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Comment by rkangel | Hacker News Reader

The remarkable thing about Popcorn Time was how easy it made watching anything you wanted to. To me, the fact that it could only do that by pirating was a downside. I don't want to pirate, I want to pay, but there's nothing on the market that has the range.

This solves a major current usability issue with the legal streaming market - that different providers have different things on offer and you have to go and search around to find whether you want to be on Netflix or Amazon Prime.

What it doesn't solve is the major issue with the streaming market - watching TV shows as they are broadcast rather than 6 months later as a box set.

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I agree with all of that. I think this site has a lot of value as an aggregator. It doesn't solve the Popcorn Time problem though because it doesn't make legally streaming movies easy. It just makes them easier to find them. That's not the same. It feels too much like they're trying to ride the wave of Popcorn time's success despite having very little in common.

My main point in writing the critique is just that if you invite a comparison between your product and another you should make sure that they're actually comparable and that yours will come out on top. Otherwise you'll turn what could have been a warm reception into a cold one.

For me Popcorn Time's biggest value proposition is not free content, but ability the selection and ability to watch with one click. Most media companies, with all the resources at their hands still haven't nail the experience. To find the movie I want I really need to browse multiple catalogues (itunes, amazon, netflix) - neither of them always have what I want. Then you have to login, updates cards and all this hassle.

So although right now their sites just aggregates, in the future it could allow you to prepay/buy credits which would be used to pay off the content owner/distributor (i.e amazon) each time you click Play.

Point being - to me it make complete sense to compare it PT

Wasn't that one of the original aims of GoogleTV? There were loads of shows legally available for streaming on network sites and on subscription services (in addition to live broadcast or cable) so you could search for a show or a movie and it would list all the places you could watch it at that time. Alternately you could browse by other criteria.

If I remember correctly, network sites and services like Hulu blocked GoogleTV via user agent strings and other methods because they wanted their streaming content to only be used as a secondary method of watching while at your computer, not on your living room TV and placed on and even footing with cable or (heaven forbid) independent/user-generated content.

Seems that happened pretty early on in GTV's product history and essentially put a damper on the sort of adoption that would have warranted further improvement of the service.

> To me, the fact that it could only do that by sharing was a downside… I don't want to freeride, I want to pay.

FTFY

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