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> Assuming that "piracy is a service problem, not a pricing problem" is still the prevailing wisdom I don't have experience with broadcast media (in Spain, esp

> Assuming that "piracy is a service problem, not a pricing problem" is still the prevailing wisdom I don't have experience with broadcast media (in Spain, especially) but I a little experience on the software side: I could not believe the lengths some people would go to in order to avoid paying even $5-10 for useful software. Hours of work, sketchy cracks, downloading things from websites likely to compromise their system. Some of them would become irate when the software was updated and broke their cracks, spending time complaining loudly on forums and social media or even trying to threaten developers. The strangest part is when they start posting from social media where you can see things like their $3,000 gaming PC build, but if they see a chance to avoid paying $10-20 for something they will take it. It becomes culturally embedded in some bubbles: If it's possible to find a way to avoid paying and there are no consequences for trying, some people will go for it. I don't even buy the "it's a service problem" argument either. I have a friend who loves to watch sports games but refused to pay for any services. He will spend 30 minutes jumping from one website to the next enduring crazy amounts of ads, pop-ups, and attempts to get him to install things on his computer until finally getting to a blocky stream that drops out every few minutes. He can easily afford to pay, but getting things without paying is basically a little game he likes to play.

dfxm12 7mo ago
Sometimes it's not just $5. It's $5, creating an account, handing over personal info, getting on a mailing list, agreeing to who knows what in a TOS, etc. Specifically, gamers look for cracks to allow them to play single player games offline. I don't doubt that some people are cheap, but there are lots of reasons aside from the price.
quacked 7mo ago
It's a service problem. Every new service is a colossal headache to set up payment, remember to cancel payment if you only wanted to see the single event and have no need for the service the rest of the year, find what's playing on what when, deal with their bullshit when they add ads onto an ad-free plan that you bought only because it was ad-free, yadda yadda yadda. The suits could have had 10x as much money out of me if I could just pay one-time prices. "Sure, fork over $10 and you can have a temporary account to watch the US Open this year." I will do that. In a single month I'll pay twice the cost of a monthly NYT subscription to read online articles, maybe $0.50/pop. But they don't offer that, they offer difficult-to-cancel ad-laden plans that don't even get you access to the content you want to see reliably (edit: and as another commenters, signs you up to in some cases multiple mailing lists--thanks, The Athletic, for having a separate mailing list for every one of your terrible sub-orgs, I deeply regret paying you a dime). I'll be sailing the seven seas as long as it's viable.
- Aurornis 7mo ago
  > Every new service is a colossal headache to set up payment, remember to cancel payment if you only wanted to see the single event and have no need for the service the rest of the year, find what's playing on what when I just don't find these arguments convincing after watching my friend spend cumulative hours upon hours jumping between pirate streaming services trying to find a stable feed for every game. This feels too much like a post-hoc rationalization. I know I'll never win this argument on Hacker News because every piracy conversation turns into an infinite game of moving goalposts, where there's always a new rationalization at every turn. I don't think it's worth discussing until we can be honest and admit that a lot of people pirate because they want free stuff. Every HN piracy conversation has a lot of words written to try to avoid admitting that "free stuff" is a big motivator for a lot of people
  - squigz 7mo ago
    In my experience, people's reasons for piracy are a pretty even mix of all these issues (service problems, principles, and cost) I'd certainly pirate less if I could afford it, but even if I could, I'd still pirate a lot of stuff because I don't want to worry about what streaming service it's on this week, or because I don't want to contribute to monopolization of some industry. And sure, I'd still pirate some things because I find they're overpriced. > I know I'll never win this argument on Hacker News because every piracy conversation turns into an infinite game of moving goalposts, where there's always a new rationalization at every turn. What argument are you referring to, out of curiosity? That some people pirate things 'cause they're poor and make nice-sounding rationalizations about it? Okay, that definitely happens, you win. But I don't think that really takes away from the other valid arguments for piracy?
