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

Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 960 posts

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#341

Post by ajmurmann »

devilbunny wrote: post #89
rgblambda wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix found that while it was a nice advertising tool to boast about the broadness of its catalogue, most customers rarely ordered the more niche stuff so it wasn't particularly profitable.

> most customers rarely ordered the more niche stuff I'm sure that's true, but the flip side is that the niche stuff is what pulls in the hardcore film buffs. And guess who those of us who aren't big film buffs turn to when picking films and services? The hardcore film buffs we know. They may not generate a ton of revenue if you look only at "how many people request obscure movie X", but having those movies pulls in…

Want the DVD-by-mail business still available until 2-3 years ago? It seems that faded silently away and there wasn't even a whimper when it died.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#342

Post by rustystump »

This is true but also because most streaming services tech is doodoo butter.

For example, i wanted to watch the new south park season. I get paramount plus. It doesnt work on smart tv app. Ok fine shouldnt be using that anyways, hook up laptop. Still doesnt work. Use a different adapter and still doesn’t work. Airplay from phone, that works but i dont want to give up phone and website has major jank.

5s google search later and i am streaming on the 7 seas from smart tv browser.

To be fair, netflix is almost always solid. The rest are glitchy, slow, janky piles of dung.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#343

Post by ajmurmann »

piva00 wrote: post #53
neves wrote: post #8

For me worse than the can't pay is the lack of options. In the VHS time I had more good movie options than in the current streaming services. I remember when I bing watched Kurozawa or Mario Monicelli's movies. Now it's very hard to find non American cinema. The tech is there, but the System fail us.

MUBI is a good option for the more high cinema stuff, one of the few subscriptions I'd feel sad canceling.

Same. We rotate through services but Mubi and Criterion are fixed. I do sometimes miss when Mubi would only have movies for 30 days. It helped me to actually watch the movies I wanted to watch. I'd guess that at least half the movies that from the last ten years that sometimes pop into my head were from Mubi. I've probably watched entire series on Netflix I don't remember anything of.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#344

Post by freddie_mercury »

DHRicoF wrote: post #170
ryandrake wrote: post #153

Piracy offers: 1. Unrestricted access to an absolutely huge library of movies, music and TV shows, nearly unlimited. Certainly not limited by opaque "licensing deals" between various companies. 2. Highest resolution/bitrate/quality that was available at the time of the work's original release. 3. No arbitrary device/OS limitations. 4. Can watch/listen/download from any location on earth with sufficient bandwidth. I d…

Netflix and to some level spotify drowned piracy for a time. But then a lot of companies tried to rap the same "winings" splitting the ecosystem and trashing the user experience. - ¿could we watch x movie? - let me see. no, it in this other service beside the 3 we are paying.

I lived in a country where Netflix never bothered to open up (until very recently) so piracy never went away for the 100 million people living there.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#345

Post by subscribed »

codedokode wrote: post #137
RajT88 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The film and music industries really shot themselves in the foot when they got a tax on recordable media introduced in Canada. OK, CD-R's and flash memory cost a bunch more now. Streaming is legal, because customers already paid the record companies for their music they downloaded and put on that media. At least, someone explained this was the current state of Canadian law ~10 years back when I first visited.

Tax on recordable media is unfair because honest people who don't pirate anything also have to pay. As with the case above, honest people get screwed the most.

Wait a second, if I paid a tax allowing me to legally doenload/record..... what's dishonest in it?

It's basically a subscription.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#346

Post by II2II »

cyberax wrote: post #255
l72 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to have real options or people can’t make informed decisions. I have a background in city planning, and in the US, you’ll constantly hear about how trying to make cities more friendly to pedestrians, bicycles, or public transit is a waste because no one uses it. But the truth is, most people will end up using the system you design. If you build a system just for cars, people will use cars. If you build a cit…

> If you build a walkable city, people will walk. No, they won't. If you build a walkable city and then make it impossible to do anything else, then people will walk. It's a subtle difference, but it's there.

I live in a "walkable city". By walkable, I mean the old parts of the city that predated the automobile (and weren't destroyed in the name of modernization) are walkable. New parts of the city are completely unwalkable. If you came here, you would notice that massive numbers of people walk in the old parts of the city. Even the people who drive into the old parts of the city tend to walk once they are there. In the new parts of the city, virtually all of the pedestrians you see are on their way to or from a bus stop.

That said, there is more to a walkable city than a bunch of sidewalks. It also has to offer what people want and what they want must be easy to access. Something similar can be said about piracy. It wasn't streaming services that stymied piracy, it was cheap and easy access to legal sources of music and video. Even then, cheap was likely a secondary factor (as long as the price was reasonable).

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#348

Post by more_corn »

When content owners get too bossy their fans rebel, but keep in mind that pirates are also the largest buyers of licensed content. The pirates contribute monetarily but also serve as a warning that the pendulum has swung too far. When things get too tight piracy serves as a pressure release and a signal to loosen up.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#349

Post by bradbeattie »

pluc wrote: post #244
ryandrake wrote: post #153

Piracy offers: 1. Unrestricted access to an absolutely huge library of movies, music and TV shows, nearly unlimited. Certainly not limited by opaque "licensing deals" between various companies. 2. Highest resolution/bitrate/quality that was available at the time of the work's original release. 3. No arbitrary device/OS limitations. 4. Can watch/listen/download from any location on earth with sufficient bandwidth. I d…

What gets to me is exclusivity deals. Wanna watch this? Subscribe to that. Wanna watch that? Well itnisnt available on this so you'd have to subscibe to that. New streaming service launches with promotional exclusivity of something you like? Gotta get on that too. And don't get me started on sports! Streaming was OK when it was fighting cable, because it was cheaper and on-demand. With the constant greed, we're back…

It's a shame https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_P.... was never applied to streaming services.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#350

Post by Affric »

chongli wrote: post #180
ryandrake wrote: post #153

Piracy offers: 1. Unrestricted access to an absolutely huge library of movies, music and TV shows, nearly unlimited. Certainly not limited by opaque "licensing deals" between various companies. 2. Highest resolution/bitrate/quality that was available at the time of the work's original release. 3. No arbitrary device/OS limitations. 4. Can watch/listen/download from any location on earth with sufficient bandwidth. I d…

2. Highest resolution/bitrate/quality that was available at the time of the work's original release. Arguably higher. For example, fans of Star Wars have scanned the original 1977 theatrical release with very high quality film scanners and created a 4K release complete with film grain and the original scenes intact which is not available through approved channels.

It’s great but do you know of any others?
Post reply on HN