Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Everyone Is Stealing TV

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 89 posts

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#21

Post by stuxnet79 »

It is estimated that all these pirate streams combined bring in more revenue than Netflix & other established media companies[1]. Margins are of course pretty incredible as capex and opex is effectively zero since the content is "free". Such a great business that it's attracted organized crime.

But on a technical level how can a federated "shadow Netflix" operate out in the open and pull in that kind of revenue without ringing all kinds of alarm bells. They need infrastructure and obviously storing/streaming copyrighted content is against the policy of virtually every cloud provider. I also doubt these guys are bootstrapping & setting up their own datacenters. I would love a speculative analysis on how all of this works that goes in the weeds.

[1] https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/iptv-market...

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#22

Post by verdverm »

standardUser wrote: post #20
verdverm wrote: post #7

Well, they unbundled stuff into streaming, then went around and made exclusive deals and forced us back into the same monthly amounts, if not more Consumers are reacting Maybe also an alternative if you want to participate in the boycotts until the CEOs stop cozying up to the US admin (emperor)

A decent cable package was around $150/mo in the 90's, before streaming took hold. That's for scheduled programming only, and always with lots of ads. Do you really think we're worse off today? Is anyone paying close to a 90's cable bill for their various streaming services? And is the quality the same as we endured back then?

I never crossed $100 / month with cable + internet, that sounds like the package with many extras

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#23

Post by bobro »

nkrisc wrote: post #4

I too got tired of paying so much for TV so I canceled and just stopped watching it. I find the attitude that one is entitled to entertainment media fascinating. People like to say that it’s not stealing because there is no physical product the producer is being deprived of, which is factually true, but even so why are you entitled to it at no cost? NFL games aren’t water or food.

For me, it’s not that I feel entitled to it. It’s that it’s available, and I don’t feel any moral problems with taking it.

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#24

Post by 1e1a » 

  "There are no 6K TVs available for sale to consumers"
This seems to be incorrect. What about the Samsung TQ65QN900FTXXC, which is claimed to have a resolution of 7680 x 4320 (8K)?

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#25

Post by the_snooze »

verdverm wrote: post #7

Well, they unbundled stuff into streaming, then went around and made exclusive deals and forced us back into the same monthly amounts, if not more Consumers are reacting Maybe also an alternative if you want to participate in the boycotts until the CEOs stop cozying up to the US admin (emperor)

It's not just exclusive deals. It's piecemeal deals. Just look at what you have to do to stream all of Pokemon. https://www.pokemon.com/us/animation/where-to-watch-pokemon-...

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#26

Post by sharts »

nkrisc wrote: post #4

I too got tired of paying so much for TV so I canceled and just stopped watching it. I find the attitude that one is entitled to entertainment media fascinating. People like to say that it’s not stealing because there is no physical product the producer is being deprived of, which is factually true, but even so why are you entitled to it at no cost? NFL games aren’t water or food.

The entitlement comes after being ripped off.

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#27

Post by hnthrow0287345 »

nkrisc wrote: post #4

I too got tired of paying so much for TV so I canceled and just stopped watching it. I find the attitude that one is entitled to entertainment media fascinating. People like to say that it’s not stealing because there is no physical product the producer is being deprived of, which is factually true, but even so why are you entitled to it at no cost? NFL games aren’t water or food.

Gonna need quite a large swing back in the favor of regular people since we're being squeezed by endless subscriptions already before I have any sympathy for the multi-billion dollar corporations.

So maybe it's just that. Life feels like it should be better although it's the best it's ever been in many first-world countries. I am sure that entitled attitude is very common among rich people too.

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#28

Post by mikepk »

tehwebguy wrote: post #15
verdverm wrote: post #7

Well, they unbundled stuff into streaming, then went around and made exclusive deals and forced us back into the same monthly amounts, if not more Consumers are reacting Maybe also an alternative if you want to participate in the boycotts until the CEOs stop cozying up to the US admin (emperor)

> went around and made exclusive deals and forced us back into the same monthly amounts I've said this for years but most people probably don't watch more than 2 streamers / month every month. Pay for one month at a time and be pleasantly surprised at how many months you don't pay for 1 or more that you're paying for now.

Made me think, is there an opportunity to build a management layer for this? Handle subscribing and cancelling automatically when you want to watch certain things? Would probably be blocked pretty fast but amusing to think about.

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#30

Post by EtienneDeLyon »

nkrisc wrote: post #4

I too got tired of paying so much for TV so I canceled and just stopped watching it. I find the attitude that one is entitled to entertainment media fascinating. People like to say that it’s not stealing because there is no physical product the producer is being deprived of, which is factually true, but even so why are you entitled to it at no cost? NFL games aren’t water or food.

In some areas, you can 'pirate' live TV directly from the sky!

You need this thing called an 'antenna' which captures invisible radio waves and decodes them into a picture with audio. You can't pause or rewind, and you have to be in front of the TV at specific times, so it is not precis the same, but you can access TV this way.

Post reply on HN