenting forever. It’s easy and I’m not stealing.

Here are my product requirements for a viable alternative to piracy:

1. Availability of any movie or TV show ever made from one service

2. Quality/resolution comparable to what was available when it originally aired (I’m not demanding 4K Seinfeld)

3. No DRM

4. No restriction on downloading/timeshifting

5. Playable on all my devices including Linux and iOS, using my choice of playback software

6. Playable no matter what “region” I happen to be in

7. Original language audio + subs. Dubs are a nice bonus

8. Streaming not an important or necessary feature

9. Slick UI not important or necessary

Provide that and let’s talk price. Note none of the above are technical challenges or areas of active research. They are already all solved by the pirates.

> given the effort it took to migrate users away from piracy and toward legitimate services in the first place. The primary lesson learned during that experience is you need to compete with . It's not really a choice. It's real, it's impossible to stop.

This lesson seems utterly forgotten.

The fatigue is real, and more often than not I’m not finding anything I’m looking for on any of the subscription-based streaming services I’m paying for.

So I’m cancelling all of them.

My fallback: iTunes on my AppleTV has good choice in movies I can buy, and I usually find what I’m looking for there.

What’s not quickly meets the Plex.

Ironically, in the old days everyone used to complain that they couldn't pay for just the cable channels they watch, you had to accept the whole bundle. Now you pay for the channels separately. Yay?

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is some users might consider subscribing to a more expensive (like $20-$70/mo) streaming service if it has content-sharing deals and a promise of no ads or availability windows. There is definitely an enthusiast market out there that wants the best quality and experience, and having to use several different streaming services that may not have what you want to watch when you want to watch it is not a great experience when compared to some of the less legitimate options.

People forget you don't need to pay for all of them yourself. About 5 people share the Netflix I use. I suppose someone else will get Disney and give me access.

This is a tragedy of the commons scenario.

Instead of (all numbers illustrative):

Group A: 100%

group B gets jealous and does:

Group A: 25%, Group B: 25%, Piracy: 50%

As long as B's shareholders are happy (0->25%) then "who cares".

So instead of owning the video files and having them on my hard drive, I should pay subscription fee as long as I want to watch it? Ok, that's a compromise I can agree to. Now, there are unskippable ads at the beginning and in the middle of the video? Hmmm, that's not what we agreed for. Wait, TWO UNSKIPPABLE ADS at the begginning? Fuck no, fuck never again I'm using any of these services.

I want a device like a Roku.

I don't want to think in terms of channels (streaming choices like Amazon Prime, Netflix, Google Play, CBS, Disney+, etc.)

I'd like to think in terms of content and suggestions.

I want the Roku to completely hide the channel (streaming provider) from me.

In addition to paying membership to Netflix, I want to be able to purchase content, too. I really appreciate Movies Anywhere. I hope more content can fall under umbrellas like that.

I'm sticking to Netflix. I get Prime video because I have Amazon prime, the moment they charge a penny more for it. I'll drop it. I have Hulu because I got promotion from Spotify, I might keep it if it's less than $10. That's really it. Everything else has to be either free youtube/online videos or DVD, but I'm not subscribing to anymore streaming services.

First time commenting so excuse me if I say something wrong, I believe there should be something similar to cable for these streaming platforms like a company that pays the companies to stream their content on their service for a smaller price for the consumers that way we won't be forced to pay for some many services all at once, the cable concept is starting to make sense.

Need to change "May" for "Will"

So far, my go-to has been Vudu. Sure, you have to rent/buy. But $3 to watch that movie you're itching to watch, or $9 to own is very reasonable.

When I was a teenager and Napster was huge, casual piracy was a thing. Now that I make digital things that I ask people to pay me for, I think differently.

which means what?

nothing, people who pirate stuff will always have an excuse to do so. don't kid yourself into believing they are paying for content out of the goodness of their heart. they are paying only because they don't have a consistent free means to get the same content.

so the next big fight will probably be someone trying to sell a service combining/bundling feeds and running into copy right issues and such. it might lead to an association of services but that depends on how fragmented the industry becomes.

if anything with many players it should drive sub costs down especially for players who have little to offer themselves. if not there will be a lot of industry suffering until they sort it out. consumers will likely stick with one or two providers at most

I'm not seeing how it gonna drive people "back" if one click downloads never ceased to be a prime option even for people in developed countries.

