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Comment by itake | Hacker News Reader

JW, why pay for these services? Private trackers are still free and have all the content..

Some paid pirate services actually do offer good value for the money. I’ve used a torrent caching service that has any torrent that lets me cap my gigabit connection for any torrent that has been crawled by them or user-uploaded, in practice this is a lot, and if they don’t have it, they will act as a client and acquire it for you, including seeding it for as long as you’d like. It costs $1-2 USD a month, well worth it for me.

Paid pirate IPTV streams can have better speeds, better reliability, and less or no ads. I don’t personally watch live TV so I don’t use these services, but if I did I would definitely pay a small amount for the conveniences above.

Real Debrid are having a bit of an enforced change of policy regarding the content that they cache.

What are they changing?

https://torrentfreak.com/real-debrid-implements-extreme-anti...

There are a lot more debrid providers out there, but they are one of the more recognizable names.

You can even self-host your own:

https://github.com/debridmediamanager/zurg-testing

Lots more debrid info, services, and tools here:

https://github.com/debridmediamanager/awesome-debrid

I think the point is more that the noose is now tightening on these kinds of services. Real Debrid was the first top be targetted because they appear to be the biggest / most popular (from what comes across my monitor anyway), so I'd assume that wherever the bulk of those specific customers move to will be the next target.

(I don't totally grok what service 'Debrid' provides, but various people seem to rave about it. Currently looking up more information. Summary: Aggregator of premium access to a seclection of file hosting sites, plus caching of content that's popular amongst their Customers)

Sure, but each case has to be tried on its own merits. It’s a cat and mouse game, not a certainty of enforcement.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see that behavior of pirate streaming sites such as clones and (modified) limited hangouts as aspects of strategies to combat enforcement while segmenting the market to increase profits and/or limit exposure to downside risks.

Debrid services act as a shared cache of requested torrents/magnet links as well as digital locker services sold as upsells on a premium tier. It’s facilitated as a WebDAV API and/or direct HTTPS downloads generated via unique hashlists that encode magnet links.

It can be incorporated into search addons for things like Stremio or Kodi or Jellyfin or Plex so it’s basically just-in-time streaming from a cache that just-in-time downloads a torrent or digital locker file, backed by a time-based cache that usually is provided by the debrid provider, similar to how paid newsgroup providers advertise retention, but also with downward pressure to avoid long-lived links to avoid DMCA takedowns.

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

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

Can anyone explain on technical terms what Real Debrid is? I tried Googling and all I get are layman explanations like "provides access to premium hosts" which doesn't make any sense.

Also what a terrible name it is. Why Real? Is there an original Debrid? And I can't not associate the word with debridement (don't google if you can't handle gore)

https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-does-debrid-mean-jzfY2...

That explanation kinda linked together concepts I'd previously read about "debrid" services.

My summary of what they do (from further down the thread) was: Aggregator of premium access to a selection of file hosting sites, plus caching of content that's popular amongst their Customers.

I'm not sure of the applications of their service outside of streaming (copyrighted material), so I'd be a little bit wary of their potential for longevity of service. Never bet on centralised piracy.

aspenmayer also had somewhat of an explanation downthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42293386

In my country, people can't pay internationally, so their only option (especially for sports coverage) is pirated IPTV networks which are very popular in here and are sold everywhere.

I don't watch live television myself so I don't know how good and reliable these services are.

Private trackers (at least, the "good ones") take time and effort to get into and stay in... most people just want convenience.

paying per mo is certainly more convenient I guess. but once you are in, there isn't a cost to stay in. Some trackers might boot you if you don't log in once every 3-6 mo.

I am curious. If you are willing to pay for the convenience, why not just pay the original service providers?

Is it much less expensive?

Over here it's a fair bit less expensive because it just has everything. On normal streaming platforms dubbed shows aren't always there and because the market is small a lot of things are just not available anywhere legally

Not the OP, but when you go down the illegal route, it is much easier to find whatever you want to watch, watch it on any device with no limitations, etc. The fragmentation and limitations of the usual big services is a nuisance.

Less expensive yes, but more importantly much more convenient. When 'all' the shows exist on a combination of Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Paramount, Disney+, and Max... you can easily get to $100/mo+ if you were to subscribe to all of them. Then, if you want to watch something from an international viewership, it might not even be available in your region. In addition, you now have to figure out which service offers what program... which for certain not-current shows can be maddening (some seasons on some services, some on others, some not even available).

As GabeN has stated: piracy is a service problem, not a pricing problem.

I think the answer is that is not nearly as convenient as original service providers would claim it is. I am in US and we just went through a crazy period of everyone and their mother trying to start their own streaming service. Good portion went under, some consolidated, but the market fragmentation leading to actual content you want to see being spread across multiple services is an annoyance.

I will provide a concrete example. My buddy got into anime and was raving about one specific title so I checked Hulu for it, but Hulu, for some unfathomable reason starts that anime at season 4.. If I want to legally Stream season one, I would need to try the Sony owned anime thing, which I refuse to do for reasons not related to streaming wars. I ended up buying a dvd ( cheap and good enough quality for me ).

And pirates... have everything and, unless you are looking for newest releases, is of superior quality.

Yes I believe so. Probably in the region of €150 a year for everything and you can watch in up to 5 devices.

Movies, apple TV, netflix, Amazon, Disney, hbo, sports PPV

I used to run one of these. People would pay because (a) we had TV shows that literally were not available through any streaming service, (b) people wanted real downloads they could hoard.

Some content people want to watch is live, which can be challenging to publish and disseminate as a torrent.

Because people want to it live? It says they were redistributing IPTV which is essentially cable over the Internet.

No? IPTV is a protocol. You can send on-demand movies etc too.

It is literally the specification to send live tv over IP. The fact some services also support on demand movies is irrelevant to the fact the service in question is for live tv.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol_television

You send an MPEG transport stream. The contents are arbitrary and can be anything you want, live TV, movies, etc.

Which doesn’t change the fact the protocol was literally designed for TV and the service in question was selling television stream access.

I never said it doesn't support live tv. But I was trying to point out that people who pay for the above service are not _necessarily_ interested in the live tv feature. I.e. it's not the reason for some. I'd guess convenience.

Convenience, I guess. I'm not that deep into the piracy world that I even know of all my alternatives, to be honest.

I pay a reasonable subscription fee, download the app on all my devices, and watch whatever I want.

The app is compatible with all of my devices, isn't broken, there are no unreasonable limits or restrictions, and no ads. That's a lot more than I can say for the 5 or 6 subscriptions it replaces.

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