5 ms·

I read on a post somewhere that if you replace "the economy" with "rich people yatch money" a lot of headlines make more sense. "Last year, one study reported

by znpy 6y ago

I read on a post somewhere that if you replace "the economy" with "rich people yatch money" a lot of headlines make more sense. "Last year, one study reported that digital video piracy costs the U.S. rich people yatch money $29.2 billion a year."

Evidlo 6y ago
Yacht?
- coding123 6y ago
  I was also stuck on that word. Thank you.
- saalweachter 6y ago
  I wonder how hard it would be to get people to start pronouncing the "ch" in yacht. Maybe to rhyme with the German "nacht" rather than a hard "ch" as in "church". I figure there are more people who enjoy doing silly things to bother other people than who enjoying yachting.
  - herbstein 6y ago
    In Danish it's pronounced the same way as the word for hunt - "jagt". I almost forgot what the word sounded like in English just now because my native tongue version of the word, spelled the same, sounds better to my ears.
IdiocyInAction 6y ago
Are all the people, from the film crew to the VFX artists and engineers that work on the IP that is being stolen "rich people yatch (sic!) money"? You can say what you want about IP law; you wouldn't be able to enjoy many big-budget productions if it wouldn't exist. Many jobs, high-paying and low-paying, wouldn't exist. Of course, the business model for content distribution is somewhat nonsensical and the time until content gets in the public domain should be 10 years, but that doesn't mean that IP law shouldn't exist. Not to mention that the 29 billion number is probably also BS.
- autosharp 6y ago
  Those people are not making less if I don't pay for a movie. The marginal revenue is all yacht money profits.
  - IdiocyInAction 6y ago
    No, but the second-order effects of you not paying may very well affect them in the future. If the studios get less revenue and have to pay more for enforcing IP law, they have less money for new productions and therefore less jobs and salary for the people producing the content. And I don't see why you should have a right to enjoy the fruits of their labor without paying.
    - autosharp 6y ago
      I will spend the money somewhere else and that is where they will be working in the future.
      - IdiocyInAction 6y ago
        Without meaning to offend, that is not a good argument. If you rob a store and the employees have to quit their job, saying "I will spend the money somewhere else and that is where they will be working in the future" would not absolve you of the responsibility that you have indirectly damaged their livelihood.
        autosharp 6y ago
        The money/goods that I rob from a store cost a lot to reproduce, unlike movies. And I would scare people. This is more like me buying from store A than from store B. Am I robbing store B? Surely not giving to charity is worse than any other economic reallocation?
        VonGallifrey 6y ago
        If store B is actually the black market then you actually did steal from the one producing whatever you bought or possibly from store A. What do you mean by your first sentence? I am fairly sure that movies do actually cost quite a lot to produce.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mumblemumble 6y ago
It's still funny money. You can't just take that $4 price tag for streaming a movie through Apple TV or wherever, and multiply it by the number of movies people illegally stream, and get a number that makes any sense. The idea that American households would spend an extra $230/year on average on movie rentals, if only those nasty content pirates would get out of their way, is just absurd. Especially when you consider that most American households were never using these illegal streaming sites in the first place. Most of that average would have to be propped up by teenagers and college students who simply don't have an extra $2000/yr of disposable income to spare.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  That's never stopped the police and prosecutors before. Remember all those pictures of drug busts we used to see? Police take the weight seized (including packaging) then multiply it by the the highest price they could justify as an estimate of the "street value". That's how a table full of weed gets valued at $100,000,000.
- ryneandal 6y ago
  I can't find it right now, but I swear there was a study that showed that people who pirated content also on average spent _more_ on digital entertainment. I remember pirating video games about 10-15 years ago to see if they were worthwhile, since the demo scene had pretty much died down. I'd end up buying the games I played through to completion as well.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - vorticalbox 6y ago
    I did this too, I also downloaded games I already owned so I didn't have to use a CD. Roller coaster tycoon 2 and kotor for example.
  - ucm_edge 6y ago
    That's basically where I am with streaming sites. Exert minimal effort to find version of mediocre quality, let it run for a bit and then decide if I want to actually pay for the content or just stop watching. The other big thing is that the illegal streaming site has everything. So part of the whole "Okay I want to actually pay for the HD version of this" is "Okay now is this on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, or...?" I've honestly mostly just gone back to dvd.com. It has everything (except for digital only stuff that never got a Bluray/DVD release), you can actually get 5.1 or 7.1 sound, and since I live 45 miles from the San Jose facility it's 1 day shipping.
aequitas 6y ago
But think of the trickle down effect. If rich people can't buy yachts, a rich yacht manufacturer can't reap profits while paying minimum wage to it's workers.
- lukifer 6y ago
  This is the hat-trick of the "job creator" myth. Narratives have no numbers attached; the quantitative delta between luxuries, and the jobs they allegedly create, belies real economic energy transferred from those living paycheck-to-paycheck, to those who signify status through conspicuous consumption. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying every purchase needs to pass some utilitarian moral litmus test; and sometimes luxury spending can have positive externalities, particularly when it incentivizes innovation. But we shouldn't pretend that gold-plated helicopters are inherently a win/win/win just because some subsistence wages got paid along the way, when we could have collected the same revenue as taxes and paid those wages for building infrastructure instead.
- znpy 6y ago
  oh don't be silly
jariel 6y ago
The next time you watch something on Netflix go ahead and watch the credits and you'll see the names of the hundreds of mostly regular people who made that thing. In addition, it's worth nothing, that most actors are not remotely rich, they're barely making it if that. Netflix and the Studios profit margins are similar to other distributors, and after all is said and done, most of them are not 'rolling in it', at least not any more than the local pharmacy chain corporation operators are - those are regular jobs as well. FYI: Even studio heads are not rolling in it, they make less than the biggest talent/starts, and there are only literally 5-10 of them, one layer below, and those people are earning the same as senior devs at Google with a small amount of stock options. The rest of the distribution machine are not paid so well. This 'yacht populism' is ridiculous unless, maybe, you're referring to 'Jim Carrey' or 'Tom Cruise', but even then ... The content is made by people, just like physical things are, if they don't get paid, it doesn't get made, it's that simple.
- franciscop 6y ago
  > The content is made by people, just like physical things are, if they don't get paid, it doesn't get made, it's that simple. This is patently not true. Maybe it's true for a subset of the high end content like Netflix series, but the vast majority of creative content e.g. music or paintings are not made with the primarily goal of being paid. Some good examples are how Myspace gave way to thousands of artists, the works on Deviantart or how Open Source is made by volunteers.
- betaby 6y ago
  Everything is on the razor thing margin while everything is expensive at the same time and salaries are stagnant. Those money should go somewhere after all, like those metaphysical yachts.

