4 ms·

I pay for Spotify, but then the week after I bought a new Smart TV Spotify turned off access from the official Spotify app on the new TV, and told me they were

I pay for Spotify, but then the week after I bought a new Smart TV Spotify turned off access from the official Spotify app on the new TV, and told me they were revamping it. Years later, I still can't listen to the service I pay for on the device I paid for, and as far as I can tell I've only been lied to about it. But MP3s on a flash drive work great. I used to pay for FloGrappling. First weekend I had it, I wanted to watch 3 fights and they lost sound or partial video for all of them and had spotty service the day of the event. I had the results spoiled for me before I could watch any of them. They refused to refund me any money. YouTube had videos of the same fights, recorded contrary to venue policy, so I just started scouring YouTube a few hours after fights. NBC pays tons of money to get exclusive access to sporting events and then offers inferior coverage. But I can get on a VPN and get it elsewhere, or I can torrent it after the fact. Media companies steal from me all the time through breach of contract and anti-competitive behaviors. I'll pay for the service, and then the minute they break their end of the contract and don't care about it, it's on. I'm not going to spend money suing them or calling for charge-backs every time - someone has been offering me better service for less money this whole time.

yummypaint 7y ago
Indeed. Just as their systematic fraud is within the scope of the free market, so is piracy.
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
  I don't think systematic fraud is within the scope of the free market. One of the few things I think government should provide is a low-overhead way (lower-overheard than what you can do in court today, but maybe that would be abused) to hold people accountable for their word, and I would include things like this in that. But not giving chronic liars my money is close, maybe that's what you meant. But I think the prevalence of piracy is a "smell" about the business model. If people could materialize food in front of them for free without taking that food from someone else that would be amazing. That's literally a Star-Trek-level fantasy about ideal society. As long as the food companies stay in business. In this case, the "companies" are having no problem staying in business. Most money paid for music goes to record companies. The most successful artists make the overwhelming majority of their money from live performance and physical merchandise. So what value are the record companies providing. Distribution? No, independent artists can do that online through SoundCloud or even Spotify. Spotting talent? I think their taste sucks more often than not. I don't get it. I think really the value they provide is with connections to help an artist make it big - so in the big picture I'd say the record companies' customer is actually the artist.

yummypaint 7y ago

Indeed. Just as their systematic fraud is within the scope of the free market, so is piracy.

TallGuyShort 7y ago
I don't think systematic fraud is within the scope of the free market. One of the few things I think government should provide is a low-overhead way (lower-overheard than what you can do in court today, but maybe that would be abused) to hold people accountable for their word, and I would include things like this in that. But not giving chronic liars my money is close, maybe that's what you meant. But I think the prevalence of piracy is a "smell" about the business model. If people could materialize food in front of them for free without taking that food from someone else that would be amazing. That's literally a Star-Trek-level fantasy about ideal society. As long as the food companies stay in business. In this case, the "companies" are having no problem staying in business. Most money paid for music goes to record companies. The most successful artists make the overwhelming majority of their money from live performance and physical merchandise. So what value are the record companies providing. Distribution? No, independent artists can do that online through SoundCloud or even Spotify. Spotting talent? I think their taste sucks more often than not. I don't get it. I think really the value they provide is with connections to help an artist make it big - so in the big picture I'd say the record companies' customer is actually the artist.