> Pirate sites offer more content at much higher quality. True. > Netflix streams "high definition" shows so thoroughly compressed even black frames have arti

> Pirate sites offer more content at much higher quality. True. > Netflix streams "high definition" shows so thoroughly compressed even black frames have artifacts. My satellite TV streams content with so much compression it gives me motion sickness. Ok, but that high quality pirate content can’t actually be delivered to a large customer base over low bandwidth links like satellite. It’s a meaningless comparison since they are solving different problems. > The main difference is piracy doesn't happen out in the open anymore. You need to be invited. Ah - so it’s objectively worse than simply paying for content because it is only accessible to a small clique. Whereas with commercial services, anyone can just buy what they want. What you are describing is the exact opposite of making things more freely available. It’s a small group stealing content for their own exclusive use, and giving nothing back to society.