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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

#621

Post by holgerschurig »

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…

Agreed.

I actually don't think that Piracy was difficult to compete against. Actually there was a time when video streaming platforms competed against it --- and very successful. For normal people, it was cheap enough to make a contract, and much simpler than going the piracy route. No one talked anymore about pirating.

But then things went wrong:

* you paid a monthly fee and STILL suddenly got advertisements force-feds (you couldn't even skip them)

* you wanted to watch some series, but it was taken out of the program (never heard of a public library that removes some author after some months)

* many movies made it only into one specific video stream vendor, so they forced people to make 2 or 3 or even more subscriptions.

And once the inconvenience from video stream vendors reached some threshold, piracy was re-birthed. As soon as it become more convenient again.

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

#622

Post by pdimitar »

realusername wrote: post #453
somenameforme wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be naturally fixed by economics. We'll reach an equilibrium point where offering an exclusive streaming service becomes less profitable than simply licensing your content to another service or services. Obstinance will probably drag out the timeline, but it won't change the outcome. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Those media conglomerates are very stubborn though, they care more about keeping their rights than money itself.

Let them be stubborn. They can't outlaw everything that they don't like. They'll die a slow and painful death.

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

#623

Post by grujicd »

Robin_Message wrote: post #588
rrr_oh_man wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like what?

My three biggest pet peeves are: - You can't turn your queue into a playlist (and you can't see previous queue as part of the queue, only as limited history.) - Clicking a song or album sometimes clears your queue and starts playing that instead (I know there is a logic to it, but a mistake or mis-click is easy). - There is no shortcut to add to queue, just long press then find the menu item. It's possible everyone e…

What I'm missing is multiple "currently playing" lists, each keeping its current position as I switch to play a different one. Use case: listening to a discography of the band, and if I wish to listen few songs from some other band. I can't go back to where I was with the first band. Foobar had multiple ad-hoc lists since forever. Now I balance between Spotify and Youtube music in these cases.

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

#624

Post by thesnide »

philipov wrote: post #259
hedora wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could earn their money by not actively pissing off their customers. The streaming industry proved that consumers prefer paying for convenient streaming over messing around with privacy. For some reason, they feel they need to burn their own industry down in order to prove that people prefer piracy (or not watching) over inconvenient streaming setups. Is anyone really surprised by the current outcome?

Yes, distribution is a service, and providing good service adds value that people are willing to pay for.

I can cook myself using only my free time.

But I'm willing to shell out some money for having someone cooking for me and doing the dishes.

Yet, only if the price is right.

A good legal bargain kills illegal ones. But then capitalism greed comes, with that enshitification, and as that lowers the legal bargain value, illegal comes back.

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

#625

Post by holgerschurig »

martindbp wrote: post #419
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…

> The services have taken the piss and now they'll get the repercussions of it. Whose fault is it really that all content is not available on a single service? It's nobody's fault, it was inevitable given how things work. How could you "fix" it? You'd need legislation saying that all content must be made available for licensing at the same price for every service. But that's not enough, because why would HBO sell the…

> It's nobody's fault, it was inevitable given how things work.

Then the video stream vendors must find a different way to make things work. If their goal is to be user-friendly, which I highly doubt. Only in marketing-speak (err, marketing lies) they claim "The experience of our user is our utmost goal". But it really isn't.

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

#626

Post by LoveMortuus »

Whenever such arguments arise, I'm reminded of Gabe Newell, who said something along the lines of "Piracy is a service problem" means that most people pirate because they don't have access (or difficult access) to the product/service they want. They would gladly pay for it, but they can't, or can't be hassled to.

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

#627

Post by pdimitar »

heavyset_go wrote: post #123
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…

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…

Those billions on the table are only theoretical. It's a greedy MBA group-think. They overestimate how many people will pay for their stuff and yes, even regular non-tech-literate folk get disgusted by paying to be advertised at and leave.

There is still a cohort of elderly people like my mother who is just happy I pay her a cable TV (through IPTV) service but they are a diminishing group.

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

#628

Post by saiya-jin »

josephg wrote: post #436
freddie_mercury wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25% of all streaming globally is consumed on a mobile device. During the day (commuting to work, during lunch breaks) that number is much higher. Children's programming is also largely consumed on mobile devices (well, tablets). On small devices like that 4K HDR+ video is kind of meaningless.

It’s also kind of meaningless at regular tv viewing distances. I have a 4k tv but from my couch there’s no way I can tell 4k apart from 1080. And honestly, 480 movies (dvd resolution) still look fine to me too. They have a certain aesthetic softness to them that I quite enjoy. 30 seconds into a 480 film I stop noticing the resolution at all.

There are no 'regular viewing distances' anymore, any guidelines were long ago thrown out of window. Some want to have cinema at home, some want a tiny screen in kitchen or bedroom, some want (or can only afford) something in between.

Just do what works for you. But with lets say 'cinema experience' distance:size ratio you definitely can see the difference. I could clearly see it on Netflix 4k on tiny 55" 4k screen from maybe 2-2.5m.

But of course after 1-2 minutes it becomes meaningless difference and your brain blends it, what you should focus is not seeing big banding pixels due to low bad compression in very dynamic scenes.

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

#629

Post by pdimitar »

galahad_ wrote: post #232
philipov wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The money's not on the table if people can and will leave. That's the point of competition. Piracy is entirely in the spirit of free market capitalism: the equilibrium price of a good with infinite supply is 0.

The problem ist that a production of f.e. a movie costs money. If the people that make movies don't earn money, they will not make any movies. So they have to earn that money somehow. If the price of their good is 0 why should they bother with filming?

Don't polarize. There are many in-between states.

I pay to see movies in the cinema. A few weeks / months later I could pirate them if I want to watch them again.

I have paid once. I am not paying again. It really is that simple but they will rather die than do honest business.

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

#630

Post by scrlk »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #435
ebb_earl_co wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is YIFY?

A pirate group that was known for releasing movies in small files, but with a decent quality.

YIFY encodes were notorious for being bitrate starved to the point where good SD encodes trumped YIFY "HD".
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