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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

#71

Post by monster_truck »

I was trying to watch The Big Short the other night, after checking 7 streaming websites I came to my senses and downloaded the 4k rip off the pirate bay

I was trying to put on a show for background noise this morning. Just two nights ago I was able to sign in with my cable provider and watch it. Now it's telling me there's a network (as in the channel the network is on) authorization error, customer support can't tell me why it doesn't work and they are not authorized to issue me a credit.

So I pirated that too.

And what the fuck is up with Netflix? Why do I have to install a browser extension to hide the games? I don't want games I want to watch The Big Short.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#72

Post by maxglute »

I spent last few days chasing down a Bravo/peacock show from outside the US trying to watch legally, only to find it on watchseries and realize how good the experience has gotten. It's not even released on torrents or nzb. Watchseries UI is kind of peak now. Nuts. Does anyone know how Watchseries manage to stay up?

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#73

Post by themafia »

sunrunner wrote: post #55
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay per episode could be an ok granularity. Anything above that I'm not ok, there is too much garbage

Perhaps pay-per-episode with a discounted price for an entire series (and an option to buy the remainders taking that into account). It seems fair to be able to dip your toe into a series and try a few episodes before committing. On the other hand, that seems just a bit too consumer-friendly...

Isn't this precisely what Amazon already does?

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#74

Post by themafia »

geoffpado wrote: post #14
neves wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a movie has a Netflix label in it, it is a sure signal of a bad movie with a boring script made based on data.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accolades_received_by_...

Some of those are other networks shows that just happen to be distributed by Netflix. For example, Wallace & Gromit. This is not a useful set of data to draw conclusions from. Which is precisely the problem that Netflix has.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#75

Post by themafia »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #45

I started buying Blu-ray discs and ripping them to my computer, where I run Plex. Why? I had a long-time subscription to HBO Max, but a few years ago, I went to watch Westworld, and it was gone from HBO. I ended up buying a season on Apple for the price of a monthly subscription to HBO. I cancelled my HBO subscription. I realized that second-hand Blu-ray discs of shows were selling for dirt cheap. I spent $40 to buy…

Are you over 40?

I ask because I'm over 40 and I've had enough of this too.

Also check out cafedvd.com.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#76

Post by zten »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #45

I started buying Blu-ray discs and ripping them to my computer, where I run Plex. Why? I had a long-time subscription to HBO Max, but a few years ago, I went to watch Westworld, and it was gone from HBO. I ended up buying a season on Apple for the price of a monthly subscription to HBO. I cancelled my HBO subscription. I realized that second-hand Blu-ray discs of shows were selling for dirt cheap. I spent $40 to buy…

Sucks that the Blu-ray experience is dreadful for 4K content. You've gotta find specific Blu-ray drives with specific firmware versions to do rips, or watch on a PlayStation or similar locked-down console. There isn't even a non-pirate way to watch on a laptop or desktop anymore since Intel SGX is dead.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#77

Post by thewebguyd »

whobre wrote: post #35
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.

Yep. I swear I liked the old Netflix with DVDs better. I could rent pretty much any movie I wanted.

Even after the DVDs, Netflix had a much bigger catalog before everyone else decided they needed to copy Netflix and launch their own service, then IP rights got restricted and redistributed.

Streaming was great when I only needed to subscribe to a single service to watch most everything I wanted. It's not so great when I need to subscribe to 5+ services and still not have everything I want to watch.

Yeah, monopolies are bad but the way IP is distributed right now across so many different services just ends up being worse for consumers.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#78

Post by thewebguyd »

prasadjoglekar wrote: post #12
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.

A bundle of streaming services. That you can surf and choose one from and just watch. And a TV guide that tells you what's running where. Gee...sounds a lot like Cable TV. Sarcasm aside, the one problem folks had with Cable was the inability to upgrade without getting locked into another 2 year contract. Streaming solves that one problem while enshittifying all the other good things.

> Gee...sounds a lot like Cable TV.

Honestly, Cable companies could make a comeback by using their relationships with producers to actually be a "one stop shop" streaming services. There's definitely a pain point to having to be subscribed to so many different services just to cover the gamut of shows and movies

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#79

Post by taraindara »

I still have streaming services, mostly because my family uses them. I’m slowly getting back into the self hosted ways. But it’s also pushing me to just stop watching altogether. I’m finding better ways to spend my time than in front of a tv. Or rather, I guess I’m spending it more behind a computer screen. Haha

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#80

Post by nicce »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #46
sunrunner wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pay per minute system And/or pay-per-episode, pay-per-season or pay-per-show. So I don't have to start thinking ahead too much about the _length_ of something and can just enjoy the thing itself based on some pre-determined price.

Pay per episode could be an ok granularity. Anything above that I'm not ok, there is too much garbage

Some Disney series are already 20mins about the show and 10mins credits/something else. Don’t give them new ideas to reduce the actual content…
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