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Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

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

#201

Post by pquki4 »

CommanderData wrote: post #98
aqme28 wrote: 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'd like to compare yours to all streaming sites I've used, which are riddled with ads and deceptive clicks.

Well, if you are an experienced pirate, this is not an issue. You have an adblocker that filters out all the stupid ads and scams, and you only go to a few sites and know which links you should click. Getting that kind of experience won't take more than a few hours.

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

#202

Post by danparsonson »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #120
bawolff wrote: post #10

> 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…

I tried to watch Rick and Morty season 6 here in Australia, only to find that half of it was on one streaming service, a quarter on another, and the rest not available at all. They make it impractical to obtain legitimately and then complain when we pirate.

If it's any consolation, only the first three seasons are worth watching anyway ;-)

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

#203

Post by HumblyTossed »

eastbound wrote: post #43
dgfitz wrote: 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).

So pay for several services and then pirate the content because it’s just more convenient. Best of both worlds. You’ve paid and you get the content in the form(s) you need.

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

#204

Post by derac »

liotier wrote: post #126
bawolff wrote: post #10

> 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…

> The killer feature of piracy is thar it just works, not that it is free Especially as piracy has its own costs: VPN (French authorities do detect bittorrent), storage, some Jellyfin or Kodi host, some time to manage the whole *arr setup. The moment legal access to a whole world's worth of movies becomes cheaper and easier than that, piracy becomes unattractive. That was the way Netflix was perceived in its golden a…

There are websites you can go to and stream any tv show or movie for free in a couple of clicks. It's impossible to get cheaper and easier (ip law) than that.

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

#205

Post by scotty79 »

dgfitz wrote: post #99
kylebenzle wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’ve never equated “hacker == free” ever. In that save vein, no, all information should NOT be free. I sincerely reject your entire premise.

Information wants to be free. What people want is irrelevant. Trying to force information to be not free goes against the nature of information. You can try but it costs all of us.

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

#206

Post by echelon »

kylebenzle wrote: post #78
dgfitz wrote: 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.

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.

> all information wants to be free

Including your personal information, browsing habits, purchase history, genome, genetic disorders, medical history, sexual partners, kinks, embarrassing photos and videos, moments of social faux pas, biggest fears, darkest secrets, cheating, illegal behaviors, personal psychiatrist notes, privileged lawyer information, passwords, private keys, bitcoin keys, financial statements, tax records, debts, etc. ?

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

#207

Post by prawn »

wackget wrote: 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…

If you search "dune streaming" in Australia, the top result (besides Google's little bits) is Netflix with the page title "Watch Dune".

If you visit that page as a subscriber, it doesn't say they don't have it. It just has the metadata and a "Remind me" button. If you visit in incognito, you get a 'not found' error. Maybe they have it for another locale. Maybe they used to have it. Maybe they will have it in the future. But you're left to guess.

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

#208

Post by throwaway2037 »

ta_1138 wrote: post #160
gchamonlive wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't online streaming profitable? Does it absolutely need ads and granular channel subscriptions to be profitable?

It's far less profitable than you'd think. Many of the competitors in the industry lose money. Licensing fees/production costs/royalties eat a bunch of the money, but the infrastructure to run a streaming service isn't cheap. I know at least one of the competitors that people would call the most successful is paying a 9 figure AWS bill, plus whatever the costs are for all the caching setup that makes most popular con…

> I know at least one of the competitors that people would call the most successful is paying a 9 figure AWS bill

(1) Netflix?

(2) "9 figure". Just say 1B or 5B? There is a big difference.

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

#209

Post by nerdix »

PlutoIsAPlanet wrote: post #9

Streaming became popular because it was easier than piracy and better than TV (watch anywhere, on demand, pickup where you left off etc). Streaming is no longer easier than piracy, why pay for 8 different services and have to waste your time figuring out whats on what when you can just have one service for free, even if its illegal, and have it all under one roof. The services have taken the piss and now they'll get…

Also, H265 encoded 1080p is hitting the sweet spot between quality and file size. About 500-ish MB per hour of content for decent quality.

Its sort of like when VBR encoded MP3s became the standard in the privacy scene in the early 00s. The quality is good enough for most folks plus the reduced file size means that it downloads really fast on average connections and isn't prohibitively expensive to store so you can create a large library very quickly. Also I think the shift to SSDs from spinning rust delayed the adoption of widespread video piracy 10-ish years ago because the cost per GB was just too expensive and most people weren't going to buy a NAS. But now we are starting to move past the inflection point. SSDs are bigger, H265 reduces file sizes, hardware accelerated H265 encoding is easier (meaning more H265 content), and devices that can decode H265 are becoming cheap and ubiquitous. You can install Plex on your laptop, load up on content, and have a better UX than Netflix.

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

#210

Post by danparsonson »

ESTheComposer wrote: post #95
giantrobot wrote: post #93

Earlier 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…

> Apply the same logic to literally any other item and your argument falls apart (I wouldn’t have bought that chocolate bar anyway so they’re not really losing money from me)

The rest of your argument notwithstanding, that's because stealing chocolate bars is zero sum, whereas copying films is not.

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