28 ms·

Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

• bmacho 3y ago
  Big distributors should just make a place where you can pay, and download an mkv legally (make the last frame a copyright notice so people won't share mkvs with their friends). That would be a win-win-win situation for everyone.
• blowsand 3y ago
  Are these claims actually quantified by any of the companies mentioned in the article? While there’s no disagreement that “piracy” occurs, I’d love to see refreshed numbers around “potential paying customers” vs “because it’s there but wouldn’t otherwise buy” metrics. Also, that c&p is lazy and raises an eyebrow.
• h2odragon 3y ago
  Do they still plan to compete by making their service suck more, through higher prices, more ads, and less content? I'm so glad I ripped all my DVDs
  • SlightlyLeftPad 3y ago
    Amen.
  • avg_dev 3y ago
    i read on twitter a while back about some tv writer who was really happy because they managed to find someone who sent them pirated dvds of their work. apparently when disney+ removed the show from their catalog, it was otherwise lost to the world. that is definitely not the promise of streaming services that i remember from when they was first starting to gain popularity.
    • denkmoon 3y ago
      Pirates are better archivists than any media company. The effort put in to meticulous curation of content libraries on private trackers is really incredible.
      • yukkuri 3y ago
        Look at the payoffs. The company's payoffs are those primarily of its C suite: bonuses paid based on short term results. The unsanctioned archivists have the payoff of the enjoyment they get from preserving and sharing media they love, which has no built in time limit like the former.
  • snvzz 3y ago
    >I'm so glad I ripped all my DVDs For anyone interested in doing this for DVD or BD, makemkv[0] is where it's at. 0. https://www.makemkv.com/ https://www.makemkv.com/
    • MrVandemar 3y ago
      No linux version?
      • snvzz 3y ago
        There's definitely Linux support. I never used makemkv in an OS other than Linux.
• StopTheTechies 3y ago
  The common supposition about video is that convenience makes the price worth it versus piracy. It'll be very interesting to see this unfold. Not only are streaming services in direct competition with a free option, but they'll have actual, real, not-market-inevitable competition for their "exclusively-negotiated" tv.
  • znkynz 3y ago
    Piracy has evolved too; You only need to look at how automated piracy can become; whether its the end of the people buying access to plex, or the automation offered by users of the Servarr stacks /Sonarr/Radarr etc Netflix invgestment in UX has lead to theUX being valued around piracy, rather than just downloading files from some website.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • StopTheTechies 3y ago
      Yes, this is exactly what I mean—media distribution is inherently a losing war against the internet.
• frompdx 3y ago
  It's even harder to compete when you don't have the content users want while charging more than ever.
  • ninth_ant 3y ago
    I find it entirely baffling that the top shows on Netflix are lighthearted shows (usually comedies) that go on for many seasons. Friends, Seinfeld, suits, office, Gilmore girls, supernatural But… Netflix doesn’t make these kinds of shows. They give small orders of episodes to niche shows and cancel them quickly before they have time to gain an audience. Obviously they know which shows people watch, but why doesn’t that translate into them making those shows at presumably less cost?
• aqme28 3y ago
  I have found myself pirating more and more. Netflix and co aren't just losing on the available content and the price, the actual browsing experience is far better on the illegal streaming site I use.
  • CommanderData 3y ago
    I'd like to compare yours to all streaming sites I've used, which are riddled with ads and deceptive clicks.
    • AngryData 3y ago
      If they are using a decent ad blocker they probably dont see 99.9% of that. At most they might note one of the couple mirrors for the video doesn't work.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    • pquki4 3y ago
      Well, if you are an experienced pirate, this is not an issue. You have an adblocker that filters out all the stupid ads and scams, and you only go to a few sites and know which links you should click. Getting that kind of experience won't take more than a few hours.
    • rpmisms 3y ago
      Yeah, but it's obvious. Obvious malicious design is easier to filter out than dark pattern design.
    • xtracto 3y ago
      There's an app called Stremio that just blows any "official" app away. The app is not for piracy per-se, but it's easy to turn it into a full fledged PopcornTime version that works.
  • ClassyJacket 3y ago
• PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
  Streaming became popular because it was easier than piracy and better than TV (watch anywhere, on demand, pickup where you left off etc). Streaming is no longer easier than piracy, why pay for 8 different services and have to waste your time figuring out whats on what when you can just have one service for free, even if its illegal, and have it all under one roof. The services have taken the piss and now they'll get the repercussions of it.
  • jerjerjer 3y ago
    Streaming also had no ads which is now gated behind even more pricey plans.
    • DoughnutHole 3y ago
      Even an “ad-free” Netflix plan is infested with promotion of their in-house productions.
      • worthless-trash 3y ago
        Yeah, this grinds my gears too. If i wanted to watch the other productions, i'd be watching the other production. I can see what is available on the 'trending now' list on the exact screen just before starting this video.
    • cocoa19 3y ago
      Low price and no ads were two of the main selling points to ditch cable (along with stream whenever you want). We reached the point were price is almost as high as cable was (with the standard 4-5 subscriptions), and we have ads. This is not a surprise to most though, the question has always been when would it happen.
      • api 3y ago
        We are no longer under zero interest rates. Things have to actually be profitable.
• bawolff 3y ago
  > Piracy also threatens to damage our business, as its fundamental proposition to consumers is so compelling and difficult to compete against: virtually all content for free,” Netflix writes. People emphasize the "free" part, but it really is the "all content" part that makes piracy wins. Especially if you are not in the USA, often specific content isn't available at any price. Even if it is, its split across 5 billion different confusing services. The killer feature of piracy is thar it just works, not that it is free.
  • bojan 3y ago
    Now, it doesn't just work. You need to download the thing, find the right format, get it to the TV in one way or another, hope that the subs are good. Compared to that, it's the streaming that just works. Except when it doesn't.
    • beart 3y ago
      Software has completely automated all of these steps. The only barrier is the initial set up, which a non-technical person can figure out over a weekend.
      • h4x0rr 3y ago
        It seems to be quite a bit harder for dubbed stuff in non-english languages though
      • xattt 3y ago
        Don’t say the quiet part loud. There will be enterprising individuals that will take the piss out of our convenience by commercializing it.
        • trealira 3y ago
          How could they commercialize it in ways they already haven't? There already exist good, free torrenting clients, and piracy is illegal. The most they could do is set up a subscription service for exclusive torrents which always have seeders, but that's already being done AFAIK, and it's illegal, so they can't really run ads on TV about it.
• mistermann 3y ago
  > When we started looking for similar mentions by other businesses, we stumbled upon similar concerns and, strangely enough, some identical ones. Apparently, there’s quite a bit of copying going on, as SEC filings from several companies include identical passages. I smell a coordinated initiative to buy some "democracy".
• chaostheory 3y ago
  What annoys me about Netflix is that they go out of their way to limit the platforms that you can watch their service from. Currently, I cannot watch Netflix with a modern client that streams better than 480P on my Quest headset.
• jMyles 3y ago
  ...it's difficult to compete against even when you have the state willing to make threats of violence on your behalf if they utilize the competing model. It seems like this says more about the future of so-called "intellectual property" than it does about these particular companies or these particular practices.
  • jMyles 3y ago
    (re-reading: this reads like a rant against Netflix, which is mostly isn't meant to be: I honor Netflix's attempt to beat the competing no-IP model by being easy-to-use and comprehensive. Unfortunately for basically everyone, it seems that such a combination can never be sustained under the IP industrial complex.)
• ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
  Piracy is a moral imperative. The internet was supposed to be free and break down barriers. Instead what we have now is a show available in the UK but not available in the US. This is not acceptable. This plus the fact that actual artists get a pittance, means the flag will fly high till companies learn. Also piracy has become much more reliable these days. There are systems which will make sure you get 4k streams based on any genre you enjoy. New shows from around the world. No need to wait for Netflix to add it to your countries playlist that to hidden behind garbage UX. At the end of the day it is about availability, user control, artist benefits and showing the middle finger to large corporations. That is the hacker mindset. That is what I grew up with in the early 2000s and it is substantially better than what we are "supposed" to do now. Hope that makes sense.
