Netflix became popular because it was easier then piracy.
With more and more content silo's (Apple, HBO, Prime, etc.) and Netflix creating friction like this I wonder how long before we are back to people pirating stuff like it's 2005.
With more and more content silo's (Apple, HBO, Prime, etc.) and Netflix creating friction like this I wonder how long before we are back to people pirating stuff like it's 2005.
But now, every second show is one yet another platform. I don’t even start with movies… So I’m back to using torrent because it simply became easier: there is one place to find everything.
With all the people saying they pirate for convenience, not for cost, maybe enough of them would pay to be “legal” to make it worthwhile for rights owners to collect that money.
You could be Netflix minus the distribution issues.
It's going to be a cold day in hell when any of Apple, Netflix, HBO, Disney, Amazon, etc. license their own produced content for anything else then their own streaming service.
It would allow you to paste a magnet / torrent link and it would start streaming the file to you. Ironically I found it cause it was posted on hacker news. As you can guess it was shut down immediately
It works amazingly. They download everything for you, you can stream directly and even on your tv via their app or chrome cast or you download on your computer or phone. Seriously, the experience is as good as Netflix. It’s 10USD a month and you have access to everything you can think of.
It is especially good combined with Chill Institute. I can get nearly anything on my television from idea to streaming in < 15 seconds. I can’t program, but I’d like to figure out how to turn this into a Siri shortcut…
I do some googling and it's available on Prime, for $20 a season. Fine. Whatever. Go to checkout but can't pay because I need a US bank account?
Next weekend I spent a bit of time setting up the arrs and life has been great. Open Overseerr on my phone, request a TV show or movie, arrs do their magic, and within ~10-60 minutes I can watch it on any of my devices through Plex. The ecosystem of Overseerr, Sonarr/Radarr, Prowlarr, Bazarr, Plex.. and whatever *downloadclient+vpn) is just super well integrated. This all being a bunch of simple docker-compose files makes it accessible for anyone who has a little bit of technical skills and a free afternoon.
I still have spotify but honestly also thinking of cancelling it, I'm stuck in my bubble anyway. Paying 10 euros a month for the same few albums just isn't worth it.
All media companies need to do is setup a subscription based private tracker and host their content there. It's cheaper for them, more convenient for users, but no, can't let users consume content on their own terms now, can we? Psychological control is the only means to growth.
I can only speak for myself but I'm trading streaming services entirely for other activities and cancelling every streaming service purchased over the pandemic save the one or two my wife deems critical. Personally I'm just as happy to listen to a podcast or read a book, or even turn to creative pursuits like learning a new language. I wish more technical books were available on Amazon's Kindle Unlimited.
It really didn't. Lots of people do not pirate. It became popular because it was cheap, and sold content for less than it cost Netflix to acquire or make it, and subsidised that with debt to built marketshare.
Now those days are coming to an end, Netflix is running out of road to borrow money, and it needs to bring in a sustainable amount of revenue or it will go away.
It looks like I'm headed back that way for music too. I'm a huge fan of rap and Death Row recently removed some of their most popular releases for the sake of NFTs?[0] This isn't how you get customers to go buy your music, it's a great way to piss them off and get your music for free. It's becoming a seemingly regular thing, with artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell removing their libraries where possible.
You can even look at Steam with their relatively wild success in Russia; GabeN himself has said "It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates"[1] that you realize it's not a pricing issue, it's an availability issue. It's a similar deal with Netflix, if we're browsing through movies we probably want to watch one right now, not wait a few hours to download one or go to a store to rent a disc.
[0]: https://thesource.com/2022/03/14/snoop-dogg-removes-most-of-...
[1]: https://www.pcgamer.com/gabe-newell-on-piracy-and-steams-suc...
Netflix became popular because it was easier than driving to the video store. Then they added streaming and it was popular because Netflix was already popular.