4 ms·

Morality gets grey with growing anti-consumer practices and shrinking regulation. Legally protected doesn't equate to moral. Sure it's good for the content crea

Morality gets grey with growing anti-consumer practices and shrinking regulation. Legally protected doesn't equate to moral. Sure it's good for the content creators to get paid, but by and large, they aren't the ones getting paid.

scarface74 4y ago
How dare they spend money to create content and expect people to pay for it!
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  Oh, ho hum. Music piracy was rampant until iTunes and the iPod changed the game to the extent of forcing (alongside court orders) Napster to go legit. Two decades later, music streaming is ubiquitous, consumers are satisfied, and music piracy is a retro anachronism. This is just applying market pressure to bring about necessary product innovation through other means.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    So do you expect all movies to be available for 99 cents or to be available a la carte like Spotify? Movies cost a lot more to produce than music. Besides, Spotify is losing money and even iTunes was never hugely profitable. It was primarily meant to sell iPods. The music distribution business is a horrible stand alone business
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      I'm sure that even as technology continues to innovate, and tech companies find all sorts of way to find innovative business models (though rising interest rates might end that renaissance of creative unit economics), they'll find a way to curb piracy by fixing the problem of too many streaming services, that they and the studios invented.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        Yes, if only there were companies that aggregated all of the content that anyone wanted and charged more for it. I’m sure since everyone is getting the same content they could send it through a cable… A money losing low margin business (Spotify) isn’t “innovative”
        Apocryphon 4y ago
        Yes, maybe eventually they will invent a cable company that carries the streaming service-specific offerings of the Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, and Apple TV+ libraries. I mean, that probably does exist, that's probably what Sling TV offers, people just opt to do something even simpler and less morally dubious than piracy: they share accounts with one another. That's been a common practice for over a decade now. > A money losing low margin business (Spotify) isn’t “innovative” And yet the iPod was. And without the iTunes Store, the iPod wouldn't have been the success that it was- it would have been dependent upon pirates.
        scarface74 4y ago
        And the iPod became irrelevant as soon as the mobile phone became popular. Even the Roku which was originally created by Netflix and spun off as a company would have failed as a “Netflix box”
        Apocryphon 4y ago
        The iPod was dominant for almost a decade, without it there would be no iPhone. It is understandable to forget Galileo or Kepler once you get a Newton, but the iPod was absolutely iconic, and once again, the iTunes Store did much to eliminate music piracy. It goes to show that once a petty crime becomes widespread and normalized among consumers, it becomes a business problem for savvy companies to take advantage. Likewise, Steam, despite its DRM and other hassles, wiped out game piracy for some time. Of course, that same form of piracy is making a resurgence, partly because the video game platform space has become balkanized, annoying users who don't want to subscribe to the stores of EA, Ubisoft, Epic, et al. Much like what we may be seeing with movie and TV content.

scarface74 4y ago

How dare they spend money to create content and expect people to pay for it!

Apocryphon 4y ago
Oh, ho hum. Music piracy was rampant until iTunes and the iPod changed the game to the extent of forcing (alongside court orders) Napster to go legit. Two decades later, music streaming is ubiquitous, consumers are satisfied, and music piracy is a retro anachronism. This is just applying market pressure to bring about necessary product innovation through other means.
- scarface74 4y ago
  So do you expect all movies to be available for 99 cents or to be available a la carte like Spotify? Movies cost a lot more to produce than music. Besides, Spotify is losing money and even iTunes was never hugely profitable. It was primarily meant to sell iPods. The music distribution business is a horrible stand alone business
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    I'm sure that even as technology continues to innovate, and tech companies find all sorts of way to find innovative business models (though rising interest rates might end that renaissance of creative unit economics), they'll find a way to curb piracy by fixing the problem of too many streaming services, that they and the studios invented.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Yes, if only there were companies that aggregated all of the content that anyone wanted and charged more for it. I’m sure since everyone is getting the same content they could send it through a cable… A money losing low margin business (Spotify) isn’t “innovative”
      - Apocryphon 4y ago
        Yes, maybe eventually they will invent a cable company that carries the streaming service-specific offerings of the Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, and Apple TV+ libraries. I mean, that probably does exist, that's probably what Sling TV offers, people just opt to do something even simpler and less morally dubious than piracy: they share accounts with one another. That's been a common practice for over a decade now. > A money losing low margin business (Spotify) isn’t “innovative” And yet the iPod was. And without the iTunes Store, the iPod wouldn't have been the success that it was- it would have been dependent upon pirates.
        scarface74 4y ago
        And the iPod became irrelevant as soon as the mobile phone became popular. Even the Roku which was originally created by Netflix and spun off as a company would have failed as a “Netflix box”
        Apocryphon 4y ago
        The iPod was dominant for almost a decade, without it there would be no iPhone. It is understandable to forget Galileo or Kepler once you get a Newton, but the iPod was absolutely iconic, and once again, the iTunes Store did much to eliminate music piracy. It goes to show that once a petty crime becomes widespread and normalized among consumers, it becomes a business problem for savvy companies to take advantage. Likewise, Steam, despite its DRM and other hassles, wiped out game piracy for some time. Of course, that same form of piracy is making a resurgence, partly because the video game platform space has become balkanized, annoying users who don't want to subscribe to the stores of EA, Ubisoft, Epic, et al. Much like what we may be seeing with movie and TV content.