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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

#521

Post by cptskippy »

scarface74 wrote: post #511
cptskippy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the adults of families today were the kids who grew up with Napster, Limewire, and TPB so piracy has a sentimental feel to it like pulling a Nintendo out of your mom's basement.

I used Napster when it first came out, I was already 26. But as soon as the iTunes music store came out for Windows, I stopped using Napster and Kazaa. They were no longer worth the hassle. I didn’t buy an iPod until around 2005. I just made CDs. It’s the same with video now. If I plan ahead, I will still pick up movies that fall off the back of a truck and put them on my Plex server, but often, we don’t even bother.…

I have actually started buying movie codes off those dodgy looking sites Disney hates. You can usually own a movie for the cost of a rental from Amazon, Google or iTunes.

I have never had a failure but I once had an issue with a purchase porting to Movies Anywhere from Google Play. Google was beyond useless in helping me out, I actually spoke with someone on the phone and it was as if they had never even seen the Play Store before. I emailed the seller about it and got an immediate email response with a couple suggestions to try before refund, the first suggestion worked.

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

#522

Post by jaredklewis »

fragmede wrote: post #427
fhennig wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently rented a movie on amazon, and then I didn't have the option to get english subtitles, only subtitles in my native language. I wonder why that is, and I'm assuming it is because of some cumbersome contractual relations. On a DVD I'm pretty certain I could have gotten English subtitles. So now I'm paying, but I still get sub-par content? I ended up using a plugin to add the subtitles back in, but that plugin…

Go to a different country, and Netflix offers a different set of subtitles for a given title. Why can't I get Swedish subtitles in the US, for titles Neflix has the subtitles? I know this is to simplify the UI, but just offer it as an advances option, like they do for non-apathy mode (ie, stop playing at the end of one episode so I don't lose a day sitting on the couch).

Are you truly certain it is just to simplify the UI? I am not sure for Swedish, but I do know that US films subtitled in Japanese often have different licensing arrangements than the unsubtitled version.

For the same inscrutable reasons that the film industry insists on schemes like DVD region locking, they are also generally against making a single version of a movie with all subtitles available.

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

#523

Post by jaredklewis »

freeflight wrote: post #499
merlinsbrain wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re willing to pay, why not rent from the iTunes Store / Amazon Prime? Pick one, they’ve had all the movies / TV shows I wanted to watch, which are not all mainstream. If there’s an exception and there’s something you don’t find it there - well, do you, but I really don’t understand how piracy is the default answer to convenience with people claiming they have the willingness to pay. Someone else commented abou…

> I really don’t understand how piracy is the default answer to convenience with people claiming they have the willingness to pay. Subscription services fees can quickly add if not managed properly, so the convenience they offer completely evaporates if you force customers to juggle their subscriptions between different services to cover all their needs. To customers that "services juggling" is pretty much the exact…

Your comment doesn't address the parent's question.

Forget about streaming services, you can rent nearly every big screen movie ever from iTunes, Google Play, or Amazon, instantly for $3-6 dollars. Adjusting for inflation, these prices are very much comparable with what video rental stores used to offer. iTunes alone has more than 100k movies (for perspective Netflix doesn't even have 10k).

Many in this thread (and to a lesser extent the article) are acting like movie watchers want to pay money, but it's just too complicated to do so. Renting a movie on iTunes/Play/Amazon is at least as easy as torrenting something, and the selection is massive.

"If I can watch any movie ever for $10/month, I'll do it, but otherwise I'll just pirate them" is a very strange viewpoint IMHO. I would like unlimited groceries for $10/month, but I'm not going to just to stealing them because that's not an option.

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

#524

Post by freeflight »

jaredklewis wrote: post #523
freeflight wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don’t understand how piracy is the default answer to convenience with people claiming they have the willingness to pay. Subscription services fees can quickly add if not managed properly, so the convenience they offer completely evaporates if you force customers to juggle their subscriptions between different services to cover all their needs. To customers that "services juggling" is pretty much the exact…

Your comment doesn't address the parent's question. Forget about streaming services, you can rent nearly every big screen movie ever from iTunes, Google Play, or Amazon, instantly for $3-6 dollars. Adjusting for inflation, these prices are very much comparable with what video rental stores used to offer. iTunes alone has more than 100k movies (for perspective Netflix doesn't even have 10k). Many in this thread (and t…

Renting is an even worse exercise than subscribing to a streaming service.

