Netflix Is Why AT&T bought Time Warner, and Comcast and Disney want Fox

For example, suppose where you live there is a monopoly ISP-cable conglomerate, you cannot afford to move away, and you are literally unable to consume from any other ISP / cable level provider.

For some content, like watching European soccer in the US, this situation can mean that you are literally prevented from properly paying money to see that content, even though providers exist who can take your money and give you the content. It might even come down to your specific zip code, street, or even apartment building in some cities, where a content provider is case-by-case prevented from selling their content to certain residents purely based on whether a certain ISP has a monopoly on that location.

Telling the consumer to just not watch seems morally hollow in that specific case (which is a really common case). The customer wants to pay, and a third-party wants to give the content, but a rent-seeking middleman that the consumer has no control over (ISP) can limit the customer’s choices. The customer cannot do what the market would suggest and take their business elsewhere to incentivize the services they want, and because of the ubiquitous need for internet connectivity to conduct basic life duties, totally boycotting the monopoly ISP is functionally not an option. (Really, it would not be reasonable to suggest such a drastic option.)

I don’t see any ethical reason why the consumer should just accept being worse off (in terms of planned consumption), since it’s pure rent-seeking and value destruction on the part of the ISP, which the consumer is literally prevented from rejecting.

Many other ISP behaviors are likewise just artificial rent-seeking attempts, to construct artificial tiering, bundling, etc., which the consumer is prevented from “not buying” because the service provider is often literally a monopoly.

I’m just curious if you take an extreme view of this, that the ISPs or monopoly providers “are right” to use their monopoly position to introduce artificial rent-seeking opportunities? And that if a customer must choose between either paying the rent-seeking premium, stealing the content, or not consuming at all, that the customer should accept that the ISP / content provider’s ability to inflict this situation (through what are unequivocally antitrust violations that are just not punished solely because of regulatory capture) does indees mean the consumer just should opt to not consume at all?

Essentially, “because ISPs spend money on regulatory capture, I should accept living a worse life by not consuming at all rather than watching illegally.”

Why wouldn't I take advantage of every possible opportunity and technology to participate in our shared culture?

and has everyone's original content.

Ok. Piracy will be made harder and harder, to the point where it will be inaccessible to mainstream. This also means that the tech savvy pirates will be more exposed.

>If studios weren't greedy and produced objectively garbage content I would buy a product on faith but in a world where there are how many Pirates of the Caribbean movies, I'll be more skeptical.

That entire paragraph is weirdly nonsensical. You don't have an ineliable right to watch movies, you aren't the universal judge of movie quality (lots of people like the Pirates of the Caribbean movies), and you aren't entitled to dictate how you want the business of media to operate (i.e. you get to pick how much or how little you pay). It's one thing to pirate, it's another to think you're a 'good guy'.