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Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

torrentfreak.com

191–200 of 940 posts

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the cable TV model was a mature business model for extracting the most amount of value possible from paying viewers before they choose to leave. Every streaming service will converge to what cable TV is like: paid channels, maximum amount of ads, additional premium content, attempts at lock-in, exclusive licensing of content, etc. Not adopting the cable business model is leaving billions of dollars on the tab…

I'm curious where the equilibrium is. There is some portion of people who will not torrent no matter what. Either because of lack of ability or moral views, or some other reason. There is a second set of the population that will never pay for media, or at least not more than very trivial amounts. Either because of lack of ability to pay, not thinking it's worth it, or not believing there is anything wrong with piracy…

I started using pirated copies of some music software I actually paid for and own, because it became too problematic and inconvenient. Why do I need a kernel extension for this crap? Fuck iLok sincerely.

Next step is not paying for anything altogether. A middle finger is the only thing those kinds of companies are getting from me in the future, and honestly I'd rather see their demise.

If streaming ever becomes like this, I'm also going back to piracy.

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to read this comment, which I created, you owe me $100. Okay, now pay up. If you don’t, you’re stealing from me.

[flagged]

What fallacy did I commit? Please, name the fallacy and explain why it's an example of that fallacy, so I can learn from my mistakes.

I simply took your argument, verbatim:

> 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.

And showed how it is a ridiculous argument with a simple example. I created a comment, and said you must pay me $100 to read it. You didn't, so you stole from me, by your own argument.

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#193
post #8

I have found myself pirating more and more. Netflix and co aren't just losing on the available content and the price, the actual browsing experience is far better on the illegal streaming site I use.

I stopped using Netflix when they introduced that "feature" that you were never allowed to look at a menu in peace - it would always play the show you were looking at, behind the menu, with sound on , and there was no way to turn it off. It made the site unusable and I eventually gave up on my subscription.

There is a setting -- in "Edit settings" - "Playback settings", turn off "Autoplay previews while browsing in all devices".

It might not be there when this was first introduced happened, but FYI this is possible today.

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#194
post #153

Earlier 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.

My parents found free sports online when their team was playing a team that wasn't shown locally. They're completely inept at technology. It's very easy these days.

It's the lack of content availability that pushed them over the edge. Sports are a special case, notoriously hard that is super stupid and pushing people to piracy. I tried paying many times to watch a game my kid wanted and either the dumb apps or websites would not work on my TV. Make it easy to pay for the content and most people will take the easy route rather than search online for ad-ridded or dubious websites (unless they can't really afford it and then is not a real loss for the company anyway).

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#195
post #31

I 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 catal…

But he's not asking for consistency, but rather transparency.

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#196
post #24

Earlier 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.

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).

Which could be rapidly eclipsed, my synology nas is capable of following RSS feeds for new content, torrenting that content, and serving that content through my plex with audio options, subtitles, descriptions, cover art, ratings, age restrictions etc. (All behind a vpn of course)

If I invested a weekend (4 days, maybe 2-3 weekends...) I could probably figure it out, and never ever ever again deal with the BS streaming services. It takes one person pissed off that they missed Ozark and that will be 1 click install, game on, open source tech only ever moves forward, its antifragile, unlike any individual business.

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My time isn’t valuable" uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh sir?

When I’m at home deciding what to watch on TV it really isn’t.

Time is your most valuable and scarce resource. You have a finite amount and you can't get more.

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#199

What are non-tech-savvy people actually using for piracy these days? Torrents require you to own a PC (there's no way to torrent on a phone or smart TV AFAIK), Usenet requires you to have some tech knowledge, same goes for Plex / Jellyfin. I feel like piracy nowadays is a lot harder for an average Joe than it used to be. People now expect that they can turn on their TV, open an app, enter a title in the search box an…

> (there's no way to torrent on a phone or smart TV AFAIK),

I have no idea for "smart tv", but at least for Android phones, F-Droid has plural torrent clients listed:

https://search.f-droid.org/?q=torrent&lang=en

Now, actually 'torrenting' on a phone also sounds like a recipe for rapid battery drain unless the phone is also plugged in to a charger, but that is independent of the "ability" to do so.

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#200
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to try to go 100% online rental (primarily amazon rentals if I didn't want hassle). I figured it was hard to argue a 3.99 rental was any worse than blockbuster. So on vacation I tried to airplay mission impossible from amazon rental to the TV, and the screen just went black for copy-protection. So I refunded my rental and torrented it instead. I don't usually torrent, but sometimes the ecosystems put it square…

Try disabling hardware acceleration in your browser. It'll probably fix the black screen issue. The situation is still ridiculous though. Streaming is no longer easier than piracy.

Weird. Jellyfin doesn’t make me do that.
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