Hacker News Reader

Comment by purpleblue | Hacker News Reader

I'm at the precipice of getting rid of most of my streaming services.

I only keep Amazon video around is because it's free. The only show I watch on that is The Boys. I'm waiting for Netflix to ask me to purchase a second account for my sibling who I share my Netflix account with, and when that happens I'll immediately cancel it. There's nothing there I watch anymore. Disney+ has a slew of failed Marvel shows and I cancelled it early on. Hulu, Peacock and the rest of the services have nothing for me.

The only quality content is HBO that I'm willing to pay $15/month for. I also pay for Youtube premium because no matter how much I try to force the issue, my kids watch Youtube the way I watch TV, so I'd rather get rid of all the ads. Everything else, I will pirate without guilt.

View on HN

> Everything else, I will pirate without guilt.

Are you unwilling or unable to pay for the remaining content you plan to consume?

I’ve never understood how flippant HN is about piracy. The entire tech industry is built on intellectual property.

I suspect your view is going to be unpopular but I agree with you. It's fine to find today's selection of streaming TV awful. Just don't watch it. "I'm going to watch this awful thing, I'm just not going to pay for it" isn't really all that defensible as a viewpoint.

Declining streaming revenue means the expensive, good shows will get cancelled and replaced by shitty, cheap to make reality TV. And then people will moan about how all the good TV they used to pirate got cancelled.

Plenty of good shows get cancelled even without piracy, though. One wonders what’s the best way to signal to the suits that a show is in hot demand. Maybe by buying it directly or by being a Nielsen viewer.

The best way to support a show you like is by being a million people. :-)

When it comes to streaming content, the suits have all the data. It comes down to the simple formula of does this show keep and attract subscribers in sufficient numbers to make its production costs worthwhile.

They might have all the data but they still might make questionable decisions. As often pointed out, Netflix’s strategy of cancelling shows after a season or two has prevented them from fostering productions that could have benefited from gaining a foothold both narratively and with an audience, leading to a negative reputation from viewers.

https://youtu.be/64QS38epsgk

It would be interesting if in the age of “interactive” audiences who freely choose content, if streaming services could try to mix up the relationship. Somehow charge die-hard fans a commitment to a show by serving them ads, perhaps. Something like the ransom model:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_pledge_system

In any case, streamers looking at short-term numbers cause them to axe promising shows and cult classics before they have a chance to prove themselves. Which is something network TV has always done, see FOX in the 2000s, but you’d think with interactive technology and evolving formats they would experiment with new ways of going about it. There’s more to running a network than a simple cost-benefit formula.

Like flying a banner over Bezos house? Like The Expanse fans did.

My problem is that I get treated like a criminal despite being a paying customer. For example:

* Purchasing a show on Google grants me a license to stream it from their servers using their clients. If they ever lose the license, I lose access to my content. For some reason I can't just download an mkv file with the movie I purchased.

* If I stream Netflix, I am limited to 720p on linux (drm)

* Netflix only works at 1080p on my 4k TV because it doesn't support the latest form of DRM

In all of these cases I am being given a sub-par experience despite trying to legally acquire the content, and for what gain? The content is still getting pirated..

I don't mind paying for content. You made a thing I enjoy, so I will compensate you for it.

However, I am not a pawn to be jerked around. Content comes to me, I don't go to it. I'm not going to search a dozen streaming sites for the thing I want. I'm not going to follow you to another streaming site because you wanted to segregate New Star Trek and old Star Trek into different platforms.

I have paid accounts with streaming sites. If your content isn't on it, that's on you for opting out of being paid.

> Content comes to me, I don't go to it. I'm not going to search a dozen streaming sites for the thing I want. I'm not going to follow you to another streaming site because you wanted to segregate New Star Trek and old Star Trek into different platforms.

I can’t think of any industry that works like that. I can’t buy a new Toyota at a Chevrolet dealership. If my local Target doesn’t carry something, I have to go to another store. Even Amazon, as expansive as their selection is, doesn’t carry everything.

If I subscribe to National Geographic, it doesn’t mean I can grab this weeks copy of Newsweek from the local news stand gratis.

You could do that if you go to the library instead of the newsstand. So really the solution to balkanized streaming isn’t to pirate, but to patronize libraries.

(One wonders if the the first sale doctrine which allows public libraries to check out e-books can also be applied to streaming media- perhaps Apple or Amazon can cut a deal with libraries for them to buy up episodes of shows which then can be borrowed by cardholders!)

I couldn’t agree more! Libraries are so underutilized and underrated. Best of all, they are completely legal. Most of them also offer digital media, DVDs, and video games to borrow as well.

> The entire tech industry is built on intellectual property.

That's absolute bullshit.

Companies used to provide detailed schematics. Source code was shared freely by manufacturers. Micro-soft (when they had the hyphen) was one of the first to push for this change and responsible for making things "closed", writing letters to people asking them to stop making unlicensed copies of their Basic compiler.

The hardware companies still made heavy use of intellectual property. IBM mainframes were heavily patented. The manuals they shipped with were copyrighted. The software was just mostly seen as an implementation detail and its value independent of hardware hadn’t occurred to most people yet.

Also, like it not, companies like Microsoft drove the tech industry forward during the eighties and nineties because of them creating an industry where software has its own monetary value independent of the hardware it ships with.

Even open source as we know it would not exist without intellectual property laws. The GPL and similar licenses are only enforceable because of copyright.

Alright, then the argument becomes "why should we care about the industry?"

Much like Big Tech, I would be happy to see the complete obliteration of Hollywood.

Yes the tech industry is built on intellectual property but the movie/TV industry is built on false scarcity. The music industry used to follow this model until the advent of Spotify. We had a brief time at the advent of streaming where it looked like Movie/TV was going this way, but they reversed course. I have a Netflix subscription, if you want a cut of that subscription, by all means show your content on Netflix and I'll watch it there. Add it to prime or whatever too, but I'm not maintaining ten subscriptions.

