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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Are you saying it is easier for the average person to download a Torrent than sign up for Netflix? Because that is absolutely not the case.

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It's easier for the average person to download a Torrent than sign up for Netflix, find out that the thing they wanted isn't there, try to look where it would be available, find services that say it has it, sign up for that, find out that it is available there only for other countries, and when you finally find it somewhere it's not with the language dubbing/subtitiles that you want - meanwhile, the same option you couldn't get legally is easily available on torrents where it Just Works.

The illegal services are strong when they win on selection and availability; in markets where it is easier to just sign up for Netflix (I assume they exist, perhaps you live in one of them) undoubtedly privacy gets less popular. And Netflix is a good example, I know people who view on Netflix stuff that's there and pirate the stuff that's not.

How do you sign up for netflix without a credit card?

How do you sign up for netflix if your total monthly budget us $40?

There's a lot of groups for whom torrents are easier than netflix.

(Even in forst world Germany, an affordable CC is hard to come by)

> (Even in forst world Germany, an affordable CC is hard to come by)

For kids, yes. For adults, you can get "free" bank accounts with a credit card. Might not get much of a credit limit, but you can always move money onto the card beforehand.

That heavily depends. Most banks (excluding Bunq, DKB and N26) only offer a "free" CC with a paid account, or a paid CC with a free account.

Even branded products like e.g. the Amazon CC or the BahnCard CC have an additional monthly fee on top of everything else.

(A significant factor being that the EU has a limit on CC fees of 0.2%, which is exactly the same cost as cash costs on average, and is almost twice the cost of the GiroCard system. The second largest factor is simply that Germans usually don't go into debt, so all the profitable traps the CC companies have designed won't work)

Don't the three options you listed show that it's not hard to get one?

They make it easy to get a debit card (CC costs extra even with those banks) - but you can only use it at an ATM 5 times (usually per month or per year), you have fees if you use it for certain purposes, and you can’t get a regular GiroCard (which is free, always and for all purposes).

So sure, you can get a debit card for free, but that's got so many asterisks attached, it's not worth it.

No, I mean websites like putlocker etc.

It's still not easier than netlfix or any major video store.

Those sites have 50x the amount of tracking, popups, spam and straight up malware than even the most intrusive commercial product out there.

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