  • MattPalmer1086 3y ago
    No, it absolutely isn't a moral imperative, quite the reverse. I don't know where you get the idea that the internet was "supposed" to be "free" or why the fact that a global transport network for information exists implies that everything transported over it should not require any payment. The logical endpoint of your position is that you will get what you pay for: content that costs almost nothing to produce.
    • ESTheComposer 3y ago
      The irony here is from their post history they are a business owner that made 4m in profits last year. Guess it’s a moral imperative to steal from them eh?
    • MrStonedOne 3y ago
      you picked up the wrong definition of "free". They meant free as in freedom.
    • slimrec77 3y ago
      The internet being free was a 90s cyberpunk ideal. Those ideas were not very well thought out to say the least.
    • 3y ago
• alexfromapex 3y ago
  “We cracked down on account sharing, added a bunch of ads, DRM, and are seeing the logical response from annoyed consumers”
  • h4x0rr 3y ago
    Oh yeah fuck the DRM... Amazon was even worse with that (got like 360-480p on my laptop wtf), netflix got to 720p. Even then, the bitrate felt so low sadly
• SllX 3y ago
  I mean Netflix has been losing to “just buy it in iTunes” for me for years. I don’t watch a lot of movies, but when I do, it usually can’t be found anywhere to stream so I just buy it. Their UI sucks, they don’t want to integrate with the Apple TV app on my phone (search, Up Next, immediate access) because of competitive reasons, and they rarely have any decent movies anymore because they turned their entire business model to original serials, where “original” can mean they just bought the international distribution rights.
• avg_dev 3y ago
  > We don’t know where these references originate. Netflix has mentioned it for a while, that’s for sure, and apparently, the use of this language is widespread and subject to rapid global growth. lol
• noman-land 3y ago
  I sometimes wonder if more piracy will lead to more product placement directly in content and other insidious advertising strategies that would make up for the content being scooped up for free. It's still millions of eyes, after all.
  • al_borland 3y ago
    I’m not sure if it’s still the case, but Subway used to be big on doing product placements with shows on their last leg. They probably got it for a steal, and they made it really, really obvious. For example, the episode of Community where Subway is a person. Chuck did a lot of obvious Subway stuff at the end too. I remember Zachary Levi (Chuck) posting on Twitter to buy Subway for the finale in hopes that it would boost Subway sales enough to get them to pay to renew it for another season. I’ve actually been surprised the more subtle product placement isn’t more common. There are always prop bags of chips, boxes of cereal, etc. you’d think it would cost basically nothing to swap it out for a similar soundless bag with a Lays label on it and get some money. Everyone knows what Lets chips are really trying to be. Maybe syndication presents issues. Does the company pay every time the episode runs, in perpetuity, or just once to get the episode made? With a one time payment, getting a spot in a show like The Office would be like winning the advertising lottery. If they have to pay for each viewing, it could turn into a real problem.
    • boomboomsubban 3y ago
      >I’ve actually been surprised the more subtle product placement isn’t more common It's more common than you seem to think, just not omnipresent. Look for beer advertising in any scene that takes place at a bar, that's a scenario where not having it would look more out of place so it's almost always done.
• mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  The streaming space desperately needs consolidation right now. Every rights holder having their own service has killed a lot of the convenience because you'll now need several different services to go through an entire TV show, for instance. And also because all services other than maybe Netflix have garbage software for your various devices. Because every service also has to support 8 different platforms. Video playback and scrubbing is buggy and laggy, the GUI for finding stuff is sluggish. On one service(I don't even remember which, they all blur together in my head), I tried to watch some House MD and half the episodes were missing the English audio track.
  • ta8645 3y ago
    If Netflix had seen themselves strictly as a distribution service, they might have taken an open-to-all, low-margin, high-volume approach, which had a chance to become ubiquitous and unassailable. Basically, they could have been the Cable-over-IP provider for everyone. But it's a lot harder to get there, from here.
    • breckenedge 3y ago
      They did that, and for a few years their catalog was total crap and getting worse. Then Stranger Things came along.
      • pcchristie 3y ago
        Did they? I thought pretty early they saw the writing on the wall given the low barrier to entry for a juggernaut like Disney to compete with them, and went hard at their "Originals". I remember an interview with Hastings saying as much, that "in the future we won't have all the content, just the best content." It would have been bold of them to essentially pull back and try and broker a deal where they accepted lower margins as a mere distributor rather than doing what they did and seek safety with their own library of IP.
    • jowea 3y ago
      Did this not work because Netflix didn't want to or because the producers decided they wanted to do distribution themselves?
• cangeroo 3y ago
  I'm concerned about the artists, the writers, and all the other people who put in the actual work, who deserve a livelihood and recognition. But the financiers, producers, and distributors have too much power and influence over the culture economy, to an extent where it's not unfair to ask whether they operate like a cartel, with heavy-handed nepotism, blacklisting, and politics. So yeah, I don't have sympathy for the streaming services.
• wackget 3y ago
  I have one point which I really feel exemplifies the entire Netflix experience: before you sign up, they do not give you a list of what's available to watch. Seriously, check out their website. It's basically a landing page which says "give us your money". The prices aren't even displayed. There is no list of shows, save for a few measly screenshots of featured/well-known titles. There is a search box which lets you search for titles, but nothing like a catalogue of offerings, which is the absolute bare minimum I'd expect to see before purchasing a service. I really cannot fathom why anyone would willingly give their hard-earned money to a company which doesn't even tell you what you're getting in exchange.
  • shermantanktop 3y ago
    They could show you, but that's no guarantee of anything. They rotate their content, and presumable the studios pull their content off. If they have movie X today, there's no assurance that it'll be there next week. It's a subscription to a service, not to specific content. I don't see how it could be any other way. Netflix could definitely make it easier to see what is on now, though. Amazon has a much larger catalog and you can browse it before signing up.
    • 3abiton 3y ago
      But he's not asking for consistency, but rather transparency.
      • shermantanktop 3y ago
        I read it as "show me what I'm getting" - which is totally reasonable. I'm just pointing out that it is a very perishable answer.
    • realusername 3y ago
      > They rotate their content, and presumable the studios pull their content off. If they have movie X today, there's no assurance that it'll be there next week. That's also why I think piracy will always win, the studios are just too greedy to make it work. When you do a rug pull on a show just even once, you lost some legal customers forever instantly, those people will have a tainted view of the platform.
• seventytwo 3y ago
  Well, well, well… its seems we’ve come full circle.
• SirMaster 3y ago
  Music piracy used to be a big problem. I am not sure if it still is or not? Anyway, it feels like music piracy isn't close to what it was at its peak and that they figured out how to make it work. Is there a reason that video is so much different?
  • AltF4me 3y ago
    It's not fragmented like video is. You go to your favourite music streaming platform and listen. You don't need to check all 10 services you pay for to work out if the artist is available on it.
    • tacticalturtle 3y ago
      That’s a good point - I wonder why the two industries evolved differently. I would think exclusive music would add much greater product stickiness than exclusive video content. Someone might listen to Taylor Swift on every gym session, but how many people are going to watch Stranger Things twice?
      • fragmede 3y ago
        That's a good question. I'd love to see Netflix's stats. Some people really are going to watch the same show over and over again. Like the office.
    • SirMaster 3y ago
      Right, but why is it that way? How did they manage to consolidate all music into 1 service and why can't or won't that work for video?
      • mixmastamyk 3y ago
        Music downloads became viable a lot earlier, and so the companies are a decade+ ahead on the dealing with sharing angle.
        • 3y ago
• j1elo 3y ago
  Only 6hrs ago this comment summarizes a big part of what's wrong with the streaming model today [1]: > Disney+ removed Crater ~7 weeks after it was released, purely to reduce residuals and claim losses for lower tax bills[2]. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39252151 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39252151 [2]: https://kotaku.com/disney-streaming-crater-tax-rort-scam-writeoff-delete-1850604861 https://kotaku.com/disney-streaming-crater-tax-rort-scam-wri...
  • sph 3y ago
    It's a bit like when I delete the movie torrent to free up some disk space. Thankfully there are other seeds you can download from.
• j-bos 3y ago
  Last week we were going to watch See How They Run on Max, some things came so today we went to watch it... Aaaaand it's gone. I don't sail and I don't care enough to find an alternative. Today we drown in quality (if you know how to look) entertainment, why should I chase movies and shows that the runners clearly don't care for me to see? I imagine apathy is a bigger competitor to Netflix than even piracy.