For heavy consumers, the renting fees will add up quickly and the selection on those stores is not as flawless as you make it out to be.

To this day Amazon still demands more money for anything better than SD quality, information about supplied subs/dubs is spotty at best, if they are even supplied at all. Bonus content? Completely missing.

Why deal with that when for nearly the same amount of money you can often order a complete Bluray and own the movie in a physical format? Not just a "temporary license to stream"?

> "If I can watch any movie ever for $10/month, I'll do it, but otherwise I'll just pirate them" is a very strange viewpoint IMHO.

Then it's good nobody here claimed anything like that. But you are still stuck in this "all pirates are cheap freeloaders" mode, when in reality piracy usually happens in addition to the user already being a heavily paying fan of the medium [0]. Piracy supplements that when it's more convenient/not legally available/past the monthly budget.

[0] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/evkmz7/study-again-shows-...

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

#525

Post by CivilianZero »

zzzcpan wrote: post #476
CivilianZero wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that follows. I'm technically savvy and am fully capable of torrenting files, but the amount of effort I have to exert to get it done problem free (and the amount I have in the past) means it is not easy or simple. Just because you have the ability to perform an action, even if you find it easy to do, does not mean it is intrinsically easy or simple. And it definitely is never easier than opening an app…

> And it definitely is never easier than opening an app on your smart tv/console/etc and clicking play. It is. For everyone who cares about privacy, security implications of using an app on a smart tv, for everyone who doesn't want to own a smart tv or a console, for everyone who already knows how to do it with torrents. And so on. Easiness is subjective. Simplicity isn't, but streaming apps are not simpler in any wa…

We're not discussing how a luddite is going to watch a movie at home. That's a completely different discussion. And if you are genuinely worried about privacy or security there are other ways around that that don't involve stealing.

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

#526

Post by Shido »

First time commenting so excuse me if I say something wrong, I believe there should be something similar to cable for these streaming platforms like a company that pays the companies to stream their content on their service for a smaller price for the consumers that way we won't be forced to pay for some many services all at once, the cable concept is starting to make sense.

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

#527

Post by alanh »

AimForTheBushes wrote: post #258
navigatesol wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between pirating something, and distributing pirated content, both ethically and legally.

You mean like the pirate bay?

we're in the weeds now, but: sort of. the pirate bay doesn’t distribute anything — it just indexes it — but actually getting content via the pirate bay involves torrenting the content. and torrent is a tech that makes every downloader also an uploader to peers.

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

#529

Post by benbristow »

jaredklewis wrote: post #523
freeflight wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don’t understand how piracy is the default answer to convenience with people claiming they have the willingness to pay. Subscription services fees can quickly add if not managed properly, so the convenience they offer completely evaporates if you force customers to juggle their subscriptions between different services to cover all their needs. To customers that "services juggling" is pretty much the exact…

Your comment doesn't address the parent's question. Forget about streaming services, you can rent nearly every big screen movie ever from iTunes, Google Play, or Amazon, instantly for $3-6 dollars. Adjusting for inflation, these prices are very much comparable with what video rental stores used to offer. iTunes alone has more than 100k movies (for perspective Netflix doesn't even have 10k). Many in this thread (and t…

But you can download the movie for free, watch it as many times as you want and spend that money on other stuff...

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

#530

Post by mcv »

ProZsolt wrote: post #306
coldtea wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's just so many Star Wars movies, and so many Marvel movies, and while I've seen most in theaters, they are basically juvenile blockbuster cookie cutter crap. The first 3 star wars films where important for their era, but most of the later ones are just forgettable sci-fi (for non-discerning fans). Not to mention letting down parts of the canon (e.g. the Solo movie, or "Kylo Ren", a hipster/teenage goth abominat…

Logan not even Marvel Studios it's 20th Century Fox so that makes it 0 in 10 :P For me, it went from I want to see every Marvel movie in the cinema to stream it from Netflix to I won't pay any extra if it's not on Netflix. I really like the Star Wars universe, but the only good new movie was Rogue One. It worked because it was a completely separate story only loosely tied to the original films.

Rogue One was quite strongly tied to A New Hope, I'd say.

Personally I love both anthologies, and I love them a lot more than the new trilogy (I love Luke's role, but I have doubts about where the trilogy as a whole is going). I know Solo bombed, but for me it was the movie I'd been waiting 30 years for, and I wasn't disappointed.

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