3 ms·

Or streamed it from Google Play for $2

lovich 8y ago
How does any of this change the OP's point about fragmentation of the market? It does nothing to benefit the consumer, the competition is not lowering prices, so why would consumers not go back to piracy when it results in a superior product?
- consumethreads 8y ago
  because we are not cheap and are ok with paying for a service. How cheap should it be. There will be no service that people will pay for if they pirate content. The service they want is a service where they dont have to pay. If you are pirating you are not a customer. Any business man should not be concerned with trying to gain your market, its not profitable.
  - lovich 8y ago
    Steam, iTunes, and Spotify have almost completely killed off pirating for games and music. It's still possible but people would rather pay for those services because the services actually add a value over the actual data which is post scarcity. TV and the film industry have decided they'll make more money by making a worse product and doing everything they can to prevent users from finding alternatives
    - closetCS 8y ago
      I'm not quite sure about this, but aren't the products you have mentioned also have the same problem as Netflix. Spotify is able to provide lots of music options, but for how long? They are being effectively strangled by music labels and competitors, which will eventually lead to a content fragmentation between music streaming services. Then people will turn back to pirating music just as fast and they have for video. I'm not sure about steam , but I'm sure that eventually the gaming industry will face the same problem, it's only a matter of time.
      - lovich 8y ago
        Yes, if their products value F(steam) < F(free) then of course people will pirate. Why would you expect consumers to pay for a product that is inferior to something that was left untouched? Why should a firm exist when they supply negative value to their consumers? It would be the same situation as it was 10 years ago in the heyday of pirating and companies should expect to lose out on income, in this case the music labels If this was a natural state of affairs there might be considerations about morals, but the current rules and laws came about through direct intervention by these same companies
  - godelski 8y ago
    > If you are pirating you are not a customer. Any business man should not be concerned with trying to gain your market, its not profitable. A poor businessman. A good businessman sees the black market and determines if they can provide a similar service in the white market. Clearly there are consumers and they want something that they aren't getting already. And in this case, things like popcorn time have a great interface and are easier than most streaming services. People want to see new movies in their homes (and I always laugh at the "no movie should be reduced to this shrinks from theater screen to computer screen, because clearly people like it that way). And people want to see population and good movies at the top of their lists, not problem garbage. There's a lot of people that complain about even Netflix because of this. Their recommendation engine isn't what it used to be. There's a lot more reasons too. People pirate for many more reasons than because it's free, though that definitely is a big component. But people seem to be ignoring these other reasons. There's a market, or two, here that aren't being served. A good businessman would serve them.
- rainbowmverse 8y ago
  Some of us have this bizarre wish to support the companies and people who produce things we enjoy even if they sometimes make it difficult.
  - lovich 8y ago
    I pay for things I could steal as well, because I like to support those companies. However what we have here is an entire industry working towards setting up their offerings as a worse product than free. Not just more expensive than free, but an objectively worse product, and they've acommplished this in part by eroding consumer rights. You might expect some people to take an extremely principled stance but it would be unreasonable to expect the majority of society to do so when the companies themselves are operating as unprincipled entities.
    - rainbowmverse 8y ago
      The choice isn't between stealing and paying for it. Choosing something else is the principled stand. There's plenty of good media out there to support without stealing. I'd rather grab an eBook from the library (they get paid) or buy a random indie album on Bandcamp than spend time on media published by people who don't respect their customers.
      - lovich 8y ago
        Art doesn't have competition in many cases. There is no alternative good to "Gone in the Wind", it is a unique product with a monoply on it due to copyright. Many of these companies, and Disney especially,have done their best to prevent works from falling into the public domain when they make a lot of money off of deriviations of public domain works
      - DmenshunlAnlsis 8y ago
        Oh please. So individuals have to play by a rigged and ever-changing set of rules laid down by media conglomerate lobbyists and copyright lawyers, or they’re unprincipled? By that logic everyone would still be buying CD’s with malware from brick and mortar stores because Sony makes more money that way than with iTunes or Spotify. The media landscape today didn’t just happen, it’s the result of a tension between different forces, and you don’t want to see what it looks like if one group lets go. Pirates were the first digital distributors, most not out of selfish desire to get something for free, which was proven by the overwhelming support for legal digital distribution.
- YokoZar 8y ago
  The larger point is that if you're willing to pay a la carte for individual shows/films (rather than a subscription service), basically all content is acceptable from a lot of providers.

