I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

I agree with all of sentiments in the blog post but this:

“Why should almost 40% of my time be taken up by adverts for something I am ALREADY paying for?”

Your cable subscription is a partial payment for viewing the shows. It's works in the same way as buying a newspaper or magazine: the revenues from newsstand sales are a fraction of what it costs to create and distribute the publication. The rest is paid through advertising. Even more, subscription prices are kept low so that the publishers can claim a certain degree of readership, thus being able to ask certain advertising rates.

    People have always been, and always will be, willing 
    to pay for good products. We have always understood 
    Return on Investment, even if we don’t call it that.

Which is why World Of Goo[0], a fantastic indie game that was priced at $20, that has a 90 / 100 Metacritic score[1], that has absolutely no DRM is a game that had over 80% piracy rate at launch? The "People want to pay it's just the companies stopping them" argument is so much bunk it's insulting that people continue to write it.

People want stuff consequence free, if they have to pay to get rid of those consequences then they will. For a lot of people the consequences of media piracy are non-existant, they don't believe they will ever be caught (and it's not as if "getting caught" even matters) so the only result of media piracy is... saving money! So they do it. For me a consequence of media piracy is knowing I did not pay for something I have, that is why I don't engage in media piracy. For people that don't have this feeling that they should pay why would they?

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Goo

[1] http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/world-of-goo

[2] http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/11/15/world-of-goo-pira...

The argument of "I paid for it so I can pirate it" is especially funny when coupled with "Too many ads!"

When you watch a show on cable, you're not just paying with your subscription but with your eyeballs. Advertisements, shockingly, aren't designed merely to irritate the viewer but to bring in more revenues.

(What do you think is going to happen when Sky realizes that their viewership is down even if their membership is stable?)

Netflix is a good start, but what I want is Spotify for television.

Name your price, networks, I'd pay for a super-premium Netflix in a heartbeat. It just doesn't exist yet.

EDIT: I don't know why parent deleted his post, but the message was that HBO doesn't run commercials. (Which is true, although it does run promotions for upcoming HBO programs in between programs.)

Right, which also explains both why a HBO subscription costs so much and why they air so many reruns. However, not in all locales can one order HBO without also having a cable subscription.