• righthand 3y ago
  Consumer: Netflix is hard to pay for when they raise prices twice in 3 months and describe the 2nd price raise as account lock down, the consequences are growing rapidly.
  • righthand 3y ago
    I definitely cancelled Netflix but I don’t pirate their shows because there’s nothing really worth pirating.
• rollcat 3y ago
  Me&family spent like €5k on Apple devices (incl. smart speakers), then another €20+/mo on various subscriptions such as Apple Music. So I play through AirPods from a Mac using Music.app and from Apple's catalogue... the library metadata is a mess, there's entire (well-known) bands whose many albums are not available, Siri keeps mis-interpreting my requests (plays a song that's similarly named by an artist I never heard of even though I used the exact name of an album I listened to dozens of times last year alone), the "smart" playlist seems to play the same 50 songs on shuffle+repeat... ...and now also the playback in Music.app occasionally stutters, on an M1 Mac, with an otherwise idle system. So let's raise the subscription prices. In my opinions, all of these companies got waaay too comfortable taking our subscription money. Don't worry, I'll figure out a different way to get these €16.99/mo into the starving artists' hands, plenty of buskers around here.
• Euphorbium 3y ago
  There is like one good show per year. Youtube has enough content to last a lifetime.
• h4x0rr 3y ago
  Honestly companies got too greedy, I hope piracy teaches them to not go too far
• SurgeArrest 3y ago
  Netflix has a problem that the front page is now filled with "B-rated" rather than "A-rated" content for more money than before. The amount of content that they spent money on in the past is hardly discoverable, genre search is barely exposed in the interface. You have to rely on 3rd party sites to find links to category selections, say Epic movies based on true events... good luck finding what they have in this category in the AppleTV or Roku apps. They also don't allow to exclude content that one is not interested in, I want no superheroes, no animated stuff, no dei, etc - and yet every time I launch the app it is there front and center and I just hate this. And if I watched 2 WW2 movies it doesn't mean that's the only thing I'm interested in in the recommended section. I want to exclude producing studios as well, like Vox, let me tell Netflix what I don't like. So if you start looking outside of their interface - why then not just finish and get the movie elsewhere? Finally, pricing is not flexible, what if I want infrequent 4k UHD streaming on a single device - why do I pay for 4 streams as if I'm streaming 24/7? At this point, I'm better off with Netflix Pay Per View (if this was offered). I keep paying for this service just because I can and just because I might watch something - but I find it more and more frustrating to watch something...
  • Strom 3y ago
    Yeah but if you always have to spend a lot of time finding something to watch, then that shows up in their analytics as increased engagement. Allowing you to remove garbage would make you spend less time in their app.
    • rexf 3y ago
      If you're actually watching content (a whole movie, a series, etc), the total actual usage of the service easily eclipses any time spent bouncing around the UI?
      • n42 3y ago
        That may be true, but inconveniently, it wouldn’t allow the parent poster to rage fantasize about how stupid the product team at Netflix must be
• JieJie 3y ago
  The list of canned statements^0 about the dangers of piracy reminds me of Sinclair Broadcasting's famous memo to newsrooms^1. ^0: > Apparently, there’s quite a bit of copying going on, as SEC filings from several companies include identical passages. > Netflix: “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth” > Triller Corp: “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth” > FuboTV: “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth” > Redbox Entertainment: “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth” > IMAQ: “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth” CuriosityStream: “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth” > We don’t know where these references originate. Netflix has mentioned it for a while, that’s for sure, and apparently, the use of this language is widespread and subject to rapid global growth." 1: https://youtu.be/C-4HOgULcd8 https://youtu.be/C-4HOgULcd8
• upupupandaway 3y ago
  I have about $120 in streaming subscriptions (wife, daughter). Lat week I wanted to watch Korean movie “Sleep”, which I then found and rented from both Google and Apple. Turns out that neither had subtitles in English. So I refunded both and comfortably watched it in an “alternative” streaming site. I really try to pay for content but this fragmentation is destroying the business.
• nntwozz 3y ago
  Crocodile tears, piracy beats streaming and will continue to do so as long as availability is a problem. My example; a certain popcorn-related torrent site provides an archive of 315,669 movies. Total torrents: 916,518 Webrips, full Blu-ray rips, remuxes, 2160p, 1080p, 720p, 480p; h.265/h.264, x.265/x.264, you also have DVDs and even VHS. Some movies also offer 3D in various formats, some are director's cut, some are theatrical, some are uncut. I can go on, but just one movie is offered in a myriad of formats and options. Places like these are equivalent to the library of Alexandria. They must not fall because they hold valuable media that is not even available elsewhere. I remember Stallman mentioning a universal fee for internet access and all media, wishful thinking but for a subset of internet users this has been a reality for at least a decade. With self-hosting services, VPNs like WireGuard and nice apps like Infuse on the Apple TV that can connect to any server and play anything you throw at it there's no going back for me personally. At this point I find it morally imperative to keep seeding in order to keep media alive that would otherwise be lost to time because no-one else cares. The big companies are all about profits, it's up to the little man to save the ideals of the early internet.
  • TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
    I've heard it claimed that there's actually a decent number of industry insiders that also participate on the popcorn site because it's the only site where you can easily access certain obscure movies. Even on What CD there used to be a few actual artists that would directly share their albums.
• Silhouette 3y ago
  I'm about as law-abiding a person as you'll probably ever find when it comes to copyright vs. piracy. I don't mind paying a fair price for creative work I enjoy and I expect that obtaining it through authorised sources will ultimately support the people doing that work and the creation of more work that I enjoy in the future. And I find it absolutely infuriating that the experience of paying customers has once again degraded to be so much worse than what the pirates are presumably enjoying. Content doesn't stick around reliably. I glanced at my "watch it again" list on one of the several streaming services we subscribe to in my household the other day and well over half of the items on it were now tagged as paid options. Those movies and shows were no longer available on the service where I had watched them sometimes only weeks ago. Content isn't even added reliably to begin with. I've seen the first and third movies in a franchise on the same service but not the second. I've seen TV shows that are part of the same world and occasionally do crossover episodes and a streaming service that has one show but not the other so you can't watch the whole story. Then there are the ever-increasing ads and the "premium" tiers being introduced to remove them again as if they're doing us a favour. Spare me. And then tell me why I should sign up to the "premium" service when there's no guarantee about the content it will make available or the level of advertising it will also include in the future. And finally there is a personal irritation that won't affect many people but really upsets me. Some services still insist on crippling the quality of the streams away from big name platforms like Windows and the main phone apps. Some people suggest this is because of DRM junk in their contracts with rightsholders but that doesn't really hold up when other streaming services seem to have no such problem or when the movie/show was an "original" from the same service. It's particularly irritating that the current worst offender seems to be Amazon Prime Video crippling playback on Linux. You know - the same Amazon who have made obscene amounts of money via AWS largely thanks to Linux. One possible way to overcome these problems is to go "old school" and buy favourite movies and shows on disc. I still do that plenty. There are some that I do expect to rewatch later or lend out to a friend occasionally. But also discs work fairly reliably as long as you don't get caught by region locking or other similar junk - and usually if you do it's obvious immediately and you can send the product back as defective. (Amazon are once again a recurring villain in this story having sent several products that were in fact for different regions than the one ordered and in some cases literally had "Not licensed for distribution outside {somewhere I don't live}" printed on the box.) But this strategy is becoming harder with many distributors only making discs available for a relatively short time after a movie/show is released or only making them available in some countries/regions and not others. And again sometimes they change their mind between a movie and its sequel or from one season to the next of a TV show. It's really hard to have much sympathy for an industry that offers such a bad experience to its paying customers. Particularly so when a lot of these problems are completely avoidable and avoiding them is realistically in the best interests of the big players when there is an ever-present "free" alternative that obviously a lot of people will be willing to choose even if some of us still prefer not to.
• andrewinardeer 3y ago
  So after the streaming wars it's back to square one.
