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

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

#201
I used to subscribe to Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video. The other day I wanted to watch Harry Potter (so not some obscure movie) and couldn't watch it anywhere in my country.

I bought a Plex lifetime pass the day after and cancelled all my subscriptions, except for Apple Music and Crunchyroll (for animes) who both fit their role for now. I can't justify paying +30€ per month for not being able to watch what I want.

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

#202
post #161
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this sounds economical but also a major chore

Not at all. I do the same thing, and the key is to cancel the subscription immediately upon signing up. You keep the one month you've already paid for, and don't need to worry about recurring cost.

But that's literally (literally 'literally', not an annoying turn of phrase) a monthly 'chore' to sign up for (and cancel) the next one.

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

#203
post #178
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I re-upped their DVD service for a while early in the pandemic. It's still worthwhile if you want to watch a lot of movies even if their back catalog availability has deteriorated quite of bit. It makes me shake my head a bit that so many people consider suggesting that the idea of just watching some things on physical media (whether Netflix disc by mail, library, or just buying a movie) makes you a weirdo. (Or for t…

There were a couple of movies I just can’t get without pirating. Already had Netflix and Prime, but to watch Chunking Express I would have needed to subscribe to HBO Max just for this one movie. There was no option to buy/rent it one time on YouTube/Amazon. This was true for at least 4-5 movies I wanted to see (yep, I’m that snob that doesn’t watch the latest and greatest).

And then I’d have to remember to cancel HBO Max.

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

#204
post #56

My entertainment consumption has basically moved to reading progression fantasy and litrpg on Royal Road and Kindle Unlimited. It more or less replaced everything, tv, movies, youtube, podcasts, I'd rather just read even if it's not exactly the best writing in the world.

You are my hero. <3

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

#205
post #171

I'll stand out here, because I work for a major sports streaming service. So let me be heard about live streaming at least: 1) Content needs to get paid for, if you're watching an illegally restreamed match then you're not rewarding people like me for the hard work we've done to get that game to you. It's not just faceless corporations, we're people and it's really hard to make a profit in the streaming world, so eve…

Your points are what they are, but I have to say that I find major sports to be the about the least empathetic target you could have chosen. Even college sports in the US are awash in money and we somehow end up using public money to build stadiums for teams of deca-millionaires owned by billionaires.

I get that there are plenty of working stiffs who put it all together, but I think they'd be better off asking the bosses for more of a share than admonishing the anonymous masses who just want to watch a game once in awhile.

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

#206
Music is a non-issue with services competing on features rather than exclusive content.

I pirate games that cost more than ~$20 and don't provide a demo. If I enjoy the game then I'll usually buy it after an hour or two, especially indie games.

I'm done with movie/TV streaming services. Their business model and user experience is garbage while piracy provides a significantly better ease of use, overall UX and content quality. I'll reconsider paying for these services when they start competing on features and pricing rather than content exclusivity that varies by geographical region.

I'll buy e-books as long as the price is "reasonable", don't expect me to pay more for an e-book than a physical copy.

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

#207
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Prime account, but I'll soon be cancelling it I feel. The same products can had on eBay for less money with no shipping charges added. Prime video is quite unique, but I'm very much past them putting pre-roll ads on the content I want to watch. It's universally an advert for their own craptastic, homegrown version of an existing well-defined format. If I was interested in watching Law & Order I can start fro…

> The same products can had on eBay for less money with no shipping charges added. eBay sellers also tend to ship promptly, which used to be one of the main reasons to use Amazon/Prime. The latter's shipping speeds have increased by orders of magnitude in some parts of the country over the last couple years. It's not uncommon these days for a Prime order to sit in limbo for 3-4 days before being shipped, while the sa…

Interestingly, I haven't had Prime since maybe 2016, and my experience was that Amazon is only capable of two day shipping, but if you don't pay for it, the item just sits on the shelf for three days, then ships.

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

#208

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…

I agree with everything you wrote. We keep Disney+ because their family content is untouchable by anyone else. HBO/Apple we trade off every couple of months depending on what's new and what we are most interested in.

Netflix I subscribe to for about 1 month per year to binge the latest of whatever I'm watching (this year: Stranger Things, The Crown) and then cancel. Anything else (Hulu, etc) is a 1 month and churn kind of situation.

Netflix especially seems to be in a content death spiral of sorts. They cancel their original content so aggressively and often in such unsatisfying ways for the audience that I've decided I don't want to watch anything on Netflix until after it is an established success with multiple seasons produced. I wish they would put more wood behind fewer arrows. Or maybe just make a move toward miniseries so at least the audience can have a satisfying beginning, middle, and end to something they've invested time in watching. I would so much rather have 5-8 episodes that form a cohesive story, than a Season 1 that sets up a world and then never gets to go anywhere because some algorithm decided the show wasn't successful enough to continue.

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

#209
post #113

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.

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'm sure it depended on your social circle/age group.

My age group, mid 20s during Netflix creation, everyone I knew have a Netflix DVD subscription. We were raised with VHS rentals, so DVD rentals were the natural next step when DVD players got cheap.

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