4 ms·

Pirates were always going to pirate, I've seen it happen even during the good times when Netflix was $5/month. Do you think pirates were doing this to spite Net

Pirates were always going to pirate, I've seen it happen even during the good times when Netflix was $5/month. Do you think pirates were doing this to spite Netflix for being... extremely generously priced? Or do you have some other ad-hoc reason that just came into existence 10 seconds ago? This is hardly even a threat.

gigel82 3y ago
Not really; I stopped pirating 17 years ago when I started getting a good income in tech. But with all these price increases for streaming services, I'm seriously considering re-evaluating that.
- lostlogin 3y ago
  The killer feature is lists. Sonarr and Radarr just work. They can take lists for top shows and movies, or from people whose taste you like. Sonarr and Radarr look for the show, look for options like language and resolution, then grab and optionally notify me of success. I try to pass off my rampant piracy as ok by subscribing to a few services, but the reality is that streaming doesn’t come close to the usability and quality I get from pirating. If streaming was free, I wouldn’t go back at this time.
osti 3y ago
You seem to get downvoted but this is true, I've only ever had a trial sub once, after which it's been pure pirating. I have a friend who is very wealthy by most standards, he's still too cheap to get a subscription and instead just pirates...
- ct0 3y ago
  Sometimes streaming is ...just too easy. Maybe people want the challenge and sailing their own pirate ship? My 12.5 month old child can squeeze the remote a few times and a series on netflix will start, rather quickly. It might be an older show, but he doesn't know that.
  - osti 3y ago
    For me, pirating is also incredibly easy though, I don't even need to care which streaming platform it's on, just find the right torrent on a few clicks and voila. But I kinda live in the stone age where I don't use much my smart TV.. so who knows maybe I'm missing out.
- hellotheretoday 3y ago
  As an alternative to your anecdote I pirated media heavily from my teens into my mid 20s. Then I graduated college, got a job, and streaming came out. I basically stopped piracy entirely because it was pointless at that point. It was reasonably priced and easy. The only time I pirated things was when I wanted something niche that wasn’t available on platforms. Like an art house film with weird distribution rights or an mtv cartoon from the early 2000s with the original soundtrack that still can’t be released that way because the song clearances aren’t happening But now it’s like $60+ a month for Netflix/hulu/disney+/peacock. A lot of the time they don’t have what I want, that’s on paramount plus, appletv, max, crunchy roll, etc and I’m not spending another $20+ a month to add yet another. They almost all have intrusive advertisements that get longer and longer. The ads are somehow worse than cable because they can’t seem to sell the ad space. I only seem to get the same 4-5 ads over and over which is torture. The apps are all ugly with awful ui/ux and the library organization is completely arbitrary. There is rarely an ability to filter or sort the library and they are always loaded with filler content to pad the numbers. So a decade or so later I’m strongly considering a media server. It was plex last time but I think jellyfin now. Better ui/ux than streaming apps, better video quality, better library sorting, no ads, and all I need is relatively cheap hardware and a Usenet subscription. This wasn’t worth the bother when the alternative was $20/mo for Netflix/hulu. Consider music piracy too. I can’t ever see myself pirating music again even though I grew up in the Napster era where downloading mp3s was entirely normalized and the thing to do. But the idea of downloading albums, ensuring I get the correct quality, they have correct album art/id3 tags, etc for the amount of music I listen to is a goddamn chore. I would much rather just pay Apple Music. They don’t have these issues. They don’t have fragmented libraries. They don’t force ads even though I already pay them. They don’t hide half the library behind “curated content”. Its not 100% perfect by any means. Sometimes I get censored songs, sometimes I can’t find remixes, alt takes, or live versions I want, etc. but 99% of the time it does what I want and it’s just easier than managing my own library. Unless they fuck this up I will never pirate music again. Tv/movie companies don’t seem to get this.
  - datavirtue 3y ago
    All this.
  - 3y ago
dawidpotocki 3y ago
DRM. It is a pain in the ass for everyone except pirates. Tell me a show on Netflix and I will find you a torrent uploaded in highest quality on release date. If I wanted to watch the same show on my desktop via Netflix, they wouldn't even offer that quality because it's not "secure" enough for them.
tehbeard 3y ago
Pirates are not a homogeneous group. I pirated GoT as a broke uni student as it was only available on satellite packages and not even the previous seasons. When NowTV offered same day, he'll even same time access as the Americans (to avoid alliteration them seeing it "early" and tweeting) for a few quid a month? Jumped at it. Easier to just pay and use the app than faff about on TPB and waiting for downloads... This is the demographic to watch, the ones who switched away from piracy for convenience that was worth a fee, and if priced out to feed shareholders will shrug and go back to the old ways.

