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

Spotify has this down since it is rare that they don't have the music I want. I happily pay for and use this subscription.

Games are also easy to find since on PC it is a quick Google that gives a direct link to the correct store. It is still annoying when things aren't on Steam but the friction of finding the game to play is minimized by using Playnite to collate all the different services after I buy the game.

Movies and TV are just a mess that is driving people to pirate. The media companies got greedy and prevented Netflix from becoming the one stop shop for all media. Watching on the TV means that even figuring out which service to use sucks and it is a terrible user experience.

Another complaint is live sports, I would happily subscribe to Dazn if they had every sports league on it. But since they don't have some sports I want to watch then the subscription just isn't worth it. Similarly, blackouts on the sport specific services make them a non-starter.

Now, though, I feel like I am getting gouged from one side, nickel and dimed from another. I am especially considering it for music -- chasing down out of print stuff has begun to annoy me. If they can't keep it in print, then I think they should give up copyright. I'd be willing to support legislation to that extent. We'd have to close a lot of loopholes as to what "in print" meant, mind you.

Plus, sharing my extensive music collection, which contains some rarities, might not be the worst thing.

I will usually pirate video under one or more of the following conditions:

- I already own or owned a copy of the film at some point in my life

- The film or show isn't available for streaming or even purchase

- The streaming quality is vastly inferior to the format I can pirate

- The film or show can be streamed but with no option besides "free with ads"

- I have good reason to believe that those responsible for making the film won't receive a red cent

I've been finding myself pirating more often recently because I find the quality of streaming video to often be intolerable. It may be alright for brand spanking new shows, but I like to watch a lot of older content, and the quality of the video often totally blows. I'm talking a crapton of compression, and what I suspect to be upscaled standard def rather than actual HD or 4k.

What blows my mind is that a ~250mb mkv file I torrented in under 30 seconds usually blows streaming quality out of the water. I get that torrents are on a much smaller scale, but come on, it's peer to peer file delivery that it almost immediately ready to watch with no buffering or ads or massive disk space needed.

I oppose piracy because I recognize that I am not entitled to things produced by others, even if there is literally no cost to reproduce them. (Unless the author him/herself supports said piracy!) The fact that I make enough money to afford these things (when/where they are available), as I suspect many of you do, makes the idea of piracy, frankly, ridiculous.

Such entitlement!