• rascul 3y ago
  It's almost trivial and largely automated to get torrents of just about anything I want to watch for free, without ads, often within an hour of it airing or being released. Make legal video streaming easy and reasonably priced and I'll give you more money than Comcast or Hulu ever got from me. Ideally, some all in one service that all the content producers use where I can very easily buy and download an episode, season, series, or movie. Or maybe subscribe to a show or channel. Also, no commercials. And no disappearing content, or country filtering. Don't do this bullshit where I'm paying you money to get abused because I won't. Also a video player that doesn't fight me because it seems like some of them do. It'll never happen. These companies will never cater to the consumers paying them as long as they can abuse their customers and get rich instead. Netflix may be slightly better in some areas than some of the other streaming services but they have almost no content I find interesting so I won't even bother.
• miki123211 3y ago
  What are non-tech-savvy people actually using for piracy these days? Torrents require you to own a PC (there's no way to torrent on a phone or smart TV AFAIK), Usenet requires you to have some tech knowledge, same goes for Plex / Jellyfin. I feel like piracy nowadays is a lot harder for an average Joe than it used to be. People now expect that they can turn on their TV, open an app, enter a title in the search box and start watching, and P2P just doesn't work that way.
  • al_borland 3y ago
    All the non-tech-savvy people I know talk about wishing they knew how to do the stuff, but instead they pay for streaming services while complaining about how much they suck. I haven’t used them, but I think there are pirate sites that work just like steaming services. I don’t know a lot of details, but I think it’s still BT on the backend, and relies on a fast download and maybe it can prioritize chunks to get the start of the movie first? Not totally sure. But it seems a VPN would be important for that. I would say using a VPN requires some degree of savvy, but at the same time, it seems every other YouTuber out there is pushing a VPN app.
  • rpmisms 3y ago
    Torrenting is very easy on Android.
  • gumpshun 3y ago
    Non tech savvy people aren't messing around with torrents. They get android TV boxes from someone and pay them a small monthly fee to have a cable like interface to watch anything you could possibly pirate.
  • jowea 3y ago
    > Torrents require you to own a PC (there's no way to torrent on a phone or smart TV AFAIK), Usenet requires you to have some tech knowledge, same goes for Plex / Jellyfin. There are some piracy subreddits you can look at to get some idea, but there seems to be easier ways than that.
  • AngryData 3y ago
• helf 3y ago
  [dead]
• analognoise 3y ago
  At this point it would be cheaper to buy a media pc and a few big drives and simply rip all your media to them, then buy all the movies you want and rip them. The break even point with the cost of streaming these days is really not that long. And you don’t have to pirate anything - buy the dvds used on EBay or something. Streaming is no longer cheap for some bs reason.
• pshirshov 3y ago
  Yes, sure, just make better content and stop increasing fees and taking user-hostile actions.
• mensetmanusman 3y ago
  The simple solution is that we need a spotify of all movies.
  • irishloop 3y ago
    Netflix tried to do this, but then studios wanted a piece of the pie, so they all spun up their own streaming services and then stopped licensing to their competitors. Also, artists make virtually no money with Spotify, so it "works" for the consumer, but does it work for the artists?
• torstenvl 3y ago
  Not that hard to compete against. Just stop being assholes. If Netflix didn't raise their prices at more than double the inflation rate, and didn't crack down on password sharing, and didn't deactivate devices of deployed military members, and didn't keep cancelling and censoring content, maybe they wouldn't have this problem.
• spike021 3y ago
  I haven't pirated in a while. I was happy to pay for some platforms. The problem is that pretty much all of these services say you get 2 or 4 or however many screens and now they're tightening viewership to within the same household. If I'm one person I'll never need to use 4 screens at once, so why can't I share them with a few family members who live elsewhere? And on top of that, you get plans that never had ads before now starting to add them (i.e. Amazon Prime Video). So I'm paying the same or more (as prices continue to be increased) for the same base level of content with additional annoying cruft. With all the extra complexity like this, it's easier to just pirate and maybe set up a server I can just give relatives access to.
  • sersi 3y ago
    At least for now, I'm still sharing netflix and amazon prime video with my parent who live in a different country 10,000 miles away. The day I get a message stopping me from doing that is the day I cancel my subscriptions.
    • spike021 3y ago
      I haven't been so lucky with Netflix. Relatives who live in other cities have gotten a message that they can't use mine unless I do the thing to add a new user for $7.99 or however much it is. Occasionally it works for them but most times it does not.
      • sersi 3y ago
        I wonder if it depends on countries. I'm based in Asia my parents are in Europe.
  • shiroiuma 3y ago
    >And on top of that, you get plans that never had ads before now starting to add them It's exactly the same thing that happened with cable TV: it started out without ads, selling itself based on that feature, and then when they had lots of subscribers, they added ads. I predicted this exact thing would happen not that long ago here on HN and other forums and people called me crazy.
• ewoijfawoifj 3y ago
  It'd be easier if their UIs weren't absolutely terrible, and missing basic functionality. There's no simple "mark watched"/"mark unwatched"? I can't have multiple playlists, just one "My List" that gets randomly reshuffled? Who knows where my "Continue Watching" row is going to be on the main page, because it sure isn't at the top! etc...
• dilippkumar 3y ago
  I'll bite - people torrent because they have no other options. People will pay for content if they're able to access content after paying. So, here's my offer: I will build a torrent streaming site where the torrent file costs some reasonable amount of $$ per download, for fully licensed content, with zero DMA protections. If you have IP that you are willing to share on this torrent site, I will take 10% of revenue after subtracting costs, you get the remaining. My email is on my HN profile. If you own IP and are interested in licensing it this way - shoot me a mail. I need a minimum amount of interest from IP holders before I put in any real work building this. Your move, Hollywood.
  • xtracto 3y ago
    The technical side has been solved for 15+ years. It's a licensing/rights issue what is screwing with the video experience. FWIW Netflix should go back to providing physical content rental (DVD, blueray) with full catalog. Or someone should do WHAT Allofmp3 did in the 2000s with Audio and THE ROMS licensing.
  • Underphil 3y ago
    I download said content and share it on a public torrent site. Your move, dilippkumar.
    • kevincox 3y ago
      Ignore it? People don't want to have to wade through torrents to get the right one. All of these videos are available on the torrent sites anyways.
    • dilippkumar 3y ago
      It was already available on a public torrent and therefore this additional torrent on a public torrent site changes nothing. Previously you weren't getting any revenue from torrents. Now you're monetizing a fraction of the population that likes to torrent but wants to not feel guilty about doing so.
• diego_sandoval 3y ago
  If, as a paying customer, I get an extremely low bitrate stream on Netflix because I'm watching it from Linux, then piracy is 200% justified.
  • charcircuit 3y ago
    It should work on Linux if you have have a properly set up protected media path.
    • waffleiron 3y ago
      Not according to Netflix themselves https://help.netflix.com/en/node/30081 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/30081
      • charcircuit 3y ago
        Reread it. It says it's possible to stream HD content on Linux instead of only SD. Chromebooks with ChromeOS and certain devices with Android use Linux too, but have worked to get L1 widevine drm working so they have higher resolution available.
        • vlz 3y ago
          Yeah, HD, but not "Full HD". The page has "HD (720p)" as max for all linux browsers. For each of the other OSes you have at least one browser with 1080p (Chrome at least). Why this restriction?
          • charcircuit 3y ago
            >Why this restriction? It depends on how secure your device is able to keep the decoded contents. The better the security the higher the quality they are willing to allow.
            • midasuni 3y ago
• hsuduebc2 3y ago
  These platforms just became inconvinient. A lot shows is geo-locked and spread on multiple services but yeah of course root of the problem is piracy. As always. It is just easier to download it.
• justanothersys 3y ago
  good, i prefer the old internet
• sylware 3y ago
  Where is the noscript/basic (x)html portal?
• virtualpain 3y ago
  Last christmas, I want to watch Home Alone series (1-3). I don't know where they are available. Google search result shows it available in Netflix. I checked Netflix, it didn't available there but in Disney+ (Hotstar) in my country. Shit like this why I decide pirate it instead.
  • xtracto 3y ago
    Similarly for me with an old movie called Miracle Mile. I wanted to watch it and searched through the 6 paid services I have ... none of them had it in my country, not even for "rental" . I've got the income, and I'd gladly pay $5 usd to rent a movie to watch. Like I did in the 90s . But noooooooo. So yeah, I found it in some torrent site and watched it happily.