How does any of this change the OP's point about fragmentation of the market? It does nothing to benefit the consumer, the competition is not lowering prices, so why would consumers not go back to piracy when it results in a superior product?

consumethreads 8y ago
because we are not cheap and are ok with paying for a service. How cheap should it be. There will be no service that people will pay for if they pirate content. The service they want is a service where they dont have to pay. If you are pirating you are not a customer. Any business man should not be concerned with trying to gain your market, its not profitable.
- lovich 8y ago
  Steam, iTunes, and Spotify have almost completely killed off pirating for games and music. It's still possible but people would rather pay for those services because the services actually add a value over the actual data which is post scarcity. TV and the film industry have decided they'll make more money by making a worse product and doing everything they can to prevent users from finding alternatives
  - closetCS 8y ago
    I'm not quite sure about this, but aren't the products you have mentioned also have the same problem as Netflix. Spotify is able to provide lots of music options, but for how long? They are being effectively strangled by music labels and competitors, which will eventually lead to a content fragmentation between music streaming services. Then people will turn back to pirating music just as fast and they have for video. I'm not sure about steam , but I'm sure that eventually the gaming industry will face the same problem, it's only a matter of time.
    - lovich 8y ago
      Yes, if their products value F(steam) < F(free) then of course people will pirate. Why would you expect consumers to pay for a product that is inferior to something that was left untouched? Why should a firm exist when they supply negative value to their consumers? It would be the same situation as it was 10 years ago in the heyday of pirating and companies should expect to lose out on income, in this case the music labels If this was a natural state of affairs there might be considerations about morals, but the current rules and laws came about through direct intervention by these same companies
- godelski 8y ago
  > If you are pirating you are not a customer. Any business man should not be concerned with trying to gain your market, its not profitable. A poor businessman. A good businessman sees the black market and determines if they can provide a similar service in the white market. Clearly there are consumers and they want something that they aren't getting already. And in this case, things like popcorn time have a great interface and are easier than most streaming services. People want to see new movies in their homes (and I always laugh at the "no movie should be reduced to this shrinks from theater screen to computer screen, because clearly people like it that way). And people want to see population and good movies at the top of their lists, not problem garbage. There's a lot of people that complain about even Netflix because of this. Their recommendation engine isn't what it used to be. There's a lot more reasons too. People pirate for many more reasons than because it's free, though that definitely is a big component. But people seem to be ignoring these other reasons. There's a market, or two, here that aren't being served. A good businessman would serve them.
rainbowmverse 8y ago
Some of us have this bizarre wish to support the companies and people who produce things we enjoy even if they sometimes make it difficult.
- lovich 8y ago
  I pay for things I could steal as well, because I like to support those companies. However what we have here is an entire industry working towards setting up their offerings as a worse product than free. Not just more expensive than free, but an objectively worse product, and they've acommplished this in part by eroding consumer rights. You might expect some people to take an extremely principled stance but it would be unreasonable to expect the majority of society to do so when the companies themselves are operating as unprincipled entities.
  - rainbowmverse 8y ago
    The choice isn't between stealing and paying for it. Choosing something else is the principled stand. There's plenty of good media out there to support without stealing. I'd rather grab an eBook from the library (they get paid) or buy a random indie album on Bandcamp than spend time on media published by people who don't respect their customers.
    - lovich 8y ago
      Art doesn't have competition in many cases. There is no alternative good to "Gone in the Wind", it is a unique product with a monoply on it due to copyright. Many of these companies, and Disney especially,have done their best to prevent works from falling into the public domain when they make a lot of money off of deriviations of public domain works
    - DmenshunlAnlsis 8y ago
      Oh please. So individuals have to play by a rigged and ever-changing set of rules laid down by media conglomerate lobbyists and copyright lawyers, or they’re unprincipled? By that logic everyone would still be buying CD’s with malware from brick and mortar stores because Sony makes more money that way than with iTunes or Spotify. The media landscape today didn’t just happen, it’s the result of a tension between different forces, and you don’t want to see what it looks like if one group lets go. Pirates were the first digital distributors, most not out of selfish desire to get something for free, which was proven by the overwhelming support for legal digital distribution.
YokoZar 8y ago
The larger point is that if you're willing to pay a la carte for individual shows/films (rather than a subscription service), basically all content is acceptable from a lot of providers.