When I was studying in college in Canada in 2010-2012, I never ever saw a single student using a paid download site.

There should be an open standard for streaming/accessing videos I have purchased that is independent of the platform. I should have a single pane of glass to view netflix/amazon/etc w/o having to use a specific application.

My main issue is still that a lot of movies I want to pay for and see is not available, or that subtitles are missing or not working.

This has made me stop purchasing movies, stopped subscriptions and instead invest in a smaller fee for a good VPN connection.

So many good things streaming can't serve you.

Eg.

The Last of the Mohicans.

Wanted to watch it last night. Had to do some tricks...

It would be nice if this trend to fragmentation uses more segmentation based on ages and interests. For example: I never watch kids shows or action movies but my money is also invested on that kind of content.

I had just written a note to myself yesterday: "Piracy occurs because the economics of content distribution is broken, not because people inherently want to steal." And then saw this.

If you want to steal, you're going to steal.

In terms of video streaming choices ... yeah, it's going to be the case there will be a few of those. What's the alternative? Netflix gets a monopoly?

The problem is not too many choices. It's actually the lack of choice. Each series is going to a different streaming platform which means we have to pick up more stream services

Something else that is really annoying is how the various services have different controls. It is really necessary to change how fast forward / rewind work in each app?

In other news: Here deregulation of taxi services made people use taxi services less. Competition does not always mean more accessible or affordable consumer options.

Well this is how the 'economically optimal' Netflix looks like - the Netflix everyone loved was an unsustainable customer acquisition campaign.

I've been trying to avoid it but the current streaming landscape is making it pretty hard to stay legit without spending a large sum of money

People want aggregation, it will come back in some form. The new streaming landscape is much too fragmented...kind of like the Airline industry.

It certainly will. With the Office and P&R going to "Peacock" my wife's first command to me was "...get them...".

I've been buying my shows on iTunes to avoid both paying for 10 different streaming services and piracy.

Yup, I can tell you right now the only subscriptions I have are to Netflix and Real Debrid.

I wonder how many people subscribe to Netflix but torrent want the want from HBO?

Could a global license system be implemented to solve that problem?

Where does most video piracy happen these days, post-Pirate Bay?

Oh yeah.

Simpsons is a prime example. As a european i can't watch it anywhere

It's not just that there is too many. They also all try to shove stuff down your throat in an Amazon like manner while providing a rather crappy service. They've been accumulating bad PR for a couple of years now.

I mean - Netflix knows that they have a lot of shit content that no one in their right mind wants to watch. They also won't allow you to hide that stuff in any real way. Their search is also rather hostile and definitely not aimed at helping you find what you want.

And HBO - I literally subscribed just for John Oliver. And now I can watch it within minutes of it airing on YT, but have to wait days for it to show up in their service. Used to be the same with GoT. Thanks, but no thanks.

From the diary of "no shit, Sherlock" ...

it's not the "choices" it's having to pay each one of their monthly fee

may drive HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH

.onion tpb is easier to use and much clearner than ever

bundling - unbundling - bundling

TPB (mirror) here we come

May?

I've been saying this for 3 years now. People were good with it was just a Netflix subscription. Now it's Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, Apple Music, Prime Video, Prime Music, Apple TV+, Apple News+, Disney+, HBO Go, and on and on.

It's gonna end like this:

share a netflix account with friends for kids while the adults watch movies and tv shhows on popocorn time.

Good point

When there are too many options it's becoming too much of an hassle to actually choose something

Just think on yourself getting into a restaurant with a massive menu, choosing a dish will be hard

on the other hand, a pop up restaurant with 3 dishes will make the dinner much more fun for everyone (that's from my expirience at least)

My ISP (UK, Sky) has recently started blocking torrent/magnet sites. So I'm not convinced.

The children at my children's preschool seem to be split into Netflix master race and Prime peasants.

Ugh, I am so sick of the "if all of the content I ever want isn't available for less than a single $10 a month sub, I'll pirate it" nonsense. Netflix was never going to be the be-all, end-all of content and its time our generation grew up a little bit.

For the amount of content you could get in a traditional cable package, you should expect to pay about as much as a traditional cable package.