• 9991 3y ago
  It’s so strange to hear the term “piracy” in so many legal filings, when I would have thought “copyright infringement” would be the term of art. I’m hypothesizing these companies are not concerned with theft on the high seas.
• stainablesteel 3y ago
  when did we steer away from the conclusion that piracy isn't in competition with these services? people who pirate generally aren't going to buy anyways. even if you magically remove it one day, you lose yourself a bunch of free hype-advertisers and conversations with your title in it. there's always somehow people who think its a net negative on them, that there's a zero-sum game involved with their product, that end up on the board of some important company and want to get rid of a good thing that they have no real perspective on.
• jwie 3y ago
  It's amusing watching streaming turn into cable, but somehow worse. At least we got some public access programming out of cable. Piracy is a service problem. Valve proved digital piracy can be beaten by commercial solutions. The problem is the media cartels being intransigent with digital delivery, not piracy.
  • xethos 3y ago
    Gabe's stance was established over a decade ago; I think it's been long enough that we can add Music streaming to bolster that argument, because so many people don't really consider piracy there either. The price isn't outrageous, all the content is there when you search for it, and ads are non-existant. Piracy has been left for the truly frugal (sharing accounts, public trackers) or the die-hards (private trackers or similar).
  • electrondood 3y ago
    Uber turned into taxis, but worse. Airbnb turned into hotels, buts worse. This is "disruption."
• deleted 3y ago
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• deleted 3y ago
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• lulznews 3y ago
  Bro who is pirating Netflix trash shows
• kbar13 3y ago
  i agree with almost everyone's takes in this thread. one thing to note - stop talking about where you get your isos.
• m3kw9 3y ago
  What’s next you may ask: AI generated movies that are on demand on how you want to tweak it, it’s not piratable because the model is on cloud and the processing required is uncommon. Just a thought
• kelnos 3y ago
  It's interesting that Netflix uses the term "piracy" in what is more or less a legal document, rather than something more accurate (but likely more wordy), like "illegal distribution of copyrighted materials". Anyway, I think the article hits it on the nose why this is becoming a problem again: > Netflix amassed hundreds of millions of subscribers, some of whom left their piracy habits behind. However, as the ‘streaming wars’ turned legal and convenient streaming platforms into isolated and pricey content silos, momentum started to shift. I've been frustrated with this, too. When I first subscribed to Netflix, I was happy and satisfied, and rarely (if ever) need to turn to less-savory sources. Their app and website were both polished, snappy, and worked well. I picked up Hulu and HBO subscriptions too (apps not as good, but decent enough), and I considered those three to be a reasonable amount to pay to watch what I wanted to watch. And I was also pleased that, when watching TV shows, I'd be counted as a viewer for the purposes of allowing the studios to decide if a show I like is popular enough to get renewed. But now... to watch all the shows I want to watch, I have to subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, Max, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Paramount+, and Apple TV+. That's a lot! Not to mention all these services are considerably more expensive than they were during the period of streaming when I was happy with the services. At this point I might as well just get a cable subscription again, which would probably be cheaper (ok, not remotely serious about that, but...). On top of all that, the streaming quality seems to be worse than it used to be; I expect the illegal sources are of better quality. As much as I'm generally against corporate consolidation, I think this is a case where that might actually be better for consumers (and for the content owners too). Or perhaps a regime of compulsory licensing under RAND terms would allow all the various streaming services to compete on price, quality of experience, recommendations, etc. Ultimately that sort of thing might result in consolidation too, but at least that would be more fair, maybe. Beyond all that, seems like most of the streaming services have turned their base tier into an ad-supported tier, and have aggressively bumped up the cost of the ad-free tiers. I refuse to subject myself to gross psychological manipulation whenever it's possible to avoid it, so add that to the cost. And for people who are more cost-conscious, their experience gets much worse.
• matt3210 3y ago
  This is enshittification pure and simple. The CEO or other shot callers need to make their bonus so they can hand it off to the next person to make it worse.
• mattferderer 3y ago
  I wonder if torrent sites are a better 1 stop shop place where you can find everything? I also personally believe as tech makes it easier for indy type groups & average individuals to make longer form content, Netflix may just become irrelevant to companies like YouTube who have better distribution channels.
• Animats 3y ago
  > “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth” > We don’t know where these references originate. Search for that phrase. It has a rather large number of hits, in filings from multiple streaming services. Wonder where that phrase was pirated from? And whether this indicates a degree of coordination which suggests the need for antitrust action. Mainland China has good movies now. There's been progress since "Sky Hunter" (2017), produced by the film unit of the People's Liberation Army Air Force. (You can watch that for free. It's heavy-handed propaganda.) If you like period costume dramas, there are many from China, because the political levels don't care about those. The writers thus have more freedom. "Princess Agents" is probably the best of that genre. Stuff set in the present day will have clear signs of being forced to follow the party line. There are lots of cop shows. They're about as good, or bad, as American cop shows. There's a good version of "The Three Body Problem", but it's rather slow-paced, following the books closely. There's also a genre we don't see much in the US - business drama. The US film industry has been eaten by superhero sequels. Just not much worth watching. There's a Hunger Games prequel out, if anybody cares. If you're willing to look outside the heavily promoted stuff, there's plenty to watch.
• testhn2ac 3y ago
  OTT destroyed the cinema business for small and medium films. If piracy kills Netflix and other OTT what happens to films ? People return to Cinemas or movies start streaming for Peanuts on YouTube ?
• rnd0 3y ago
  Me? I'm rooting for the pirates, personally.
• caymanjim 3y ago
  For decades, I avoided piracy. When friends would ask why I bought movies when I could just download them, I'd talk about wanting to support content producers and wanting to pay my fair share for something I got enjoyment out of. I'm a software engineer, and as much as I value open source, I also appreciate the value of intangible intellectual property. I wasn't an anti-piracy warrior; I just felt that I should pay for the media I wanted to consume. I've given up. I'm just not doing it anymore. I own hundreds of movies on VHS (hah), DVD, and Bluray. I own hundreds of movies on digital platforms, like iTunes, Prime, and Google Play (or whatever they call it now, if they haven't simply deleted my library). At one point I was paying for at least five monthly-subscription streaming services. I've spent many thousands of dollars on movies. I've gotten screwed by them all. DVDs and Blurays with DRM that prevented me from copying them (first at all, then just legally). Fried a Bluray drive trying to flash the firmware simply so I could backup and format-shift movies that I paid for. iTunes movies that I couldn't play on my TV. iTunes movies that wouldn't stream at full resolution on some platforms. Limitations on how many devices I could authorize to watch movies that I paid for. iTunes still limits you to five authorized devices. I've got two TVs, four computers, two tablets, and a phone. Streaming sites that I pay for introducing ads. Movies and shows constantly disappearing from streaming platforms to increasingly isolated silos that double their prices and halve their content offerings. Netflix locking my account because I'm traveling and accessing it from a different place every night. Netflix not working because I'm out of the country. Prices keep going up, content and usability keeps going down. Despite all this nonsense, I still held the line and wanted to legally purchase all my media. So I built a $3000 media PC, bought a bunch of Bluray movies, bought a Bluray drive to rip them, and got ready to "really own" movies I wanted to watch, pleased that I was no longer going to be the sap who spent $20 on a barely-usable iTunes movie that I didn't actually own, but still feeling like I was doing the right thing. Well, I couldn't rip most of the movies, because of DRM, which hurts pirates not at all, but strips honest people of their right to backup and format-shift. So I researched Bluray drives, found one that was supposed to work, flashed the firmware to use [some ripping software I can't remember], and it fried the drive. That's it. I've had enough. Fuck every content producer on the planet. I've got a media PC with 32TB of storage and I'm going to fill that up with everything I can steal and then buy more HDs. They had their chance. I hope they all go bankrupt. Assholes.
• cgearhart 3y ago
  The content diaspora to other services has made Netflix tremendously less appealing; just par for the course as Netflix tries their hardest to lose me as a customer. I just had a support chat with them Friday because my kid has been in the hospital for several weeks after being hit by a car. Since they haven’t been home, Netflix has decided they’re no longer part of the household and we have to manually reauthenticate every two weeks or chip in another $8/mo for their own account. (I asked them point blank, “is it the official position of Netflix that a hospitalized patient is no longer part of a household?” and they just said “the policy applies to all devices”.) I’ve been using Netflix since it was a mail-order DVD rental service…but at this point they’ve sold me on their new most popular plan: cancelling.
