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Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly
181–190 of 940 posts
Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
They get the same amount of residuals if someone doesn't watch something or if they pirate it. Is it immoral to not watch something that gives someone residuals? Do you owe them residuals just because they made something?
You are using the age old argument of “I wouldn’t have bought it anyway, so they won’t get anything from me either way” This is just a roundabout way of excusing stealing. If the creator of something says “if you want to view my work, you must pay me a dollar”, then yes it is stealing (immoral) if you view it without paying. The context around it as to whether you would’ve watched it anyway is irrelevant. Apply the s…
> I wouldn’t have bought that chocolate bar anyway
> Please take a logic class before you commit a really basic fallacy.
Agreed.
Work on the chocolate bar analogy some more, especially the part about how it's still there after digital video pirates steal it.
Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Streaming became popular because it was easier than piracy and better than TV (watch anywhere, on demand, pickup where you left off etc). I think you overestimate how "easy" piracy is for the average user. Netflix revenue keeps growing (and subscribers), despite the "crackdown" on password sharing that many predicted would cause massive cancellations.
> I think you overestimate how "easy" piracy is for the average user. Netflix revenue keeps growing [...] According to TFA piracy is also growing rapidly, so it's apparently easy enough. You may be thinking of usenet, torrenting, seedboxes etc. when it comes to piracy, but there are also (ad supported) public web sites where you can watch almost any content, or IPTV providers where you can pay a yearly fee and watch…
People that cannot afford Netflix will go to great lengths to get the content they want. They're also not mutually exclusive. Piracy growing doesn't mean Netflix isn't. People pay for Netflix AND download pirated movies all the time.
Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly
#184> Piracy also threatens to damage our business, as its fundamental proposition to consumers is so compelling and difficult to compete against: virtually all content for free,” Netflix writes. People emphasize the "free" part, but it really is the "all content" part that makes piracy wins. Especially if you are not in the USA, often specific content isn't available at any price. Even if it is, its split across 5 billi…
Now, it doesn't just work. You need to download the thing, find the right format, get it to the TV in one way or another, hope that the subs are good. Compared to that, it's the streaming that just works. Except when it doesn't.
I believe you are unfamiliar with the current state of piracy.
I'm not going to name the site, because I don't want to run afoul of any rules here... But this site is an even more streamlined experience than the legit sites. It has a searchable catalog that's just as high quality UX as netflix, and you just start watching instantly.
It literally just works.
That's the norm in the piracy world today, but some people are extra about things and set up automation to auto download local copies of things on a media server. There's a bit of initial setup overhead for this, but once it's done it's as convenient as it gets. You can subscribe to shows and they just show up on your media server as episodes are released.
Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly
#185I have one point which I really feel exemplifies the entire Netflix experience: before you sign up, they do not give you a list of what's available to watch. Seriously, check out their website. It's basically a landing page which says "give us your money". The prices aren't even displayed. There is no list of shows, save for a few measly screenshots of featured/well-known titles. There is a search box which lets you…
They could show you, but that's no guarantee of anything.
They rotate their content, and presumable the studios pull their content off. If they have movie X today, there's no assurance that it'll be there next week.
It's a subscription to a service, not to specific content. I don't see how it could be any other way.
Netflix could definitely make it easier to see what is on now, though. Amazon has a much larger catalog and you can browse it before signing up.
Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
But that means companies must sell for the marginal price of their website’s ergonomics, not for the marginal price of producing movies. (Which is not a big loss, because I can’t imagine producing the Netflix knockoffs be a hundredth the price of a 007).
It’s not about an individual website, it’s about the industry. It’s not that Netflix, or any other service, is hard to use on its own. It’s the fragmentation of the content that makes it hard to use. This was solved for with music where pretty much every service has pretty much every song. People don’t need multiple music services, they just pick the one that best fits their style and needs. This is what the movie an…
> It’s the fragmentation of the content that makes it hard to use.
I wish somebody could get all the media execs in a room and just deliver a simple message: "You can't compete on price; your competition is free. You must compete on experience if you're to compete at all."
With just a few hours worth of time and effort, it's possible to get a pretty sophisticated and automatic system set up that essentially makes getting a copy of a movie a literal one-click operation. You won't be able to watch it _right then_ as the find, download, process, import ... etc pipe takes time to run but at the end you'll have a high quality copy that will work on any device anywhere in the world.
Other than the immediacy, piracy is cheaper and less burdensome.
Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly
#187Last christmas, I want to watch Home Alone series (1-3). I don't know where they are available. Google search result shows it available in Netflix. I checked Netflix, it didn't available there but in Disney+ (Hotstar) in my country. Shit like this why I decide pirate it instead.
Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are using the age old argument of “I wouldn’t have bought it anyway, so they won’t get anything from me either way” This is just a roundabout way of excusing stealing. If the creator of something says “if you want to view my work, you must pay me a dollar”, then yes it is stealing (immoral) if you view it without paying. The context around it as to whether you would’ve watched it anyway is irrelevant. Apply the s…
> I wouldn’t have bought that chocolate bar anyway > Please take a logic class before you commit a really basic fallacy. Agreed. Work on the chocolate bar analogy some more, especially the part about how it's still there after digital video pirates steal it.
Thanks for actually contributing instead of being obtusely sarcastic...ah wait.
It's interesting that people devalue a good just because it's digital on a tech focused website named HackerNews lol.
Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly
#189The streaming space desperately needs consolidation right now. Every rights holder having their own service has killed a lot of the convenience because you'll now need several different services to go through an entire TV show, for instance. And also because all services other than maybe Netflix have garbage software for your various devices. Because every service also has to support 8 different platforms. Video play…
If Netflix had seen themselves strictly as a distribution service, they might have taken an open-to-all, low-margin, high-volume approach, which had a chance to become ubiquitous and unassailable. Basically, they could have been the Cable-over-IP provider for everyone. But it's a lot harder to get there, from here.
It's called "value-chain climbing."
Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course this is 100% the correct reasoning. When I was a broke college kid I pirated all the things, and at the time wished, when I could afford it, I’d rather just pay. When I could, I did, for years. Now we’re back at the path-of-least-resistance is pirating.
This is HACKER news, our central ethos is (should be) all information wants to be free. Sad to see the desire to pay for content is getting upvoted.
YC is the man now dawg.