This makes no sense. The entire software industry is also built on false scarcity (that is how it has managed to offer so many high paying jobs). Your same argument could be rewritten for software in the same way.

I have a <Microsoft 365> subscription, if you want a cut of that subscription, by all means show your <software> on <Microsoft 365> and I'll <use> it there. Add it to <Google workspace> or whatever too, but I'm not maintaining ten subscriptions.

> the movie/TV industry is built on false scarcity

What is the “false scarcity”?

Think of it as the Spotify model vs the Netflix model.

In the music world, basically all music is available on all platforms. I can listen to basically anything on Spotify.

In the Netflix model, it's all exclusives. Everything is spread all over the place.

I associate “false scarcity” with the case where one company or a cartel dominates an industry and limits output as a way to raise prices (control supply).

However, when it comes to movies a TV, that’s not the case. There are many studios around the world and they want to have a direct-to-consumer relationship (for various reasons), vs having no consumer relationship.

Put differently, it isn’t that there’s scarcity of output (in fact, many people complain there’s too much so it is hard to find something great to watch), it is that you (and others) want to have a one stop shop to satisfy all your TV and movie watching needs. But how would that work? Force all content producers to not be able to distribute their work or to have direct to consumer relationships? And then have 1 (several?) companies limited to distribution (and they aren’t allowed to also be studios, must it be country specific or must it be global and what regulatory body would govern that)? Etc.

They're limiting output to their own platform as a way to force you to use it. Instead of raised prices they're squeezing a subscription out of you.

Instead of complaining about piracy, put your content on all platforms. There's a clear correlation between the return of exclusives and increased piracy. Drop prices/make it more available and you'll displace piracy (there'll be a structural level of piracy always, they can't change that but this is beside the point).

This is exactly what I mean.

Software intellectual property is (for better or worse) primarily enshrined in patents, which have a limited exclusive lifetime.

The content industry’s intellectual property is primarily enshrined in copyright, whose exclusive lifetime greatly outstrips most human lifespans.

It’s not contradictory to be for the first and against the second.

Are you for software patents?

I find it more palatable to be for copyright than for software patents.

No, I’m personally against all forms of intellectual property but that’s far outside the mainstream.

The position I describe above is consistent, though. And widely held.

It is interesting to read about the origin of copyright: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

Personally I'm unwilling to reward streaming services for continuing down the path of making their product worse and worse while raising prices. Make no mistake, if subscriptions nosedive they will go back on the multiple household stuff.

Then simply don’t watch it. It’s a very entitled attitude to feel that you are entitled to their content without paying for it.

In your own profession, are the customers entitled to the fruits of your labor free of charge if they don’t feel like paying you for it?

Absolutely spot on. We'd all get very peeved if software we wrote (for sale) was being used without pay because the user felt it "wasn't worth paying for".

If I'm not paying anyway I don't see the problem. I'm totally fine with people using my work without paying if they were never going to pay anyway. In fact i encourage it.

The problem is that you are not entitled to someone else’s property simply because you want it and don’t feel like paying for it.

I’m entitled to anything I can take without harming others.

You’re entitled alright!

> The entire tech industry is built on intellectual property.

The entire tech industry is built on free proyects, open source and collaboration. Modern tech is all about walled gardens and patent rent seeking because most modern tech leaders are awful.

See the always relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2347/

Open source licenses are still grounded in intellectual property laws.

We cut the sub on Netflix last year when they hiked the price. We've re-subbed a single month since then, during the holidays, and we didn't even fill up the month with enough to watch. I'm not sure if that's a discoverability problem, but my sense is that it is a quality problem.

We've now moved to a carousel of rotating subscriptions between Hulu, Disney, HBO, Peacock, etc. It's much cheaper although annoying to manage.

The only streaming services we haven't cancelled have been Prime and Apple TV+, mostly because they are free as part of bundles.

Apple TV+ has had the highest number of favorite shows for us, and has easily been the best value. (Prehistoric Planet, Tiny World, Severance, Silo, Black Bird, For All Mankind, and many others).

Services like https://www.justwatch.com make it easier to track shows as they move from service to service, as well...

> I'm waiting for Netflix to ask me to purchase a second account for my sibling who I share my Netflix account with, and when that happens I'll immediately cancel it. There's nothing there I watch anymore.

If you don’t watch anymore, like you say, then why have a subscription at all?

Sounds like their sibling still uses it.

Recently I only get real value from Sky Showtime, because Star Trek Strange New Worlds is on it.

And considering the way they canceled Prodigy, I do wonder how long SNW will last.

> Everything else, I will pirate without guilt.

I ask this without irony: is there even anything worth sourcing from the high seas these days? Entertainment has largely turned to crap in my opinion.

It depends on what you like, but there is stuff out there. And the pirating is easier because good content is spread so thinly across platforms.

Personally, I enjoy comedies and cooking, and those have done right. I’m kind of over the dramatic HBO-style experience.

Comedies and Cooking are pretty cheap to produce so they are under less pressure.

Hmmm.... I wonder if a comedy series about cooking would bring in viewers? :-)

The anime Food Wars is basically this, satirizing Iron Chef style shows and anime.

Hard to get documentaries, live bootlegs from the users' favorite bands, ...

The "long tail" has moved to the high seas. At least, in my case.

For one thing, there is all of the material getting removed by streaming services either for controversial content or simply because it is no longer profitable for the services to host them.

My plex server is probably 90% things that are over 10 years old. I relatively recently finished Columbo. I don't really have much of a problem pirating something where most of the people who were involved are dead or in a nursing home.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com