  • ajoseps 3y ago
    that’s an awful situation. i hope your kid recovers soon
    • cgearhart 3y ago
      Thank you. It’s been tough, but I remain optimistic. They’ve already progressed far beyond worst case expectations and continue to impress me every day.
  • TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
    This kind of situation should really be gaining more attention from Netflix leadership and management. They're burning so much good-will and being assholes in the process. The most frustrating part is that there's no accountability by company leadership towards paying customers. To which I'm sure someone would reply "they only have to be accountable to shareholders", which is utterly insane.
    • cgearhart 3y ago
      I don’t mind them operating as a business and I’m happy to pay for a service that is providing me value. But I am unwilling to put my own time and effort into patching the shortcomings of whatever dumb heuristic they’ve implemented as “household” detection. I have _slightly_ more important things to be doing right now, and as we’ve already noted in this thread: Netflix isn’t the only game in town anymore…
• hbcondo714 3y ago
  > there’s quite a bit of copying going on, as SEC filings from several companies include identical passages The author is a great financial forensics sleuth! Here is the passage “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth highlighted inside each conpany's 10-K on one site (shameless plug): NFLX: https://last10k.com/sec-filings/nflx#:~:text=In%20light%20of%20the%20compelling%20consumer%20proposition%2C%20piracy%20services%20are%20subject%20to%20rapid%20global%20growth https://last10k.com/sec-filings/nflx#:~:text=In%20light%20of... FUBO: https://last10k.com/sec-filings/fubo#:~:text=in%20light%20of%20the%20compelling%20consumer%20proposition%2C%20piracy%20services%20are%20subject%20to%20rapid%20global%20growth https://last10k.com/sec-filings/fubo#:~:text=in%20light%20of... RDBX: https://last10k.com/sec-filings/rdbx#:~:text=in%20light%20of%20the%20compelling%20consumer%20proposition%2C%20piracy%20services%20are%20subject%20to%20rapid%20global%20growth https://last10k.com/sec-filings/rdbx#:~:text=in%20light%20of... CURI: https://last10k.com/sec-filings/curi#:~:text=in%20light%20of%20the%20compelling%20consumer%20proposition%2C%20piracy%20services%20are%20subject%20to%20rapid%20global%20growth https://last10k.com/sec-filings/curi#:~:text=in%20light%20of...
  • kelnos 3y ago
    To be fair, though, companies really need to put things like this into their SEC filings, regardless if it's actually affecting them or not. Because if it could affect them, and they don't disclose it, some group of shareholders is going to sue, claiming that the company should have anticipated whatever risk to their business ended up coming to bite them, and disclosed it ahead of time. Granted, there's a balance to be maintained: put too much random, theoretical crap in there, and people will either think a) you're lying about all this stuff just to cover your ass, or b) the business they're in is a complete minefield and not worth investing in. So I don't really take it as gospel that piracy is truly eating into Netflix's bottom line just because they've identified it as a business risk in their 10-K. (I do believe them in this case, though, since it's an obvious outcome of the fragmentation of desirable content across so many streaming services.)
• xpl 3y ago
  Piracy isn't difficult to compete against. You just need to provide a service at least as usable as piracy. I won't mind paying a couple of bucks, I just need a usable service which: 1. Doesn't restrict what content I can watch from which country and doesn't prevent me from using VPN. This is outright ridiculous and I deeply hate streaming services just for that. 2. Has all the content from multiple studios, not just from your "walled garden". Until you solve that, piracy is more usable. There are illegal Netflix-like services that stream all the content without a hassle — and some of them are even subscription-based! Hear me out — people FUCKING PAY pirates to watch content, because their services are more convenient to use than yours that are legal. So yeah, people don't mind paying. They just want a decent service.
  • snvzz 3y ago
    3. lets me watch 4k streams on my haiku, aros, openbsd systems. Artificial DRM-based restrictions ultimately mean not getting the quality you pay for. Netflix specifically becomes 720p garbage. But I can just rely on less official sources. In this case I get a DRM-free, very high quality file that plays everywhere, forever.
    • walteweiss 3y ago
      What an interesting choice of platforms! How / where do you use them? Why them specifically?
    • papruapap 3y ago
      Netflix app on my TV crashed when I plugged-in my usb headset :/
    • Loughla 3y ago
      >720p garbage I'm genuinely concerned there's something wrong with my eyes. 720p looks fine, I think? Is there that huge of a difference?
      • Liftyee 3y ago
        What size and resolution is your screen? 720p on a 4k 27" looks visibly pixelated but on a phone looks just fine...
• djtango 3y ago
  So I live in Singapore and wanted to watch Lord of the Rings legally, offline on my Linux machine and I have no idea how to do it. And after dedicating quite a bit of time towards trying to figure it out, I also wasn't really sure why I was so eager to give my money to an industry that is still so backwards when it comes towards sane distribution.
• anon115 3y ago
  greed and vultures trying to get their share of the gold, ruining the user experience
• pier25 3y ago
  On top of the fragmentation we users have to suffer crap like Netflix or Prime or HBO not streaming movies in 4K HDR Atmos when the movies totally exist in that format. We're in 2024 ffs.
• anonzzzies 3y ago
  A lot of stuff I want to watch is geolocked and mostly to the US. And this seems to happen more and more, especially with stuff I liked, watched (partially), pulled and now it’s US only. So then I am going to get to get it from bt.
• iaseiadit 3y ago
  Offering worse content while continually raising prices makes it difficult to compete
• shmerl 3y ago
  Here is an idea - offer video DRM-free. That should be a good competition offer.
• 6510 3y ago
  Crowd funding is easy. I envision a large form with lots of optional spices to pick from. But then you have to make things for a specific audience (who will scream for more) in stead of the pill of generalized trash that appeals slightly to everyone that is usually cranked out by overly standardized formulas. Shut up and take my money.
• dbg31415 3y ago
  Maybe Netflix should try putting on good content. They lost so much to Disney and HBO and Hulu. Overseas shows like Rick & Morty were on Netflix a day after they came out. Not so in the US. Where all Netflix seems to have are the “Paul Blart Mall Cop”-quality shows. Where can I go to watch classics? Sopranos, The West Wing, The Wire… even AMC shows aren’t on Netflix anymore. Yet they want to charge more, and I can’t watch Netflix when I travel for work from a hotel room anymore. It’s terrible service. Then they complain about piracy like it’s not their fault for making it harder and more expensive for people.
• bimguy 3y ago
  I love Piracy. 99% of the content on streaming services is recycled garbage. Good for the new generation but not for me.
• kaetemi 3y ago
  No, it's not. Sell me downloadable video files.
• JodieBenitez 3y ago
  Content fragmentation, platform fragmentation, geo-locking, DRMs, "woke" censorship and revisionism... no wonder piracy is on the rise, again. At some point I had like 3 different paying streaming services, and they still failed to provide enough content of interest. All canceled now. The dollar bin dvds at my local thrift store is a much better offer... this and piratebay.
  • ausbah 3y ago
    >"woke" censorship and revisionism you being the only comment in the whole thread giving this as a reason makes me think this might not really be a reason
    • JodieBenitez 3y ago
      Call it what you want, but I'm not gonna pay for content that is revised/censored to fit whatever current trend. I'm old enough that I've seen Darryl Hannah's butt on the silver screen as a youngster from the movie Splash and I won't pay to be lectured either. I wish media corps would consider their content like art works as much as entertainment and distribute them as is, not butchered. That includes "enhancements" like new dubbing and colors.
      • effingwewt 3y ago
        I lost it when they removed the DnD episode of 'Community'. Then Boondocks. It is woke BS and I'm tired of the revisionist BS too It's far worse in anime/video games. A lot of localizer stories running rampant over it- understandably the original authors weren't happy about Western pandering and DEI/political views were being shunted into their stories. There's a reason the fansub community abhors anything from funimation et al. Canceled all subscriptions now, and I'm much happier.
      • MrVandemar 3y ago
        Yeah, someone elsewhere in the thread notes that Bluey was censored for the US market. Films and television are artefacts, they are a snapshot of a time, a place, a culture. I don't mind revisions as long as the original remains available. In short: “Han Solo shot first”.
