3 ms·

22 years ago Napster existed. 21 years ago the Gnutella (LimeWire etc.) and eDonkey2000 networks existed. 20 years ago Kazaar and BitTorrent existed. Around tha

by strken 5y ago

22 years ago Napster existed. 21 years ago the Gnutella (LimeWire etc.) and eDonkey2000 networks existed. 20 years ago Kazaar and BitTorrent existed. Around that time, LAN parties with hundreds of seats and 100mbps connections existed, and attendees would use Direct Connect or simple SMB shared to download pirated media for 24 hours straight. This is mentioned in other comments, but a large part of the reason streaming services got going was because piracy was so much more convenient than the brutal grind of actually paying for something. Users could be sitting in their living rooms with wallets out ready to go, and still choose piracy, because the only other alternative was waiting for a physical CD or DVD to arrive. If the streaming wars do too much damage to consumers, they'll just flip the playing board and go back to piracy.

imiric 5y ago
> If the streaming wars do too much damage to consumers, they'll just flip the playing board and go back to piracy. I think that's already happening among the tech literate. The difference now is that the majority of consumers are not technically inclined and don't mind paying for several streaming services to get easy access to their favorite content, so the industry generally doesn't care about losing a small fraction to piracy. Pirating content is now more technically difficult than paying for a service, but the benefits are still there: DRM-free content that can be consumed on any device, accessed offline, safe against removal, licensing issues, region locks, easily shareable, etc. Paying for a streaming service now has the same issues as paying for cable did: you get access to tons of low quality content you don't care about just to watch the few shows and movies you actually do. Content curation is still an unsolved problem and the industry is ripe for disruption once someone figures out what I actually want to watch and how I can pay for only that. Or pirating will become easier and they'll continue to lose revenue.

by strken 5y ago

imiric 5y ago

> If the streaming wars do too much damage to consumers, they'll just flip the playing board and go back to piracy. I think that's already happening among the tech literate. The difference now is that the majority of consumers are not technically inclined and don't mind paying for several streaming services to get easy access to their favorite content, so the industry generally doesn't care about losing a small fraction to piracy. Pirating content is now more technically difficult than paying for a service, but the benefits are still there: DRM-free content that can be consumed on any device, accessed offline, safe against removal, licensing issues, region locks, easily shareable, etc. Paying for a streaming service now has the same issues as paying for cable did: you get access to tons of low quality content you don't care about just to watch the few shows and movies you actually do. Content curation is still an unsolved problem and the industry is ripe for disruption once someone figures out what I actually want to watch and how I can pay for only that. Or pirating will become easier and they'll continue to lose revenue.