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

I pirate everything. Haven't subscribed to a service like Spotify, Netflix, etc. in many years. I can listen to my music in CD-quality and bring it anywhere. Same with any movie, TV show, etc. And I know that no one is selling what I find interesting as analytics data.

At the same time, I want to support creators, and I'll donate/use services like Bandcamp to directly support folks I appreciate. I have a $100/mo "donation" fund.

Has nothing to do with the price as I'm more than happy to support creators. Just not through centralized platform that doesn't respect my freedom.

For me it is not about monetization anymore, it is about convenience. I would gladly pay netflix or any other provider to have access to movies I want to actually watch. Right now it is more about what netflix wants me to watch. So I usually pay netflix for month or two when I there is something I want to watch and cancel subscription shortly after. I think rent/buy model is more sustainable here then pure streaming services.

For games I rarely pirate something, steam/gog/xbox are just too convenient for me. Unless it is something on the platform I don't have, but I still want to play it in an emulator.

Music is sort of middle ground. I am ok with content selection major stream providers have now. So basically the only thing I care about is to platform to not mess with me with some bullshit features. I switched from spotify, because I got tired of how their android and mac apps work.

Some of the problems I think I’m seeing around streaming right now is that every media conglomerate is trying to extract the most they can from consumers. Media companies are debasing cable packages and streaming cable-like packages (Sling, etc.) where their channels and on-demand content is aging and lowering in quality and availability. They increasingly seem like platforms to advertise the Plus versions of services where valued content and new original content is moving rapidly to paid streaming, e.g. Discovery+, Paramount+, HBO+, Disney+, etc.

While this extraction reality sucks but I feel like there’s a game to play here that’s still better than piracy though.

DRM problems are very different depending on the medium.

I do buy many games, mainstream and not, and actually play them. In the big picture, DRM is not as not as bad as depicted; the vast majority of games rely only on Steam DRM, which isn't problematic.

Vocal game DRM opponents actually refer to a small section of the games landscape (AAA with Denuvo, mostly), so it's really something players love to hate.

I definitely had DRM problems a couple of times I can remember of. Definitely gave me problems, but it was a small percentage of the games I've played. If there's a problem, I don't disagree with getting a refund and pirate it.

Books are another story. In that case, I think that DRM is evil without exception, because it's important for me to use my own tools on books, which DRM prevents. Differently from games though, there are multiple distribution channels for books, and one may find more expensive non-DRM'ed versions.

(movies a different matter as well, which has been discussed quite extensively)

I don't think it's ethical for our economic system to incentivize all these high-budget productions, so I like to "vote with my dollar," for what that's worth. Is it really good for humanity if billions of dollars are spent a year on Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 3: The Golden Spork or Top Gun: Maverick's Last Stand: The TV Show?

Various streaming apps are simply very difficult to use for me. Plus other issues: Netflix's 4K is inconsistent and has banding and artifacts that it shouldn't, for one example. There's a long, long list of dark patterns and whatnot which turn me off. You can't even screenshot in mainstream apps!

But with all these IPs being taken down and lost forever (esp. HBO), piracy and seeding feels like I'm contributing to the maintenance of a library. If we're going to spend billions of humanity's resources on these things, they should at least continue to be accessible somewhere.

The pros and cons list ends up pretty imbalanced!