• bartread 3y ago
  All right, so just off the top of my head we have: - Netflix - Amazon Prime - Disney+ - HBO+ - Hulu - YouTube Premium - Apple TV - Whatever Sky's offering is called - At least a couple of others that I've forgotten - Plus some kid-specific services that aren't necessarily included in the base subscription (looking at you, Amazon) - And then I haven't even got into music streaming services like Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, etc. You know, competition is a good thing, but overall I'm not that sympathetic. It's just too damn hard, and unsustainably expensive, to be able to watch what I want to watch when I want to watch it. Then there's content duplication, content exclusives, and on top of that just this endless churn of huge quantities of content being thrown out that, frankly, isn't necessarily that great and feels like kind of a waste of time to watch. This isn't really working for me. Let me say it again, I want to watch what I want to watch when I want to watch it and with reasonable pricing. I'm happy to pay. I'm not happy to be bilked. And I'm not interested in the arguments about rights. I just want to watch what I want to watch when I want to watch it.
  • arijun 3y ago
    Videogamedunkey has an entertaining survey of the streaming landscape: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvhv7bgmz64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvhv7bgmz64
  • zelphirkalt 3y ago
    *Using whatever hardware, OS, and browser I want.
  • themoonisachees 3y ago
    Competition is good, but this isn't competition, almost all of these platforms catalogs are mutually exclusive, so instead of competing to be the platform with the lowest cost/best UX/ network effect, they're just competing to get shows off of another platform and onto theirs, to the detriment of the consumer.
  • kuschkufan 3y ago
    Music streaming is not currently suffering the same fragmentation that video streaming displays. I.e. the same music albums are available on all those music streaming services you mentioned. (I know there are a few exceptions but for the vast majority this is true). Music streaming services have very few exclusive content. Which is why they tried to sign exclusive deals with e.g. podcasters. Should they go in the same direction as video streaming, we will see an increase in music pirating again as well. Hasn't stopped Spotify and co from increasing prices anyway of course.
• getcrunk 3y ago
  I feel like torrenting is af an all time low if not a local low. Since rarbg went down many of my friends seemed to be less enthusiastic about torrenting.
• agilob 3y ago
  > Well, well, well, if it isn't for the consequences of my own actions!
• eqqn 3y ago
  Conspiracy theory but multiple streaming sites using the same language is an interesting set-up for future(or present) anti-piracy lobbying. "In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth
• deleted 3y ago
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• prmoustache 3y ago
  I think the #1 competitor to netflix is not piracy but short video platforms: youtube, tiktok and instagram really. A lot of people I know would rather spend 2 hours scrolling short videos of these social medias than have to decide on a show to watch. People have come at a level of lazyness they don't decide what to do and would rather have apps feeding them with stuff to watch they didn't even ask for. And despite removing accounts of all social medias I still get trapped sometimes. A few days ago I was looking for some youtube videos to diy something. When I got the information I needed I ended up watching a nearly 2h video of fails on youtube instead of doing the actual thing I just learned about.
• hakube 3y ago
  When you pull crap like disabling password sharing then yeah it will be very hard to compete. And with tons of services coming out it's just better to pirate stuff than pay for multiple streaming services
• sgift 3y ago
  It's easy to compete against Netflix. Sit down with the other providers in your space and find a way to make it clear to them that people want one streaming provider for everything and they want an ad-free option at an acceptable price point. Piracy was done for when you were at your top. You (meaning the industry) fucked this up yourselves.
• Havoc 3y ago
  They're just pricing themselves out of their target audience with bad price per quality/variety. Of all the players netflix should be best placed to understand this given that this effect basically made them.
• dusted 3y ago
  I wonder if it somehow has something to do with 5 good shows being exclusively available on 5 separate streaming services, and nobody wanting to pay for 5 streaming services to watch 5 shows ?
• midtake 3y ago
  Piracy doesn't show me ads, buffer in 720p, remove episodes based on political winds, and then raise the price of service on a whim. I don't pirate movies or shows but at this point I feel pretty stupid for not doing so.
• BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  I pay for netflix, but I use the pirating software stremio because the UI is much better. It's a big fail if a billion dollars company can't keep up with with a few geeks in a garage. That's litterally the oldest silicon valley triope.
• bilvar 3y ago
  What they don’t understand is that piracy is not a competitor. If I couldn’t pirate I wouldn’t have paid for it. I’m happy with doing something else with my time.
• Netcob 3y ago
  I stopped pirating games when Steam made buying games safer and more convenient than pirating them, while being affordable and having lots of sales. It didn't get worse despite being a monopoly for a long time, and now we have that plus another service that throws free games at you every week for attention. I stopped pirating TV shows and movies when for a small monthly fee I could watch most of what I wanted to watch on Netflix. I wouldn't say it was more convenient or better quality on all counts, but it was good enough. Now I need 10 different streaming subscriptions that keep increasing in price, often only available in dubbed German because I live in Germany, often in worse video/audio quality than it could be, originals getting randomly axed after a cliffhanger, horrible apps, ads being forced on you, no more entire seasons published at once because you can still cancel subscriptions monthly, and don't get me started about offline viewing which never worked properly in the first place. The limitations are all artificial and it's clear that it's publicly traded companies scraping the bottom of the barrel for infinite growth again.
  • p0w3n3d 3y ago
    The legal system can be challenging - your local Netflix provider probably bought rights only to the dubbed version because it was cheaper...
    • effingwewt 3y ago
      Self-inflicted wounds. They did it to themselves. Companies made their beds, now they can lie on them.
• RoxGutsyWonder 3y ago
  Nowadays they'd have to pay me to watch their stuff
• cameronh90 3y ago
  You know a business is out of ideas when they start lashing out at piracy. Netflix has a content problem. They lost their licenses for most of the third-party content worth watching, and their own productions are now trash. Netflix Original was a stamp of quality at one point, but I think they probably saw in the data that cheap content like true crime and docuseries were getting the bulk of their playtime and focussed in on that. However, for many people, that sort of content is not something they'd pay for, it's just background TV to watch while half doing something else, similar to podcasts and YouTube - which are both free. Their competitors have shows and films that people actually want to watch.
• Netcob 3y ago
  > “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth” I bet they are seeing this as some sort of push by criminals to take viewers away from streaming platforms, or at least that's how they will present it. And 0% of those millions they invest in fighting piracy will go towards actually making a more compelling consumer proposition. And I guarantee that none of them will mention how piracy has always existed and was always an option. There is no new tech that suddenly appeared like P2P in the early 2000s. The real statement should have been "We finally got so greedy and icompetent that it's driving more and more users to piracy."
• fragmede 3y ago
  There's an alternate version of history, where there's a gentlemans agreement that Netflix doesn't make their own content, the content houses license their stuff to them and don't make a competing service, and everyone gets their share of a bigger pie. But HBO saw Netflix and was like, I could do that, and Netflix saw HBO and said I could do that. And instead of working together for a better outcome, they decided to fight so here we are.
• souenzzo 3y ago
  A while ago, I tried to watch the "Jurassic Park" series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park#Films https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park#Films Jurassic Park is a cinema classic with ~6 films. It is simply not possible to do this in any legal way. besides expensive, it is hard to understand if the film is available in each platform. I ended up paying for an extra streaming service and after login & pay, it said "this film is not available in your region". please grow Netflix. Stop complaining about the "competition" and start working to provide a good service.
• iovrthoughtthis 3y ago
  This will push streaming services to lobby governments to crack down harder on pirating. The issue is that the service users don't exist in a cohesive and aligned bloc, whereas rights owners, rights licensers and streaming service providers sort of do. Anyone that attempts to change licensing laws will experience way more friction than those who advocate for using the existing infrastructure of law enforcement to reduce pirating. Things will only get better if streaming companies lobby for changing the way licensing works to support delivery to end users and/or government departments advocate for end user experience.
• nottorp 3y ago
  Piracy isn't difficult to compete against. Just put all content under the same (affordable) subscription and everyone will pay you. And quit the crap about one subscription -> one household. I pay extra for two simultaneous streams, I'd better get my two simultaneous streams.
