So your thesis is that piracy is cheaper. Ok thanks.
Once upon a time, Netflix itself was considered the case in point! Then video streaming splintered into a dozen services and now Netflix has decided to make things even more complicated. People don't learn, I guess.
The truth is that Netflix could continue profiting billions per year more or less indefinitely without risking the company by shifting focus from growth, and the only people who would be upset about it would be shareholders. And the only reason they'd be upset is because of greed. They could stop trying to grow and be a strong dividend company overnight.
Nothing grows forever, so in fact this "grow at all costs" mentality forces many otherwise healthy companies that could maintain a nice break-even with some dividend to pay into doing stupid short-term thinking and desperate financial engineering and then in time collapse and go into bankruptcy.
> First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
"Tiktok's enshittification", by Cory Doctorow
Yet nearly everyone complaining here today about Netflix is complaining about the price.
A couple extra taps is not sufficient friction to claim that “service” is the problem.
There's mental overhead from having multiple services, as well as the price.
At some point you just decide it's not worth the hassle.
Or call up a cable or satellite TV company and had to have equipment installed and pay equipment rental fees, and watch whatever was on without any control.
It is, objectively, pretty easy and convenient to watch what you want, when you want (assuming you are in the right jurisdiction). The only question remains is, are you willing to pay the amount the seller asks?
Sure, between Netflix, HBO, Disney, Paramount, etc, etc, etc... all with their own "exclusives".
So to watch what you want, when you want, you would need to pay multiple monthly fees and deal with the aforementioned mental overhead of multiple subscriptions to manage.
At least in the old video store days, one only had to go to a single video store.
Now they're even differentiating by the quality of the stream. That's more consumer-hostile arbitrary garbage that the video store never had. Who in their right mind would pay for blurry SD streaming nowadays, when even phones are 4k? But of course there's no single HD stream plan available.
Piracy is unfortunately relatively easier and more convenient, and that's a failure of the entertainment industry. Not to mention the terrible quality of the average show... and the fact that shows that you've "purchased" go missing from streaming sites randomly... and now they're putting ads in there. The downward spiral is now.
The price of the service isn't the problem, which is why everyone I know has a netflix account (we'll see how long that stays true) it's the cost of what they're turning the service into while charging more and more that's the problem.
If you want artists in this world, you must support them. If you don't, be honest and don't complain about service.
Games are much better in pirate releases where you are not riddled with bullshit launchers and online "services". Music, Audiobooks and Movie rips shared on the high seas are of much superior quality and high-efficiency encodings than those provided by Netflix and Spotify. And don't even get me started on Book DRMs. Not to mention the things you paid for can be taken away without consequence at any time in these services. So keep your "anti-artist" rhetoric to yourself, most of those scared of piracy are often just scared of losing out on their cheap income in fears that more people will realise the actual quality of the "art" before buying than they would have.
A lot of art was created without financial incentive.
In fact, financial incentive ruins art in a lot of ways.
Even if your area allows it for "backups" or interop, you're making it available in multiple locations at once. I'm sure it wouldn't take much to demonstrate this was some sort of performance or other act explicitly disallowed by the EULA. But I'm sure you're just sharing Big Buck Bunny ;)
My point isn't that it's illegal, only that it's disingenuous enough to suggest it is legal. Plex definitely lies in a grey area of tolerated home use, with features that turn it into a piracy nightmare.