by znpy 6y ago

Evidlo 6y ago

Yacht?

coding123 6y ago
I was also stuck on that word. Thank you.
saalweachter 6y ago
I wonder how hard it would be to get people to start pronouncing the "ch" in yacht. Maybe to rhyme with the German "nacht" rather than a hard "ch" as in "church". I figure there are more people who enjoy doing silly things to bother other people than who enjoying yachting.
- herbstein 6y ago
  In Danish it's pronounced the same way as the word for hunt - "jagt". I almost forgot what the word sounded like in English just now because my native tongue version of the word, spelled the same, sounds better to my ears.

IdiocyInAction 6y ago

Are all the people, from the film crew to the VFX artists and engineers that work on the IP that is being stolen "rich people yatch (sic!) money"? You can say what you want about IP law; you wouldn't be able to enjoy many big-budget productions if it wouldn't exist. Many jobs, high-paying and low-paying, wouldn't exist. Of course, the business model for content distribution is somewhat nonsensical and the time until content gets in the public domain should be 10 years, but that doesn't mean that IP law shouldn't exist. Not to mention that the 29 billion number is probably also BS.

autosharp 6y ago
Those people are not making less if I don't pay for a movie. The marginal revenue is all yacht money profits.
- IdiocyInAction 6y ago
  No, but the second-order effects of you not paying may very well affect them in the future. If the studios get less revenue and have to pay more for enforcing IP law, they have less money for new productions and therefore less jobs and salary for the people producing the content. And I don't see why you should have a right to enjoy the fruits of their labor without paying.
  - autosharp 6y ago
    I will spend the money somewhere else and that is where they will be working in the future.
    - IdiocyInAction 6y ago
      Without meaning to offend, that is not a good argument. If you rob a store and the employees have to quit their job, saying "I will spend the money somewhere else and that is where they will be working in the future" would not absolve you of the responsibility that you have indirectly damaged their livelihood.
      - autosharp 6y ago
        The money/goods that I rob from a store cost a lot to reproduce, unlike movies. And I would scare people. This is more like me buying from store A than from store B. Am I robbing store B? Surely not giving to charity is worse than any other economic reallocation?
        VonGallifrey 6y ago
        If store B is actually the black market then you actually did steal from the one producing whatever you bought or possibly from store A. What do you mean by your first sentence? I am fairly sure that movies do actually cost quite a lot to produce.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mumblemumble 6y ago

