4 ms·

I radically disagree. Most piracy is not a service issue. Most piracy is a greed issue. Yes, there are region locks. Yes, not all content is available to all p

I radically disagree. Most piracy is not a service issue. Most piracy is a greed issue. Yes, there are region locks. Yes, not all content is available to all people. Yes, purchased content may only be usable on certain devices. Yes, we could list edge cases for hours. But most content is available to most people in a way that has never been easier or faster to access in the history of time. It just costs a little bit of money. Do you realize how incredibly easy iTunes is? I can purchase and start playing almost any TV show or movie ever made in approximately 5 mouse clicks and 15 seconds. (Yes, if you don't live in the US it may not be available. I covered that already. Thanks.) It's insane how easy it is. It's impossible to compete with truly free. Netflix can offer a good deal thanks to copyright laws. Were it not for such laws piracy sites would be of such high quality that no paid service could possibly compete. If you had a credit card with infinite money the paid would be pretty god damned good. Better than piracy. The single biggest advantage piracy has, by far, is it doesn't cost money. That's a pretty damned big advantage. I think service is a piracy solution. But the problem is greed. Old fashioned, simple greed. I expect downvotes. But this is my opinion. I hope you don't downvote simply because you disagree.

tptacek 10y ago
The downvotes are predictable and not worth commenting on (doing so probably attracts more of them). But, for whatever it's worth, this is pretty close to my position as well.
nikdaheratik 10y ago
I think it depends on the product. Newall was 100% correct about video games, which is where steam makes most of its money. The issue with TV shows is somewhat different because of their episodic nature and the fact that alot of what they have to offer is available for free over the air, or already paid for by the cable customer, or the Netflix customer. It's harder to justify buying something that you really only want to watch once, will likely be available at some point in the future for free, or where the producer just doesn't care enough about your part of the world to even bother releasing it in a reasonable timeframe. I'm not saying price isn't a factor, or the desire to get tons of "free" stuff isn't a factor, but distribution is still a PITA for TV worldwide, and TV/Movie companies also have the same level of "greed" in terms of wanting to herd consumers towards DVD/Blueray that Record companies have with regards to CD sales and wanting to return to the huge paydays of the 90s.

tptacek 10y ago

The downvotes are predictable and not worth commenting on (doing so probably attracts more of them). But, for whatever it's worth, this is pretty close to my position as well.

nikdaheratik 10y ago

I think it depends on the product. Newall was 100% correct about video games, which is where steam makes most of its money. The issue with TV shows is somewhat different because of their episodic nature and the fact that alot of what they have to offer is available for free over the air, or already paid for by the cable customer, or the Netflix customer. It's harder to justify buying something that you really only want to watch once, will likely be available at some point in the future for free, or where the producer just doesn't care enough about your part of the world to even bother releasing it in a reasonable timeframe. I'm not saying price isn't a factor, or the desire to get tons of "free" stuff isn't a factor, but distribution is still a PITA for TV worldwide, and TV/Movie companies also have the same level of "greed" in terms of wanting to herd consumers towards DVD/Blueray that Record companies have with regards to CD sales and wanting to return to the huge paydays of the 90s.