this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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LOL.

We pay for 4K, but we don't get more than 720p unless we use some proprietary shit hardware and agree to their super-invasive "privacy policy" - and they expect people to NOT set sail in the high seas? GTFO..

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[–] [email protected] 214 points 9 months ago (8 children)

I'm willing to pay for one, maybe two subscriptions, and ain't nobody got time to dig for which service has what show to find out season 2 is on some other service entirely.

Piracy provides a better user experience 🤷‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 117 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem - Gaben

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (15 children)

I generally agree with him, but there are a lot of people who pirate simply because they don’t want to pay. And I’m not casting moral judgment here, i just feel like it bears mentioning lol “almost always” is pretty generous

[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago (1 children)

No it also means it's a service problem in the sense that it's not priced right for a geography. Pricing a game $70 where local average monthly income is $120 a month is a service problem. If you expect people from that geographic region to pay, the product should be priced within their means. And thus argument is valid only for digital goods where every new copy of the said goods costs mere few cents.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Im willing to pay for two. It used to be netflix and prime, then hulu, paramount plus, disney…

Now its down to one- Proton VPN 🏴‍☠️

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I was fine with paying for Netflix. Then they started pulling shit off for their own services and I quit when there was nothing but the lame Netflix originals and some old shit I don’t watch anymore. One of the things that put me over the edge was when they would do things like put a sequel up but not the original.

How the fuck do you expect me to just jump into The Two Towers and not expect me to want to watch The Fellowship of the Ring first?! Oh you think I’m going to go buy/rent the first movie 😂 that’s cute.

No, I’ll just go back to pirating. Much more convenient to be able to say, watch an episode of The Office and then switch to a Marvel movie from Disney+ and then a Marvel show from Netflix without paying a dime to 3 different subscriptions and being inconvenienced to have to close and open a whole new fucking app.

Now I just spend money for a VPN each month. Less than what it costs for a single of any of those other subscriptions too and I can choose my quality and version and not worry about it getting removed tomorrow!

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (3 children)

For the record, you can use justwatch.com and it will tell you exactly where you can watch it, and which seasons. But I'm still not paying for multiple subscriptions.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago

Since #1 on the list is always The Seven Seas there's no reason to proceed further.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

Hell, I even pay for a service that has all the magnet links resolved and ready to stream, no downloading involved. For 30 bucks (a year!) it's been the most convenient way of enjoying movies & shows.

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[–] [email protected] 115 points 9 months ago (2 children)

https://www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-piracy-issue-service-not-price/

As Gabe Newell said: "Piracy isn't a pricing issue, its a service issue"

As my friend said: "every time a plastic video disc says " operation not permitted " a torrent is born...

As I say: "People will pay when it's easy, more reliable and more convenient." As a software product manager, I forbid my product from ever wasting developer cycles with copy protection.. It's expensive to deliver, annoying to real customers and doesn't make us any more money...

[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago

As a user of software, I salute you.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I don't disagree with anything but I feel like GabeN said that before streaming and subscriptions took over.

Photoshop is an incredibly easy to use and powerful tool for creators - I'd be happy to drop like $200 on, for example, the 2024 version. I'm not happy to spend $10 or $30+ a month for life to use it, especially when they lock you in to a year subscription and charge you a fee if you cancel early so you literally can't just sub only the month when you need it, it's the whole year, period. I'll just pirate or use photopea or whatever.

Similar for streaming. Netflix gave us the option to pay for more screens to watch on. Now suddenly it matters whose house it's in?? All while you're constantly removing value from the platform and you cancel anything decent if the production value is too high? Fuck you man I'm not paying like $30 monthly for that.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

Please do keep voting with your wallet - its one of the few remaining ways to express our discontent!) That being said, I feel like both of those examples are where the service provided by adobe and then Netflix are terrible.

Adobe is making you buy a whole year and Netflix is hassling you for "letting your pensioner mum watch your account".. To me, both of those are examples of bad service (coupled with cost).

For me, a counter example for me is amazon.com: I hate what they're doing to the retail landscape but find it hard to resist, as I find them SOOO convenient, and their customer service (for now) is absolutely stunning!!! Now if their prices were too high, I'd personally probably pay for that convenience a bit. (Where there model breaks for me completely is warranty major purchases: I've had warranty denied by manufacturers for items purchased through non approved amazon resellers. So now, for me, anything over $100 and I'm looking for direct purchase from the manufacturer as a preference. )

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Maybe people would pirate less if you let them keep what they pay for.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You're buying... A temporary permission to access certain content.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 9 months ago (4 children)

...then piracy isn't theft.

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

12% over four years? Damn. Somehow I had the impression that there'd been a significant increase.

Netflix revenue is up by roughly 60% in the same four years.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago

Thank you for keeping things in perspective.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Cracking down on account sharing has sent lots of people sailing as well, and market fragmentation.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 9 months ago

Don't forget ads.

I'd happily pay for anything I consume if it were convenient, private, and no ads. Since I can't get that anymore, well, it's the high seas for me. I pay as much for high seas related services as I would for the official streamers, but the experience is 10x better.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Netflix turning off account sharing is what sent me to the high seas. Disney+ doing the same will push me over even more.