It's still funny money. You can't just take that $4 price tag for streaming a movie through Apple TV or wherever, and multiply it by the number of movies people illegally stream, and get a number that makes any sense. The idea that American households would spend an extra $230/year on average on movie rentals, if only those nasty content pirates would get out of their way, is just absurd. Especially when you consider that most American households were never using these illegal streaming sites in the first place. Most of that average would have to be propped up by teenagers and college students who simply don't have an extra $2000/yr of disposable income to spare.

mywittyname 6y ago
That's never stopped the police and prosecutors before. Remember all those pictures of drug busts we used to see? Police take the weight seized (including packaging) then multiply it by the the highest price they could justify as an estimate of the "street value". That's how a table full of weed gets valued at $100,000,000.
ryneandal 6y ago
I can't find it right now, but I swear there was a study that showed that people who pirated content also on average spent _more_ on digital entertainment. I remember pirating video games about 10-15 years ago to see if they were worthwhile, since the demo scene had pretty much died down. I'd end up buying the games I played through to completion as well.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- vorticalbox 6y ago
  I did this too, I also downloaded games I already owned so I didn't have to use a CD. Roller coaster tycoon 2 and kotor for example.
- ucm_edge 6y ago
  That's basically where I am with streaming sites. Exert minimal effort to find version of mediocre quality, let it run for a bit and then decide if I want to actually pay for the content or just stop watching. The other big thing is that the illegal streaming site has everything. So part of the whole "Okay I want to actually pay for the HD version of this" is "Okay now is this on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, or...?" I've honestly mostly just gone back to dvd.com. It has everything (except for digital only stuff that never got a Bluray/DVD release), you can actually get 5.1 or 7.1 sound, and since I live 45 miles from the San Jose facility it's 1 day shipping.

aequitas 6y ago

But think of the trickle down effect. If rich people can't buy yachts, a rich yacht manufacturer can't reap profits while paying minimum wage to it's workers.

lukifer 6y ago
This is the hat-trick of the "job creator" myth. Narratives have no numbers attached; the quantitative delta between luxuries, and the jobs they allegedly create, belies real economic energy transferred from those living paycheck-to-paycheck, to those who signify status through conspicuous consumption. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying every purchase needs to pass some utilitarian moral litmus test; and sometimes luxury spending can have positive externalities, particularly when it incentivizes innovation. But we shouldn't pretend that gold-plated helicopters are inherently a win/win/win just because some subsistence wages got paid along the way, when we could have collected the same revenue as taxes and paid those wages for building infrastructure instead.
znpy 6y ago
oh don't be silly

jariel 6y ago

The next time you watch something on Netflix go ahead and watch the credits and you'll see the names of the hundreds of mostly regular people who made that thing. In addition, it's worth nothing, that most actors are not remotely rich, they're barely making it if that. Netflix and the Studios profit margins are similar to other distributors, and after all is said and done, most of them are not 'rolling in it', at least not any more than the local pharmacy chain corporation operators are - those are regular jobs as well. FYI: Even studio heads are not rolling in it, they make less than the biggest talent/starts, and there are only literally 5-10 of them, one layer below, and those people are earning the same as senior devs at Google with a small amount of stock options. The rest of the distribution machine are not paid so well. This 'yacht populism' is ridiculous unless, maybe, you're referring to 'Jim Carrey' or 'Tom Cruise', but even then ... The content is made by people, just like physical things are, if they don't get paid, it doesn't get made, it's that simple.

franciscop 6y ago
> The content is made by people, just like physical things are, if they don't get paid, it doesn't get made, it's that simple. This is patently not true. Maybe it's true for a subset of the high end content like Netflix series, but the vast majority of creative content e.g. music or paintings are not made with the primarily goal of being paid. Some good examples are how Myspace gave way to thousands of artists, the works on Deviantart or how Open Source is made by volunteers.
betaby 6y ago
Everything is on the razor thing margin while everything is expensive at the same time and salaries are stagnant. Those money should go somewhere after all, like those metaphysical yachts.