Besides, those services often make it difficult to unsubscribe with dark patterns.
Things cost money, that's the world we live in. You don't have to like it, but it is what it is.
The unethical option is actually illegal and, as more people do it, only game theories everyone else into having to pay more. Feel free to do it, not going to pretend I'm a saint on the matter, but don't act all incredulous and morally superior. You're still here complaining you could steal oxy cheaper than pay for it at a pharmacy; just a different fix.
WRT unsubscribing, I can't relate. It's, what, 5 buttons? I do it every other month and it's never been a problem. Isn't this forum supposed to be techies?
Not to mention they're up to $12/month. Creating movies and shows is significantly more expensive than music, so it makes sense the price to a catalogue would be scaled by an order of magnitude. Not to mention the increased costs for digital providers for storage, bandwidth, and compute requirements.
I'm, of course, more than happy to hear about how the reruns of Friends could stay on Netflix since it's just a dispute about perceived value. But the rest? Come on, I know you aren't totally ignorant on the economics of these markets.
The breaking point is generally around 3-4 of the paid streaming services... many people are going to have Amazon as a baseline for shipping... then you get shoved D+ with every kind of bundling (Verizon, etc) under the sum, then Hulu may or may not be attached... People pay for Netflix out of legacy... that doesn't leave much room for Peacock, Paramount+, AppleTV, etc, etc. It's just easier to say f*ck it and pirate.
Hulu was great for the first couple years... minimal ads, new tv shows same or next day. Then the partners all dropped out with greed as primary motivators.
Probably 80% of what is watched is from the last year, a lot of it from the last month. Most of the rest is from the past couple decades. The original US copyright law of 1790 allowed for 28 years.
I mean, I agree current copyright is too long. It's just not that relevant to streaming. Not a lot of people are looking to watch old episodes of Knight Rider for free. (Those who are, I salute you.)
And let's not feign ignorance by saying the overwhelming vast majority of things being watched are exactly that new content, not 30 year old reruns of Frasier.
EDIT: I apologize, only ~2 seasons of Frasier would extend past copyright. It started airing 1993.
Because the only reason we don't have this is a substantial industry devoted to preventing it? Which simultaneously has a terrible rep for exploiting its workers, the pay non-transparency of Netflix, arbitrary cancellation of incomplete series, and the general fiasco that is David Zaslav.
Heck, I'd take "all content made before 2000 at acceptable quality transfers for $20", but the further back you go the more likely it is that the only online supplier of a movie is a pirate.
(Criterion Channel Online is not available in the UK, which is another bugbear: copyright means arbitrary unavailability)