gigel82 3y ago

Not really; I stopped pirating 17 years ago when I started getting a good income in tech. But with all these price increases for streaming services, I'm seriously considering re-evaluating that.

lostlogin 3y ago
The killer feature is lists. Sonarr and Radarr just work. They can take lists for top shows and movies, or from people whose taste you like. Sonarr and Radarr look for the show, look for options like language and resolution, then grab and optionally notify me of success. I try to pass off my rampant piracy as ok by subscribing to a few services, but the reality is that streaming doesn’t come close to the usability and quality I get from pirating. If streaming was free, I wouldn’t go back at this time.

osti 3y ago

You seem to get downvoted but this is true, I've only ever had a trial sub once, after which it's been pure pirating. I have a friend who is very wealthy by most standards, he's still too cheap to get a subscription and instead just pirates...

ct0 3y ago
Sometimes streaming is ...just too easy. Maybe people want the challenge and sailing their own pirate ship? My 12.5 month old child can squeeze the remote a few times and a series on netflix will start, rather quickly. It might be an older show, but he doesn't know that.
- osti 3y ago
  For me, pirating is also incredibly easy though, I don't even need to care which streaming platform it's on, just find the right torrent on a few clicks and voila. But I kinda live in the stone age where I don't use much my smart TV.. so who knows maybe I'm missing out.
hellotheretoday 3y ago
As an alternative to your anecdote I pirated media heavily from my teens into my mid 20s. Then I graduated college, got a job, and streaming came out. I basically stopped piracy entirely because it was pointless at that point. It was reasonably priced and easy. The only time I pirated things was when I wanted something niche that wasn’t available on platforms. Like an art house film with weird distribution rights or an mtv cartoon from the early 2000s with the original soundtrack that still can’t be released that way because the song clearances aren’t happening But now it’s like $60+ a month for Netflix/hulu/disney+/peacock. A lot of the time they don’t have what I want, that’s on paramount plus, appletv, max, crunchy roll, etc and I’m not spending another $20+ a month to add yet another. They almost all have intrusive advertisements that get longer and longer. The ads are somehow worse than cable because they can’t seem to sell the ad space. I only seem to get the same 4-5 ads over and over which is torture. The apps are all ugly with awful ui/ux and the library organization is completely arbitrary. There is rarely an ability to filter or sort the library and they are always loaded with filler content to pad the numbers. So a decade or so later I’m strongly considering a media server. It was plex last time but I think jellyfin now. Better ui/ux than streaming apps, better video quality, better library sorting, no ads, and all I need is relatively cheap hardware and a Usenet subscription. This wasn’t worth the bother when the alternative was $20/mo for Netflix/hulu. Consider music piracy too. I can’t ever see myself pirating music again even though I grew up in the Napster era where downloading mp3s was entirely normalized and the thing to do. But the idea of downloading albums, ensuring I get the correct quality, they have correct album art/id3 tags, etc for the amount of music I listen to is a goddamn chore. I would much rather just pay Apple Music. They don’t have these issues. They don’t have fragmented libraries. They don’t force ads even though I already pay them. They don’t hide half the library behind “curated content”. Its not 100% perfect by any means. Sometimes I get censored songs, sometimes I can’t find remixes, alt takes, or live versions I want, etc. but 99% of the time it does what I want and it’s just easier than managing my own library. Unless they fuck this up I will never pirate music again. Tv/movie companies don’t seem to get this.
- datavirtue 3y ago
  All this.
- 3y ago

dawidpotocki 3y ago

DRM. It is a pain in the ass for everyone except pirates. Tell me a show on Netflix and I will find you a torrent uploaded in highest quality on release date. If I wanted to watch the same show on my desktop via Netflix, they wouldn't even offer that quality because it's not "secure" enough for them.

tehbeard 3y ago

Pirates are not a homogeneous group. I pirated GoT as a broke uni student as it was only available on satellite packages and not even the previous seasons. When NowTV offered same day, he'll even same time access as the Americans (to avoid alliteration them seeing it "early" and tweeting) for a few quid a month? Jumped at it. Easier to just pay and use the app than faff about on TPB and waiting for downloads... This is the demographic to watch, the ones who switched away from piracy for convenience that was worth a fee, and if priced out to feed shareholders will shrug and go back to the old ways.