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Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

theguardian.com

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Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#591

Post by kmeisthax »

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.

[dead]

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#592

Post by unglaublich »

vhanda wrote: post #6

All streaming services should have a pay per minute system as an alternative to the fixed monthly subscription. That way, I'd happily use any service to watch whatever cause it would be convenient, instead of piracy. And it would be a reason for them to really improve their recommendation systems.

Yes but then it must be in the form of a subscription (e.g. 300 mins/month), because recurring revenue is critical for the valuation of most companies.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#593

Post by JodieBenitez »

socalgal2 wrote: post #270
hbn wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget censorship-free I swore off streaming services when they started pulling episodes of comedy shows and editing out scenes because they were worried someone might be offended

I hate the censorship. But when some groups are willing to kill if you don’t censor then I can’t blame others for not wanting to be martyrs and put their lives on the line for it

Not directly related to streaming services, but this happened: https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2025/08/13/noisy-le-s...

I can definitely see how streaming services would adapt to bigots.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#594

Post by simianparrot »

frollogaston wrote: post #523
area51org wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily true, as the success of streaming shows. The problem comes when the unbounded greed of the billionaires in charge leads them to inflate prices beyond their customers' ability and willingness to pay.

Streaming was cheaper than what existed before, and still is. Inflation-adjusted, movies and TV were insanely expensive back then, yet people willingly paid. And the movies were better. Who's greedy, companies wanting to offer nonessential entertainment for a price, or people who want it for free?

Nobody I ever talk to cancel Netflix because it’s too expensive. They cancel it because it runs out of content they care about. Including me. I’m not keeping a sub for that one week a year I find something I enjoy.

It’s absolutely a service problem.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#595

Post by thaumasiotes »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #269
crooked-v wrote: post #9

To really sum it all up in one place, check out the absurdity of the official guide on where to watch the Pokemon cartoon: https://www.pokemon.com/us/animation/where-to-watch-pokemon-... And that doesn't even actually list the movies, which are even more fragmented.

For reference: Season 1: Amazon Prime Video (also, Netflix) Season 2: Amazon Prime Video Channels 3-5: Prime Video 6-13: Prime Video Channels (with 10-13 also available on the Roku Channel) 14-19: Prime Video (with 17-19 also on Netflix) 20-22: Prime Video Channels (and Hulu, and the Roku Channel) 23-25: Prime Video (and Netflix) So, they're all on Amazon in some sense. I was aware that there was some kind of concept…

Following up, "Prime Video Channels" seem to be an Amazon offering in which you have your subscription to a separate video service (the "Channel") billed through Amazon, for "convenience". (And you can also watch their stuff on Amazon's website.) So Pokemon has licensed about half of their series to Amazon, and they reserve the remaining half for people who subscribe to the Pokemon Channel.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#596

Post by madrasman »

disillusioned wrote: post #590
JKCalhoun wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like we've had at least two lost decades of good content. It's probably somewhere, I just haven't found it yet.

In my humble opinion, some "good content": Netflix: * Dark * Fisk * Adolescence * Ripley * The Queen's Gambit * Ozark * Baby Reindeer * Easy Apple TV: * Black Bird * The Studio * Severance * Shrinking * Ted Lasso HBO: * The Wire * Oz * True Detective (S1 at least) * The Sopranos * Big Love * Rome * In Treatment * Succession * Deadwood * Insecure Misc: * Colin From Accounts * Black Sails * Mad Men * Breaking Bad * Bet…

In India, people classify movies as “mass” or “class”. Netflix and Prime are doing a lot more “mass” and for good reasons.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#597

Post by cess11 »

Currently I only pay for streaming services that allow me to make local copies, either as part of the service or by ripping the network stream. Preferably a one-time payment.

I'm not interested in feeding someone else's lust for behaviour profiling and 'analytics', mainly, but I also don't want to be shut down entirely because there's a main power or coverage issue.

Though I'm considering making an exception for https://www.cultpix.com/, because I'd like to support their rather niche business.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#599

Post by [deleted] »

macNchz wrote: post #246
l72 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also often time have versions of old movies and shows that have been modified due to silly things like license agreements on music expiring! I have felt gaslighted when I rewatch and old movie and some scene isn’t how I remember.

I was so surprised and bummed when I discovered this was a thing. My wife and I started watching the original Beverly Hills 90210—a sort of ridiculous snapshot of American pop culture in the early 1990s—on some streaming service, and after a few episodes I noticed the music was just...super wrong. Reading online, I learned that a lot of the original music had been licensed only for the original run of the show, so ev…

[deleted]

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#600

Post by jasonfarnon »

macNchz wrote: post #246
l72 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also often time have versions of old movies and shows that have been modified due to silly things like license agreements on music expiring! I have felt gaslighted when I rewatch and old movie and some scene isn’t how I remember.

I was so surprised and bummed when I discovered this was a thing. My wife and I started watching the original Beverly Hills 90210—a sort of ridiculous snapshot of American pop culture in the early 1990s—on some streaming service, and after a few episodes I noticed the music was just...super wrong. Reading online, I learned that a lot of the original music had been licensed only for the original run of the show, so ev…

what's really pointless is how they released the beavis and butthead episodes without the music videos. even the replays on mtv or mtv2 back in the 2000s couldn't play the music videos.
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