• pdimitar 3y ago
  Anyone surprised? The copyright industry is hugely stubborn and they will keep escalating things -- likely there will again be a few arrests of torrent users in an attempt of scaremongering -- until people start leaving in droves. Many people act like not watching shows or movies every other day is difficult. Nope, it's just fine, and many other people discover that every day. I'd like to see the copyright lobby outlaw, you know, your right to just NOT subscribe to anything at all. Like, please incarcerate me for wanting to walk through the park and not sit in front of your streaming service! I'd like to see you try. Fun times ahead, supposedly, and I take pleasure in watching them bleed.
• LoveMortuus 3y ago
  Whenever such arguments arise, I'm reminded of Gabe Newell, who said something along the lines of "Piracy is a service problem" means that most people pirate because they don't have access (or difficult access) to the product/service they want. They would gladly pay for it, but they can't, or can't be hassled to.
• aljgz 3y ago
  As someone who rarely watch movies/series, I was paying ~100$/month worth of subscriptions until I cancelled most recently. Why? Content fragmentation is mentioned by everyone, but to me, the main problem was that I could never get a proper watching experience even after finding what I wanted: 1- English subtitles only available with CC: I want subtitles because as a non-native English speaker I cannot understand some of the accents. I hate it when the subtitle says: "glooming musinca playing" 2- Quality issues: I'm watching on a 4k OLED TV. Watching the matrix reloaded for the 10th time, and seeing the actors appear in two places because of some weird compression artifact pulled the plug for me. 3- Quality issues: I used to buy Crave's 4k subscription. It limits content to 720p on my Linux machine. Let's imagine a world in which I'm OK with it, IT DOES NOT GET PROPERLY FULL SCREEN ON ANY OF MY MONITORS/TV. I paid for a 65" TV, I want to see a video fill at least one of the dimensions. 4- UX issues: Sometimes I pause because I want to check something in this scene. Do not dim the scene, I'm not interested in all the details you are spitting to the screen. 5- UX issues: I'm not OK with you showing me ads before I start watching my show 6- UX issues: Sluggish apps on some TVS/streaming devices 7- On my Chromecast, made by Google, I want my guest to use a guest session on YouTube premium, to not mess up my recommendations, ads start playing. This is the same device, I've not even signed out, just using a guest session. 8- I can keep going on I understand that license holders play content availability, but the problems above could easily be solved if any of the streaming services cared about their customer satisfaction. I canceled because even when I found something to watch, I never enjoyed the experience. Now I'm an inch away from canceling YouTube premium, and then Spotify.
  • abdusco 3y ago
    > I hate it when the subtitle says: "glooming musinca playing" Different strokes for different folks. As another non-native speaker, I personally like those descriptions, because they help me label a kind of music, or an emotional outburst. It's like knowing how to describe a pain you have. You can't just say "it hurts" to a doctor, you need to be more specific ("it's a throbbing sensation with occasional sharp piercing pain")
    • aljgz 3y ago
• Aeolun 3y ago
  So what I do now is, I pay for all these services, use absolutely nothing, and then I pirate all my content anyway. People (presumably) get their money, and I get to watch without bullshit from the convenience of my own home.
  • Liftyee 3y ago
    Way to give them free money for not improving their offering...
• temeritatis 3y ago
  > the use of this language is widespread and subject to rapid global growth Touché!
• epolanski 3y ago
  I'm baffled at the amount of users arguing that piracy is easier than those streaming services. It feels like such a mental gimmick. 1) finding and downloading torrents requires know-how 2) finding and downloading subtitles that match the audio is often a chore and requires know-how, often time consuming 3) using a decent player on most devices and finding the files on the filesystem requires know-how, especially on mobile devices While I understand that users on HackerNews are more tech savvy and don't find any of those particularly troublesome, to compare it to the ease of launching Netflix is just mental gymnastics. Average users won't find any of this convenient and will require to acquire know how in search engines and setting up players.
  • jowea 3y ago
    Is most of piracy still this style of downloading torrents?
  • dns_snek 3y ago
    You're behind the times. These days piracy is available through a Netflix-like interface, without any buffering, subtitles are automatically loaded in from all major websites like OpenSubtitles, and this experience is shared across all platforms (desktop, smart TVs, mobile). It requires a bit of up-front setup (no more than 30 minutes if you're tech savvy and pick one of the less friendly options), but it really is easier than Netflix on a daily basis.
    • epolanski 3y ago
      You see? Even though I'm more tech savvy than the general public I knew nothing about that. You're proving this still requires know how. E.g. How do I set this up on my samsung smart tv?
      • dns_snek 3y ago
        I don't think this is the right forum to discuss this in depth. Paid Plex sharing used to be great and required no setup at all, but they started cracking down on huge Plex servers. Kodi doesn't offer the best UX in this space [1], but certain addons 4 kodi should at least set you on the right path. (: I should mention that this isn't a free solution. It's inexpensive, but someone still needs to be paid to provide the bandwidth for a smooth experience, typically $5/mo or less. [1] Out of the box, if you're willing to tinker with it you can completely overhaul its look & feel: https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=367352 https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=367352
• andreygrehov 3y ago
  I remember there was a movie whose creators decided to get super strict about piracy. They made sure the movie was not available on any pirate website. And they indeed were able to achieve that. However, the movie financially failed. The reason was that nobody heard about the movie — there were no pirates to let the world know about it. Don’t fight with pirates. Treat them as your free, word of mouth marketing channel.
• KillerRAK 3y ago
  User experience is inversely proportional to piracy. Every time I have to login using a code, not only am I annoyed that I once again after to re-enter my uid/pwd despite being a paying customer, I'm also reminded I'm paying yet another monthly fee for a service. Streaming companies: you're asking for it. Begging for it.
• g4zj 3y ago
  With the way streaming services are beginning to mirror the cable TV model, I'm surprised that I've not yet been offered streaming service bundles. Similar to paying one monthly rate for HBO, Cinemax, etc., no one has offered me a discounted rate on Netflix, Hulu, etc. as a bundle. Is this being done somewhere? If not, I suspect it is coming.
• p0w3n3d 3y ago
  Netflix: why you not use netflix but pirate movies!!!!1 Meanwhile also Netflix: you cannot take a screenshot for meme purposes due to security reasons
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• croes 3y ago
  Comfort often beats free, but Netflix and the streaming wars killed that, so free is back on winning street.
• thatgerhard 3y ago
  modern piracy is all about the 5000 different streaming services that exist and all have their own fee..
• coryfklein 3y ago
  One underutilized strategy for media consumption is literally just buying what you want on eBay. You can get Blu-Rays for nearly any film >7-8 years old for just a few dollars! Any time I think of a film I want to add to my "watch list" I pull it up on eBay and if the price is right I buy it then and there. Now I have a huge backlog of unwatched film/TV that I can pull up at any time. This puts the power back into your own hands; Blu-Rays are likely to work for a very long time and your discs won't magically disappear from your personal catalogue. You lock-in on the price at purchase, and it never increases over time. And, in my own subjective opinion, the image quality of Blu-Ray video often exceeds whatever streaming-optimized encoding format is used by the online services. Finally, 90% of the time I check only eBay instead of shopping multiple platforms. The remaining 10% I go to Amazon and if I don't find the right price there than I just shrug: there's plenty of other cinema to watch and there's rarely any single film that I simply can't do without.
• ohthatsnotright 3y ago
  I was happy on my basic plan from 2013. We only watch on one screen (my laptop) and never need 4k content or multiple screens. We watch one show, maybe two, a night as the entirety of our television consumption. Then Netflix and T-Mobile pushed me to "sign up for Netflix via T-Mobile" and I thought, well, I guess since you both said it'd be amazing. That cancels your old (grandfathered) plan, by the way. Then they decided that T-mobile would only pay for basic with ads. Now I cancelled Netflix via t-mobile since the one show I was making my way through (House of Cards) is no longer available on this plan that Netflix and t-mobile thought I should be on. This comes after cancelling Prime because it doesn't work where I live, and Prime Video wasn't all that compelling plus they managed to make the worst video player I've used in my life. Though the x-ray feature was super helpful.
• cchance 3y ago
  It's almost like raising the price of your service 5 times in like 2 years, forbidding sharing, is pissing people off and pushing them back toward "alternative" solutions.
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