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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 mos

by 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.
- porridgeraisin 3y ago
  Exactly. Especially the music thing. Today video content is the opposite of easy to stream. Even though I have an Amazon prime subscription, I pirate the show (telegram) and watch it on VLC full 1080p, because prime doesn't let me screenshare with my friends. Same way, I had Hotstar premium(in india) for live Premier League football. In the middle they started disallowing watching two PL games at the same time as only one premium video could be watched at the same time. And they also increased the price. Well, I am not subscribed anymore;)

by osti 3y ago

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.
porridgeraisin 3y ago
Exactly. Especially the music thing. Today video content is the opposite of easy to stream. Even though I have an Amazon prime subscription, I pirate the show (telegram) and watch it on VLC full 1080p, because prime doesn't let me screenshare with my friends. Same way, I had Hotstar premium(in india) for live Premier League football. In the middle they started disallowing watching two PL games at the same time as only one premium video could be watched at the same time. And they also increased the price. Well, I am not subscribed anymore;)