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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

#661

Post by dathinab »

mgoetzke wrote: post #537
izacus wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, also pirated content has: - 4K HDR video, not whatever the heck the buggy client delivers. - Atmos/TrueHD audio track that actually works, not whatever the broken app delivers (I'm looking at you Sky and rest of the ilk that still deliver HBO content with stereo). - Subtitles for ALL the languages, not just one or two. And those languages don't disappear when I go on a vacation, leaving me stuck with german aud…

They cannot help themselves. Just like buying and watching a DVD/bluray was much worse than a pirated copy, as the DVD/bluray made you sit through an increasing amount of unskippable content. From "do not steal this" to "not for kids" or, worst of all, "did you see this other content?". Btw. Ads in front of streaming content I just selected, to tell me about other streaming content on the same service I did NOT selec…

Wait there was unskippable content on DVD/Bluray??

What nonsense is that. That makes no sense at all.

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

#662

Post by tsimionescu »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #309
WWLink wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support your move, it's better than piracy. The problem with piracy is if you become a fan of a series and gossip with your friends about it, now you're marketing that company's crappy service. It's a weird way to go about things.

It's weird because TV is also culture . Game of Thrones isn't just some random piece of personal, single-player entertainment: it was, and is, an important cultural phenomenon for at least half of the planet. That's what makes the dynamics so weird: it's not just, or even primarily, about your personal entertainment - there are social aspects involved, from wanting to belong with your peer group (e.g. talk about late…

Game of Thrones was a massive outlier in its cultural impact, especially for a TV show. Many games have as much or more cultural impact than many TV shows or movies, probably more on average - even than major shows. And among children, it's almost entirely the opposite.

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

#663

Post by trklausss »

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 was inevitable given how things work.

It's like every technology: if this is how things work, and they are suboptimal, the optimal solution will be applied. If we say "oh to bad, it's how it's established", then people will go against the establishment if that means better capabilities.

> How could you "fix" it?

Take a look at the music industry, they have solved it pretty well. I can stream everything on Spotify paying very little, I get everything that I want and I don't have to pirate it anymore. So maybe fostering independent creation? Forbidding "exclusivity" clauses? Fostering independent studio creation?

> They could set the price really high.

Prices are elastic: bigger price, less demand, same benefit. So that doesn't cut it either.

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

#664

Post by dns_snek »

histories wrote: post #546
histories wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify has the same songs as Apple Music, Deezer or whatever. Everything should be everywhere. Let the services compete on something other than content. Qobuz has the same songs as everyone else, but in higher quality. Because when you compete on content, piracy always wins

Some things they could compete on, just because I'm overthinking this: - price (do I have to pay or do you offer free with ads?) - content quality (do you have 4k movies?) - organization (can I filter by director? Do you have a collection of all the Oscar-nominated movies from this year?) - advanced controls (can I make a playlist of tv episodes? Maybe I want to watch a series in a different order than it was broadca…

> content quality (do you have 4k movies?)

No, that arguably makes it even worse. You're adding a whole new dimension to the problem of "where can I watch this".

Remember, the UX you're competing against is: 1. Open Kodi, 2. Open a 3rd party add-on that shall not be named, 3. Pick any movie or show that exists, 4. Select any available quality, from 100 GB 4K HDR releases to 1 GB 480p transcodes, 5. Play, anywhere, on any device, at any time

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

#665

Post by kuschkufan »

bartread wrote: post #467

All right, so just off the top of my head we have: - Netflix - Amazon Prime - Disney+ - HBO+ - Hulu - YouTube Premium - Apple TV - Whatever Sky's offering is called - At least a couple of others that I've forgotten - Plus some kid-specific services that aren't necessarily included in the base subscription (looking at you, Amazon) - And then I haven't even got into music streaming services like Spotify, Amazon Music,…

Music streaming is not currently suffering the same fragmentation that video streaming displays. I.e. the same music albums are available on all those music streaming services you mentioned. (I know there are a few exceptions but for the vast majority this is true).

Music streaming services have very few exclusive content. Which is why they tried to sign exclusive deals with e.g. podcasters.

Should they go in the same direction as video streaming, we will see an increase in music pirating again as well.

Hasn't stopped Spotify and co from increasing prices anyway of course.

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

#666

Post by zelphirkalt »

n42 wrote: post #332
rexf wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're actually watching content (a whole movie, a series, etc), the total actual usage of the service easily eclipses any time spent bouncing around the UI?

That may be true, but inconveniently, it wouldn’t allow the parent poster to rage fantasize about how stupid the product team at Netflix must be

Isn't it still at least very unaware of them, to force you through such bad UI, even if your search time is 10min compared to 2h movie? If not stupid, then still unaware of significant problems of their product/platform.

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

#667

Post by Aeolun »

pdimitar wrote: post #644
prepend wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to invest about 10 minutes. It’s not complicated at all and makes a much better experience.

Are there good step-by-step guides? I am on the fence but researching this seems exhausting so far.

There’s a whole ream of linuxserver docker images in the sonarr family that you can run on one machine. I’m sure someone made a docker-compose somewhere.

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

#669

Post by abdusco »

aljgz wrote: post #646

As someone who rarely watch movies/series, I was paying ~100$/month worth of subscriptions until I cancelled most recently. Why? Content fragmentation is mentioned by everyone, but to me, the main problem was that I could never get a proper watching experience even after finding what I wanted: 1- English subtitles only available with CC: I want subtitles because as a non-native English speaker I cannot understand som…

> I hate it when the subtitle says: "glooming musinca playing"

Different strokes for different folks. As another non-native speaker, I personally like those descriptions, because they help me label a kind of music, or an emotional outburst.

It's like knowing how to describe a pain you have. You can't just say "it hurts" to a doctor, you need to be more specific ("it's a throbbing sensation with occasional sharp piercing pain")

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

#670

Post by Aeolun »

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.

Most of all I want more content. I’m perfectly fine paying for new content if existing content is unencumbered.
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