Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#181

Post by bluedino » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 2:26 PM UTC

ed-209 wrote: post #170

I think the golden age of piracy ended when it became impractical for individuals to collect digital media. The streaming services deliver a convenience to consume anything, anywhere which is cost prohibitative for laypersons to replicate by other means. So no - while I'm not opposed ethically, my family would be very frustrated with such a transition.

> when it became impractical for individuals to collect digital media.

When was this? I have a 300mbs internet connection, cheap access to seedboxes and newsgroups, and I can buy a 15TB hard drive at Walmart.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#182

Post by ghaff » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 2:27 PM UTC

vehemenz wrote: post #126

hbn wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that why Netflix killed video stores? I don't know anyone who used it when it had DVD rentals (I don't even know if we had that option in Canada). Myself and most people I know stopped renting videos when we could stream stuff easily.

I think you might be an outlier. Netflix DVD rental was huge in the US—can't speak for Canada though. Everyone I know had it.

Yeah, it was big although it worked better for film than TV. I wish it were still bigger. The fact that so many people seem to think that just renting a physical disk is something weird means that they're really not investing in restocking older films any longer.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#183

Post by Hamuko » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 2:27 PM UTC

neilv wrote: post #156

bunbun69 wrote: post #42

I don't see the need for priracy (yet). To pay for all streaming services I only need to work 1 hour. This is to pay for Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Videoland, Disney+, HBO Max and Sky As for videogames, there's currently a sale on Steam and PSN. That's when I usually buy games. It's very easy to save money but you gotta be patient.

For PSN, I keep a list of games I want to buy as bookmarks to psprices.com. That lets me periodically check what's on sale, and also see how good the current price is, and what the price trend is.

For the PC gaming market, gg.deals can sync with your Steam wishlist and let you know where to get the best deal.

It's actually possible to get Steam games for a better price outside of Steam from official retailers like Voidu or Green Man Gaming that get their Steam keys directly from the publishers.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#184

Post by renegat0x0 » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 2:27 PM UTC

I wish there was less subscription model for movies. I like gog & steam, where I can precisely buy something. This gives incentive for the company to produce good content. Where subscription model does not incentivize company to create a good product.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#185

Post by dns_snek » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 2:27 PM UTC

Thaxll wrote: post #53

chewmieser wrote: post #6

I pirated a lot when I was younger and couldn't afford it. It's a headache I don't need anymore - worrying about VPNs or seedboxes, torrent sites moving to different domains or being shut down, maintaining ratios, letters from your ISP... Nowadays entertainment is quite accessible through subscriptions and I just wait for decent sales on the games I want to play.

You don't need seebox / ratios, trackers don't know how much you really uploaded, as a matter of fact it's your client that send that information, so you can send anything you want.

This is terrible advice. Any tracker worth participating on is monitoring ratio cheating like a hawk.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#186

Post by rpigab » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 2:28 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #133

100011_100001 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing an important thing. Netflix allowed a huge library of DVDs to be rented. You could have 3-4 DVDs on rotation for a rather cheap price. This happened when Blockbuster would charge you $5 per movie, and Netflix would charge $10.99 for unlimited DVDs, but you could only have 3 DVDs checked out. That's why Netflix was huge and killed Video Store rentals.

BTW, this is still the case. https://dvd.netflix.com/ Netflix has never dropped their DVD service even though they wanted to many times. There are still places in the US where broadband is unavailable. Also, due to first sale they don't have same license restrictions as they would on streaming. Once they buy the disc they can rent it as many times they want for as long as they want. I've considered re-adding the DVD…

Funny, I'm not from the US, all I get from https://dvd.netflix.com/ is a 404 page not found error.

Maybe that's the perfect use case for subscription-based VPNs, renting DVDs from an American IP address... Hope it fits through the IP tunnel.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#187

Post by samwillis » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 2:28 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #172

samwillis wrote: post #51

No, but we are at the point where we are going to start cancelling subscriptions. There is more content than we will ever watch. First of the chopping block is Netflix, there just isn't enough really good content to justify it anymore. What we are considering is subscribing for maybe 1-2 months a year, bundle the things we want to see on it then. From our perspective the two most valuable subscriptions are AppleTV+ a…

> What we are considering is subscribing for maybe 1-2 months a year, bundle the things we want to see on it then. Do you see them stopping that ability at some point, and requiring a yearly subscription? I remember the cable companies wouldn't let you start and stop premium channels each month. You'd have to sign up for at least a year.

If they did, at the current rate of content we would then just cancel.

Maybe a pay per series could work, but then that's them admitting that they don't make enough good content to justify a subscription.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#188

Post by Nextgrid » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 2:28 PM UTC

CubsFan1060 wrote: post #19

As I've gotten older, I think my morals have gotten more defined. I no longer think that piracy is acceptable. Someone spends time and money to produce something, and I think they get the right to sell it however they like. My choice, of course, is to pay for the content, or just not to consume it. I don't believe I have an inherent right to consume any content I want for free. The counter argument is usually that a…

On the other hand, not consuming the content vs pirating it doesn't change the outcome for the creator - if anything, piracy is slightly better as it still keeps the content relevant in the collective mindshare so that others who don't pirate (either due to moral or technical reasons) might buy said content.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#189

Post by rootsudo » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 2:29 PM UTC

I don't even know how - what's the best torrent sites nowadays?

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

#190

Post by hn92726819 » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 2:30 PM UTC

no_time wrote: post #174

The only 3 platforms that receive my money are Bandcamp, Itch.io and Steam. The first two are pristine from an ethical standpoint. I'm torn on Steam because it's not run as a typical USA corporation with all the anti consumer BS. The DRM they themselves provide is more of a suggestion instead of a real challenge. It can be broken with off the shelf tools or just stepping and dumping in x64dbg. However they did their…

> halfway through reversing the license checks I started feeling bad for the developers

What do you mean by this? Is there a story I'm missing?