Hacker News Reader

Comment by spwa4 | Hacker News Reader

But you must realize, the alternative to this is that some very wealthy Spanish companies ... lose a small amount of money.

Surely you understand now. Go about your business, poor person.

View on HN

They don't even "lose a small amount of money." They simply gain less money than usual for a short period of time. Think of how rough that is for them.

I think it's even that they "gain less money than they could if everyone watching illegally would pay for it when they could not watch illegally" (that's usually how companies crying "piracy" calculate "losses" — "let's assume everyone watching illegally would certainly still watch it and pay the full price").

I once remember reading an article about shareholders selling off a stock because the rate of increase in profit had slowed.

There is nothing wrong with that. Stock price is based on perceived future value , not current company profits.

Arguably they even gain more money in the long run, because more people have access to their entertainment and they have more opportunities to form life long connections with consumers.

This isn't quite right either. It's "they gain less money than they might potentially gain if piracy weren't physically possible". If the piracy avenues didn't exist, how many people would actually pay full price to the legitimate sources, and how many people would simply go without?

In all fairness, the Spanish economy is a mine, a farm and a soccer league in a trenchcoat. Better than Ireland which is 2 tax shelters in a trenchcoat, but not by much. Not surprisingly, they are the 2 most left leaning countries in Europe. To be fair, they had an actual fascist government in Spain for several decades and there were atrocities committed.

Ireland, the country with 2 center right parties that differ with regards to patronage networks and political history from 1940, is one of the most left-wing leaning countries in Europe?

Eh, ireland is unique in that it has a centre-right coalition making it de facto one party. The main opposition, Sinn Fein, is about the same size as Fine Gael and Fianna Fail and might overtake Fine Gael at some point

Right. So, no left wing party, not even a center left party, has been in power in Ireland in its history. But I'm supposed to believe that it's one of the most left wing countries in Europe?

in spirit it is, at least at its core. The irish revolution and civil war had strong socialist undertones

Reply on news.ycombinator.com