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Sometimes piracy is the only method of archival

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Some things are literally not available anymore by legal means. Piracy is an important tool in preserving content for future generations. Future historian will be proud of pirates.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 9 months ago (6 children)

Put everything on 1 or 2 platforms and take cuts depending on what people are watching.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Well streaming prices have gotten ridiculous.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I stuck around with streaming for as long as I could but with the price increases, the restrictions, the lack of content as they revert back into cable bullshit has driven me back to getting the bulk of my stuff via torrents again.

Honestly, I'm pretty shocked that streaming remained decent for as long as it did but we all knew this was inevitable because we all know how this song and dance with greedy corporations go.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Paying up to 23$ a month (not including other streaming services) to watch maybe 5% of the shows and movies I'm interested in just didn't seem like a good deal after a while.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

Nope, you need more than 1 subscription, because quite often services only offer a few of the seasons of your favorite show, while the others are on different services.

Example: https://www.pokemon.com/us/animation/where-to-watch-pokemon-episodes-movies

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago

Those are rookie numbers! Let's pump it up!

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago

This is the number one reason I won't ever pay for a netflix subscription (or others) again. Pay for 4K but you dont get 4K if you want to watch on your laptop or android streaming box that they don't approve of. Like how much fucking greedier could you be? Fuck them I hope they all go the way of blockbuster soon.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (7 children)

When Netflix had (seemingly) everything I was totally cool and the gang with paying for that service.

Now I have:

  • Netflix
  • Amazon Prime
  • Apple TV
  • Disney+
  • NowTv
  • fuck knows what else

and I still can't find the content I want to watch. I had an urge to watch The Good, The Bad And The Ugly the other day. Could I find it on any services I pay a combined £50+ a month for? Could I fuck. Why would they be surprised they're pushing people to 'alternative' sources? Sure, I can rent or buy Barbie and Oppenheimer if I want, but I don't want. What I want is access to the tens of thousands of old, excellent, films that have been made.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (14 children)

1 of those 12% is just me lol /s

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (7 children)

I get pissed at my family for being traditional hoarders but I somewhat inherited that as a data hoarder. The amount of stuff I have pirated over the years and not actually used or watched is hilarious.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I can easily say that the amount of my friends and family that have become interested in my Emby setup has expontentially consistently increased every round that these streaming providers have increased their rates.

The experience of launching 7 different streaming apps to find something, content constantly vanishing or moving platforms, and just an overall poor user experience coupled with doubling/tripling of each platforms costs....

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (13 children)

The companies have almost successfully re-introduced the very problem that streaming originally solved.

It's like this dipshits don't want our money. I've always been firm that any content removed from streaming services is a message from that content company that they don't want the money of the customers subscribed to said service and thus are okay with those people pirating it instead.

If they cared about the money, they'd had left the content there.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Bold of you to think that they even think of us at all.

I actually mean that seriously: we continue seeing, over and over, that no, quite often they do NOT expect people to NOT do that, they quite simply DGAF. They pirate us, we pirate them, it becomes just another "cost of doing business", until they are strong enough to eventually crack down further. See ad blocking & Chrome recently, after multiple decades of internet ads pushing the limits.

It's like a zombie nom noming your brains - after like 2 bites it'll get bored and wander off, and it literally doesn't even need to "eat", it simply is so fucking DUMB that it doesn't know what else to do with itself. It is truly horrifying b/c while your entrails may be strewn about on the floor, or in the throats of tens of zombies, they in turn... don't even have the decency to be aware that you've died!?

Lower-level managers sell ideas to higher-level managers, and "logic" has little to do with those conversations, compared to the amount of emo-stroking that goes on "oh, you will become so rich, and powerful, and handsome, and brave, and precious" (from here:-P) - and so long as enough people play along, that happens!

Our world is just so fucking STUPID.

That said, what they do is on them, while what we do is on us. Find a way to live - hopefully by finding a way to contribute, if/where you can.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Piracy has changed so much. Back when people were making the transition from p2p to torrents there was very little if any streaming sites.

Nowadays if you sneeze hard enough you're bound to spray down some big name streaming service.

Now there are even whole front ends that allow you to stream whatever you want anytime you want even on a little, but very powerful handheld computer.

I would say that 12% is more on the low end. If you were to factor in ad blocking and the various front ends I mentioned earlier I could see that number going up much higher.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I fucking wonder why. When owning isn't owning them piracy is totally justified.

We pay for 4K, but we don’t get more than 720p unless we use some proprietary shit hardware and a

Not only that... you pay to get tv content and suddenly they remove it because of licensing or political correctness bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Not only that… you pay to get tv content and suddenly they remove it because of licensing

Preach!!

or political correctness bullshit.

Oh no

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (6 children)

Always a tell tale sign when someone unironically drops a PC whinge.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Not gonna lie, if you asked me what I would think the increase would be and I would have assumed it be a lot higher.

But then again, that could be the part of the pirate crew that doesn't use a VPN and is easily identified upon entering the site.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

What you say is exactly what I feel.

When I pay for a service, as long as I abide by the ToS, service provider should give me their products in full.

Your protection should not violate my right.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (7 children)
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