    - akramachamarei 7mo ago
      > I'd certainly pirate less if I could afford it
      - squigz 7mo ago
bjourne 7mo ago
Maybe he does not think he deserves it? The logic is as follows. If he has to pay $10 for 90 minutes of watching football then he must think he deserves that. But if he can get it for free then he does not need to think he deserves it. Similar to how fat people may feel less guilty about eating candy when it is given to them than when they have to buy it.
catlikesshrimp 7mo ago
Netflix was ok when it was the only platform. Now that there are 10(?) platforms, and each of them has tiers, it is a service problem Remember when a directtv subscriber bought the annual sports pack because they wanted to watch their team's matches, and just when the game was about to start the transmission was interrupted showing "not availabe in your area", and they called support to ask and were told for the first time by the rep that someone else has the airing rights, and to read TOS? It is the same thing you are going towards. Your friend exists, and he is not alone. But the vast mayority of people just want to watch what they were told they paid for, and not paying 10 different people either.
nitwit005 7mo ago
Some people are just like that. They'll spend several times as much effort as just earning the money honestly would take. The thrill of petty crime I guess.
- irishcoffee 7mo ago
  It’s probably more the challenge and the puzzle. I “played” PokémonGo until they shut down the apis. I had an absolute blast making a bot for that game, letting it run all night, making sure I wouldn’t get caught. As soon as they shut the api down I uninstalled the app. The fun bit was the challenge.
londons_explore 7mo ago
I am part of this crowd. I have never paid a cent for software. I have spent many hours with Ida pro and Ghidra. That time was well spent for the knowledge I gained, even if it wasn't worth it to save a few bucks.
- halJordan 7mo ago
  But see you're making up reasons that are separate rationalizations. Which just proves the guys point, that even you don't think what you're doing is reasonable without some superfluous reason
cik 7mo ago
It's absolutely a service problem. I can pay for the local sports rebroadcast packages.. but oh wait, you just don't feel like this week, playing the Raptors game, because there's a local thing you think people will watch? Fair enough, subscribe to DAZN, and pay there.. oh sorry, we've opted to stop carrying <insert all leagues>. Sigh, fine, I'll pay for NBA Leaguepass. I don't live in your country... great, random blackouts. Fine, I'll try and use a VPN (hell, I literally used tailscale to a friend's house for a bit).. but then those games are blacked out too, at random? I'm literally paying you for the service. So yeah, giving some insanely sketchy crypto website $5/month for unlimited whatever that just always works, is worth it. 10/10 will definitely do again. I'm sick and tired of fighting with the NBA, the CFL, or G-D only knows what just to try to watch the things I'm paying for.
- FireBeyond 7mo ago
  > Sigh, fine, I'll pay for NBA Leaguepass. I don't live in your country... great, random blackouts. Fine, I'll try and use a VPN (hell, I literally used tailscale to a friend's house for a bit).. but then those games are blacked out too, at random? I live in an NBA "dead zone". I'm in the streaming blackout zone. But not in the TV zone (even if I did pay for TV, which I'd almost consider).[1] And then I VPNed to Canada for international LP, but that wasn't much better. Then Mexico. And then ... Then I found a site that had an actual Roku app (at least) that took payment in Crypto or Amazon GC but was absolutely uninfested, no ads, no garbage, probably at times more reliable than even the NBA's app. But they got shut down. Not to mention LP refused to refund me though my subscription was effectively useless because I "could still watch the games, and without commercial or timeout breaks, even!" - yeah, 24 to 72 hours after it was played. Yay. Lucky me.
Cider9986 7mo ago
Most software piracy is more convenient then what you describe.The warez takes pride in making the best cracks available.
tristor 7mo ago
