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Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

torrentfreak.com

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

#851

Post by boring_twenties »

rekoil wrote: post #529
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…

I personally find that Spotifys offline content has worked reliably over the years. You just gotta remember that when you get a new device you have to go to library and click download and then leave Spotify open for a few hours. Spotify is also a great example of how to beat piracy. I haven't downloaded an mp3 file since I got a Spotify Premium account in 2007. OK that's probably a slight overstatement, but it's near…

Spotify's Android app had a nasty bug that would delete everything you'd downloaded to an external SD card on reboot. Worse than that, it would then automatically start downloading all that same content to the internal storage, without any regard as to how much free space there was there. If not noticed it would fill it all up and then crash.

Took them like 6 months to fix that.

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

#852

Post by BlueTemplar »

thisislife2 wrote: post #826
BlueTemplar wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And by "today", you mean a decade ago, which is when Popcorn Time got popular.

Not sure - did Popcorn Time ever allow streaming torrents through the browser itself? Some torrent sites today have a streaming section where you can browse a catalogue and watch torrent videos right in the browser itself. Check out https://ferrolho.github.io/magnet-player/ for an example of this.

Ah, well I am not really certain that it was such a big deal to need to download a separate program, especially at the time, especially in Argentina ?

Popcorn Time seems to have (already?) been based on browser techniques : JavaScript & NodeJS ? (Or is that only for today's version ?)

Also, I'm not exactly impressed because PeerTube has used WebTorrent for quite some years now (before recently abandoning it for something even better ?).

But yeah, you shouldn't expect that website to last long - but then this kind of game of whack a mole has been played by PirateBay-likes and illegal streaming sites for years now.

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

#853

Post by kevincox »

Underphil wrote: post #550
dilippkumar wrote: post #142

I'll bite - people torrent because they have no other options. People will pay for content if they're able to access content after paying. So, here's my offer: I will build a torrent streaming site where the torrent file costs some reasonable amount of $$ per download, for fully licensed content, with zero DMA protections. If you have IP that you are willing to share on this torrent site, I will take 10% of revenue a…

I download said content and share it on a public torrent site. Your move, dilippkumar.

Ignore it? People don't want to have to wade through torrents to get the right one. All of these videos are available on the torrent sites anyways.

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

#854

Post by willio58 »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #27

The 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…

My fear is consolidation will lead to a nightmare scenario where they will push prices up and up until you literally cannot afford the no-ads version and we'll be right back where we all started, paying for access to shows but still seeing ads every 10 minutes.

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

#855

Post by ohthatsnotright »

I was happy on my basic plan from 2013. We only watch on one screen (my laptop) and never need 4k content or multiple screens. We watch one show, maybe two, a night as the entirety of our television consumption.

Then Netflix and T-Mobile pushed me to "sign up for Netflix via T-Mobile" and I thought, well, I guess since you both said it'd be amazing. That cancels your old (grandfathered) plan, by the way.

Then they decided that T-mobile would only pay for basic with ads.

Now I cancelled Netflix via t-mobile since the one show I was making my way through (House of Cards) is no longer available on this plan that Netflix and t-mobile thought I should be on.

This comes after cancelling Prime because it doesn't work where I live, and Prime Video wasn't all that compelling plus they managed to make the worst video player I've used in my life. Though the x-ray feature was super helpful.

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

#856

Post by trklausss »

martindbp wrote: post #775
trklausss wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Spotif…

Then what are you claiming the difference is? Are music labels inherently less greedy? Is it harder to build music streaming vs video that leads to a monopoly? Is it because labels have ownership in Spotify? I don't think the HBOs and Disneys will give up their streaming platform unless forced to do it.

I’d say the key difference is the sheer amount of artists and styles. I’d argue it’s “easier” to make music than filming. That’s why I would foment independent creators.

You might be right on HBO and Disney not giving up their service, until customers don’t want to pay for it anymore, and they’ll seek other ways. That’s capitalism after all…

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

#857

Post by jiggawatts »

offices wrote: post #717
jiggawatts wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go on this rant regularly, and apparently Netflix staff never visit Hacker News, or just don't care. Interestingly, it took quite a bit of dev effort to make their subtitles this bad. They had to figure out which subset of languages to show in each region, for example. I'm sure these decisions are made by the same team that refuses to show English subtitles, and instead always uses English for the hearing impaired.…

By not hiring junior devs, they're missing out on a large chunk of those of us who spend their workday raging at technology on HN.

You might be saying this in jest, but it’s true. Or more accurately, they may have junior devs, but they’re not listened to.

I see this effect regularly at $dayjob where the senior decision makers are too busy to waste time in forums like this… so they don’t get to find out what the entire industry seems to know.

E.g.: they keep choosing Angular for “cold blooded” apps, the type the government develops under a tender that then sits there unmaintained for a decade. Meanwhile Angular has one of the highest rates of churn of any large codebase and takes continuous sustained maintenance to keep up with.

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

#858

Post by tzs »

iamtedd wrote: post #486
tzs wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked cable, except for the price. Cut it by a factor of 3 and I'd probably subscribe again. For movies pretty much everything I wanted to watch would eventually show up. Typically a movie would first be in theaters, then become available for purchase on disc or digital, rental, and be included in one paid streaming service. Sometime later, maybe two years after it was in theaters, it should show up on some non-pre…

Why would you pay to be advertised at? We can argue about how pervasive advertising is and how subtle it can be, but cable TV literally has commercial ad breaks.

Ads on cable tend to occur at natural breaks in the programming.

For series the episodes are written with commercial breaks in mind. For example a typical "The Simpsons" episode is written as 3 acts and the commercials come between the acts.

Movies aren't written with ads in mind, but usually the cable channel running the movie takes into account what is going on in the movie when they decide where to place their ad breaks.

This makes that ads a lot less intrusive than ads on YouTube or most other ad supported streaming services.

With the ads not actually interrupting the story, they actually often provide a convenient break to get up and get a snack, or clean up after the last snack, or visit the restroom. And I can always pick up my iPad or Kindle or a book to pass the time during the ad break if I don't need to do any of those other things.

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

#859

Post by dilippkumar »

Underphil wrote: post #550
dilippkumar wrote: post #142

I'll bite - people torrent because they have no other options. People will pay for content if they're able to access content after paying. So, here's my offer: I will build a torrent streaming site where the torrent file costs some reasonable amount of $$ per download, for fully licensed content, with zero DMA protections. If you have IP that you are willing to share on this torrent site, I will take 10% of revenue a…

I download said content and share it on a public torrent site. Your move, dilippkumar.

It was already available on a public torrent and therefore this additional torrent on a public torrent site changes nothing.

Previously you weren't getting any revenue from torrents. Now you're monetizing a fraction of the population that likes to torrent but wants to not feel guilty about doing so.

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

#860

Post by prawn »

danaris wrote: post #819
prawn wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 futu…

A few years back, we were watching the Lucifer series—which, after being cancelled on whatever network it was on, was picked up by Netflix for its last...2 seasons, I think. One day, it just...disappeared. One of Netflix's own shows (we were, by that time, watching the episodes they had produced). Every source I could find said that Netflix carried it. But when I searched for it on Netflix, I couldn't find it. A few…

Another great thing is when you search for something they don't have, they refuse to say they don't have it. They just try to convince you to watch some off-brand equivalent, or genre-adjacent movie instead.

I've recently been watching through the Terminator movies with my son. Netflix had the first film, and then has Genisys. Prime has Terminator 2. Disney Plus has Dark Fate. Terminator 3 and Salvation are on Binge (which we'd just cancelled) and Stan.

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