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This is a compelling thought, but the evidence doesn't seem to back it up. What we actually see in the real world seems to be the opposite - people absolutely _
by annabellish 9y ago
This is a compelling thought, but the evidence doesn't seem to back it up. What we actually see in the real world seems to be the opposite - people absolutely _will_ pay for things they could get for free so long as it isn't less convenient than not paying.
Given that the act of making a payment is an inconvenience in and of itself, this does suggest it's _harder_ to get people to pay for a service, but the success of things like netflix and spotify is a clear indicator that people really like the "pay a consistent amount of money and get access to whatever" model.
- vbezhenar 9y agoI've heard that in western countries there are people who track torrent users and threaten them with blackmailing letters. So people are afraid to use torrents to download pirated movies. If that's true, it can be a reason of Neflix success: fear, not convenience. In my country nobody cares about torrents and I don't know anyone who's using Netflix. There are some people, who don't know how to properly use computer, I can imagine that they could pay for something like that, but that's because they have no other choice, not because they like to pay.
- annabellish 9y agoI think it's more complicated than that. At least in my (rich, western) country there aren't any actual concequences for that kind of piracy. I believe there is a system in place for sending emails, but not threatening ones, and not ones with any teeth at all. The bigger factor might be that for a more well off audience, the cost of these services is low enough that it isn't meaningfully more expensive than piracy anyway, and can be much more convenient. `Search -> Stream` is a much smoother workflow than `Search -> Select well seeded torrent -> Initiate download -> Wait -> Play`.