Live data from Hacker News

Popcorn Time in Your Browser

popcorninyourbrowser.net

141–150 of 262 posts

Re: Popcorn Time in Your Browser

#141
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything right? Except of course monitize it. Giving stuff away is pretty easy to do. Making a business out of it is much harder.

You've fallen into the classic trap: No one is obliged to give you money. Finding a business model that works is your problem, not your customers. Forced lock-in is a model, but it's a violent one that makes people want to leave, and it's entirely predicated on there never being an escape hatch for your trapped customers. There is now an escape hatch for content customers. They're no longer beholden to the choice of…

I read GP's comment as "Popcorn Time is popular because it's free. They have no business model." I tend to agree with that. If I started giving away $5 bills for only a $1 each, my "business" would be popular too. That doesn't mean it's a good business to be in, or that it would last any length of time.

I am in no way in favor of our current system, and I agree Hollywood needs to find a new model or die, but Popcorn Time is not that business model, which is what I believe GP is saying.

Re: Popcorn Time in Your Browser

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "Why is it that in 2015, I can't go to a site, give them money, and get a high-quality mkv download" Because it's costly and unnecessary for a business to cater to every specific need. How many people even know what an MKV file is? And if they did how many people have the bandwidth to download one? There are so many options available to people now (theatres, DVD, Bluray, iTunes, Amazon, Netflix) that people are re…

I don't see anything unreasonable about asking the studios to provide their product in a particular format. What if you wanted to purchase a movie, and the studios only offered it on Betamax? Relying on Flash or Silverlight is similar. I use Linux, and Flash is officially unsupported on Linux. Silverlight has never been officially supported on Linux. If these are the options, then I cannot watch the movie out of the…

I don't see anything unreasonable about asking the studios to provide their product in a particular format.

So if I hand built my own codec I could then ask Netflix to provide videos to me using it?

Of course, that's an extreme example. But they're not obliged to cater to your every whim - they're a business that makes business decisions, like losing X% of customers because they don't want to support Y codec/platform/whatever.

Re: Popcorn Time in Your Browser

#143
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While those problems are real, they are also self inflicted by the movie industry. I don't agree it's about money. Recently Netflix became available in my country (the netherlands) and many people I know stopped pirating content. It simply was not available legally before Netflix. You had to wait two years to watch a TV series and then you had to watch it at a time when some TV station decided to broadcast it. It was…

Netflix, Amazon Instant (both Prime and the store), Steam, GoG, etc., are all slippery services. If they have a particular piece of content available, it's easier to consume it on their services than it is to pirate. That's really what Hollywood needs to focus on.

Amazon instant has damn near everything. Hollywood does provide it. They just can't compete with free.

PC game piracy proves this. Games on steam get pirated in large numbers even when the pirate copy is harder to download, install and use. And often it has reduced functionality.

Re: Popcorn Time in Your Browser

#144
I think that it has something to do with distribution. Most of the business was about distribution. Before it was dificult to distribute the information (music, movies etc) so you needed to hire someone to distribute your product and you paid a company which had the infrastructure to do so. This middle man soon became a cartel controlling distribution. Now distribution is easy and abundant so obviously it changes everything. They were selling a solution for something that used to be dificult that now is easy. Its like if your business was selling water in the desert and one day someone finds easy acces abundant water. Lets remember that most of the money is going to distributors not creators.

Re: Popcorn Time in Your Browser

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is obliged to give me money -- unless they consume the content I created. At that point, they are. Anything else assumes that because content exists, people have the right to consume it -- for free if they can work out how. Let's be clear: I fully agree that Hollywood needs to catch up, and make content accessible in the way that Popcorn time has. But I don't have the right to consume content illegally, just b…

I consider piracy to be a form of protest. I'm happy to pay, as long as the terms are reasonable. (I have a Rdio account that's been active for years now - I can't remember the last time I pirated music... I can't remember the last time I pirated software, either). However, in Canada, the only way to watch (for example) Game of Thrones is to a) get a massive cable subscription which includes 1000 channels you don't w…

>> I consider piracy to be a form of protest.

That is a moronic attitude.

>> I'm happy to pay, as long as the terms are reasonable.

Wrong can't be rationalized.

Re: Popcorn Time in Your Browser

#146
post #12

You know the traditional business model of Hollywood is well and truly broken when an open source application like Popcorn Time comes along and does everything right. What Popcorn Time has done by making accessing content on demand easier than ever before is nothing short of impressive. They're the Netflix of piracy and I think Hollywood can learn a lot from Popcorn Time (but as history has proven, they won't).

Everything right? Except of course monitize it. Giving stuff away is pretty easy to do. Making a business out of it is much harder.

[deleted]

Re: Popcorn Time in Your Browser

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No one is obliged to give me money -- unless they consume the content I created. At that point, they are. Historically no, they're not. Paying for a concert before you saw it was unheard of 150 years ago, and your ancestors would have considered you a mug for giving over your money before you knew if it was going to be a good show. The norm for human history is that you see the show first and then decide afterwards…

Well, almost. My lease, cable, and phone bills bill ahead.

Is that appropriate though? Just because it is done that way doesn't mean it should be. It's not that uncommon for people to pay their internet in advance, only for a line outage to go unfixed for a fortnight.

Patticularly in the US, internet access is a cage. There's often only one provider, and their terms and conditons declare service not guarenteed. What choice do you have?

Then google fibre and municipal wifi start showing up, and look how hard comcast et al are screaming.

Maybe your rent, cable and phone need escape hatches as badly as your movie collection?

Re: Popcorn Time in Your Browser

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is obliged to give me money -- unless they consume the content I created. At that point, they are. Anything else assumes that because content exists, people have the right to consume it -- for free if they can work out how. Let's be clear: I fully agree that Hollywood needs to catch up, and make content accessible in the way that Popcorn time has. But I don't have the right to consume content illegally, just b…

>No one is obliged to give me money -- unless they consume the content I created. At that point, they are. Historically no, they're not. Paying for a concert before you saw it was unheard of 150 years ago, and your ancestors would have considered you a mug for giving over your money before you knew if it was going to be a good show. The norm for human history is that you see the show first and then decide afterwards…

If you get fired before payday, your employer is still legally obligated to pay you for the days you actually did work during that period.

Re: Popcorn Time in Your Browser

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider piracy to be a form of protest. I'm happy to pay, as long as the terms are reasonable. (I have a Rdio account that's been active for years now - I can't remember the last time I pirated music... I can't remember the last time I pirated software, either). However, in Canada, the only way to watch (for example) Game of Thrones is to a) get a massive cable subscription which includes 1000 channels you don't w…

>> I consider piracy to be a form of protest. That is a moronic attitude. >> I'm happy to pay, as long as the terms are reasonable. Wrong can't be rationalized.

You've decided that, under no circumstances whatsoever is it ok to pirate content. (Or, perhaps more generally, under no circumstances whatsoever is it ok to break the law)

That's cool, and that's a fair position.

I disagree. There are plenty of reasons, big and small, to choose not to follow the rules. The more pressure on Hollywood to provide reasonable options, in my opinion, the better.

But, that said, how about lets be respectful about it?

Post reply on HN