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Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

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Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#151

Post by TeMPOraL »

DHPersonal wrote: post #130
jadams5 wrote: post #116

10'ish years ago I remember people being mad at the cable companies for bundling all the channels together into all-or-nothing options. Why did I have to pay for ESPN when I just want the SciFi channel? Here we are today with lots of options where you only pay for what you want and now people want them all bundled back together again!

That's why I don't really believe people who claim that having to pick a streaming service is a burden too great to bear and can only be resolved through piracy. I don't think the issue is too little choice, too much choice, too much cost, or two much mental overhead—I think they just want to pirate and find a reason to use for the moment.

Because you think exposing yourself to higher risk of malware, financial punishment and possibly jail time is something thrilling that people like to do for fun?

Truth is, because of greed of the IP holders, the existing legal avenues of getting media are garbage and, on top of that, subscribing to several services costs more money than reasonable - all that starts to outweigh the aforementioned risk. And the risk is going down now that pirates run streaming sites too, which shield viewers from liability.

See also Steam, and how game piracy dwindled down thanks to cutting out the bullshit. And wrt. mental overhead, just look at how unhappy gamers are now that more companies are trying to compete with Steam by launching exclusives, making it necessary to install additional game launchers (which are almost universally garbage).

People are not lying in their complaints.

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#152

Post by ozim »

Just fix your FOMO and you don't have to pay for all crap you will never use.

I did not watched any episode of GoT and I don't feel like I missed something in my life. Occasionally I don't get some reference. I also don't run into people who are "omg you really did not watched any of it? so great series", even if I would run into this kind, I could not care less about it anyway.

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#153

Post by TeMPOraL »

mcv wrote: post #150
TeMPOraL wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, and circling back to the main point - a movie or two per year plus a single TV show and some occasional filler content is not by itself worth keeping a service subscription at the current prices.

I really hope and assume Disney+ doesn't limit you to just the most recent movies. The whole point of these services is that you get access to everything they ever made, and in the case of Disney and all the properties they own, that's quite a lot.

I would hope so, but Disney is already known for repeatedly pulling out old works from the market and re-releasing them later on, since AFAIK the VCR era, so I wouldn't bet on them refraining from shenanigans on their streaming service.

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#154

Post by scarface74 »

tbyehl wrote: post #109
scarface74 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Your circle” unless it includes families with small kids, isn’t Disney’s primary audience. Most normal middle class people aren’t going to go through the trouble of pirating movies and setting up a Plex server and then worry about setting up their router to get a good connection while they are away from home and even then deal with the abysmally slow upload speed of the typical home network instead of spending $8 a…

> Most normal middle class people aren’t going to go through the trouble of pirating movies and setting up a Plex server But they probably have a friend who has a friend who put in the effort and is willing to share.

I like to quote John Siracusa when people complain about my Plex Server.

"Do not expect five 9's from my Plex Server" (https://player.fm/series/accidental-tech-podcast/ep-309-do-n...)

And you still have the abysmal state of upload bandwidth in the US and what are the chances that they will have all of the Disney movies?

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#155

Post by raxxorrax »

sbarre wrote: post #6

"May" drive them back? This has already happened in my circles.. People who had cut the cord but all but walked away from casual piracy and signed up for Netflix and HBO (and probably Prime Video because they had Amazon Prime already) are openly talking about the fact they're definitely not signing up for more streaming services, and are seeking out torrenting again for the stuff that's being pulled from Netflix (esp…

Happened in my circle too. But most are spontaneous consumers. They don't plan ahead if they might watch a show at some point. They like to watch a movie or series from time to time, but I don't think anyone would put in effort for a "streaming service vcr". You would need to know about shows before watching them.

Still, might work for some, but you would also get back to a point where a lack of accessibility increases piracy.

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#156

Post by tyingq »

kedean wrote: post #149
tyingq wrote: post #102

Hasn't driven me to piracy. It has, however, driven me to subscribe/unsubscribe as needed. Paid for a month of HBO, for example, mostly for the Chernobyl series, watched that and a few movies, unsubscribed. I think that pattern might hurt these services more than piracy.

There's also the option of refusing the new services. When I think on what I'll do as content keeps fragmenting across services, I keep coming back to one answer...watch less video content. The time before easy streaming wasn't that long ago, and if the content makers and distributors aren't going to play ball, then I can entertain myself in plenty of other ways. The bigger losers are going to be parents that have a…

That's a good point. I'm almost ready to drop Netflix, as the overall quality of the content has dropped substantially in the last 2 years.

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#157

Post by scarface74 »

Fabricio20 wrote: post #122
scarface74 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which again doesn’t help when so much video streaming is done on mobile devices....

Ever heard of Kodi? That's a set-top box OS but that also is an Android App.. Then watch some youtube videos on how to install the magic box addons and you have access to millions of movies for streaming. As hendersoon noted, nowadays, piracy is extremely low-friction.

Two problems -- middle class households in the US are overwhelmingly iOS -- not Android and that still doesn't solve the problem of mobile and having to depend on cellular connectivity to stream. Disney+ and Netflix allow you to download shows.

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#159

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

No shit. Valve worked out the key to combating piracy in the early 2000s. To quote Gaben himself:

"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."

People pirate media more for convenience than to save money.

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#160

Post by count »

0-_-0 wrote: post #139
haywirez wrote: post #25

The only ethical pay-per-view system I can think of would be to stream directly from the production source (production house, artist), some sort of a paid RSS-like feed.

Alternatively, pay a fixed monthly fee which gets distributed among production sources depending on what you watched. Cut out the middleman of Netflix, Amazon etc. Could work with the rest of the internet too. Instead of relying on advertisements for revenue, you would pay a monthly fee which would get distributed among the websites you used. Aaaand we reinvented the Brave browser model...

And the cable television network...
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