> see things like their $3,000 gaming PC build, but if they see a chance to avoid paying $10-20 for something they will take it. A common phrase used to be "I pirate the software so I can afford the hardware". There's a tangibility to hardware that's not present for software and media, which means many people simply don't feel it's worth what is being charged, especially media intended to be consumed once and forgotten about (e.g. a sports match). Computer hardware is a durable good. That said, I pretty much stopped pirating things when Steam got decently good and I was working a normal professional job. Prior to that, I really did have to choose what I was willing to pay for, and I really did get a better experience using pirated software vs buying the legit thing. At this point though, I get a better than average experience through Steam on Linux (I just avoid any games with Denuvo or other kernel-level bullshit), and I can easily afford both the hardware and the software, so the convenience and quality of experience + my better purchasing power makes it pointless to even engage in piracy anymore. I'd like to think I'm a rational actor, sort of, and so are a lot of other people. Paying 79-115 EUR/mo to watch a few matches, in a country where the average monthly take-home pay is around 1700 EUR, you're talking about asking for nearly 7% of the average take-home pay /just/ to watch soccer. To put this into context, the common wisdom is to spend 30% on housing, so La Liga is saying its reasonable to ask a Spaniard to spend 1/4th what they do on housing on just the ability to watch soccer matches. No wonder people would rather find pirated streams.
milkytron 7mo ago
One of the easiest things to pirate is music. Spotify basically killed mainstream piracy of music by making it cheap and easy to pay for nearly all music. I used to pirate video games, but Steam basically ended that for me. The sales no longer make it worth it for me to pirate a $60 game, instead, I can buy it for $12 on sale. For software, I used to pirate Adobe products and Sony Vegas, but there are alternatives for those now. For something like sports, I think the cost can be hundreds of dollars per season. I watch the NFL and NHL, and to watch every game that I'd like to watch, it would cost me something like $600+ per year. There aren't really viable alternatives. I'd have to get three services to watch all of the NHL games I want to watch, and I don't even know how many services I need for the NFL. Amazon Prime, Sunday Ticket, CBS, Fox? Or cable/YouTubeTV with additional packages? I'd happily pay $100 or $200 per year to watch all games in a league for a year if it was through a single service. Or a lump sum for all sports. But in the same amount of time to enter my payment information, create an account, etc. I could have easily found a stream and have it on any TV in my house.
dzhiurgis 7mo ago
So obvious solution is for sports streamers offer free stream too, but riddled with ads just enough that it is slightly better than illegal ones?
AnthonyMouse 7mo ago
> It becomes culturally embedded in some bubbles The question is, how does this happen? Which brings us back to the "it's a service problem" thing. If your company is using intrusive DRM, lobbying for draconian laws, violating antitrust, filing menacing lawsuits against individuals or smaller companies etc. then it's not hard to see how a lot of people could conclude they have a moral obligation to never pay you a cent. And the same sentiment can affect the whole industry when companies in a position to don't push back against other companies doing those things, since the stink spreads to anyone using the same laundromat.

dfxm12 7mo ago

Sometimes it's not just $5. It's $5, creating an account, handing over personal info, getting on a mailing list, agreeing to who knows what in a TOS, etc. Specifically, gamers look for cracks to allow them to play single player games offline. I don't doubt that some people are cheap, but there are lots of reasons aside from the price.

quacked 7mo ago

It's a service problem. Every new service is a colossal headache to set up payment, remember to cancel payment if you only wanted to see the single event and have no need for the service the rest of the year, find what's playing on what when, deal with their bullshit when they add ads onto an ad-free plan that you bought only because it was ad-free, yadda yadda yadda. The suits could have had 10x as much money out of me if I could just pay one-time prices. "Sure, fork over $10 and you can have a temporary account to watch the US Open this year." I will do that. In a single month I'll pay twice the cost of a monthly NYT subscription to read online articles, maybe $0.50/pop. But they don't offer that, they offer difficult-to-cancel ad-laden plans that don't even get you access to the content you want to see reliably (edit: and as another commenters, signs you up to in some cases multiple mailing lists--thanks, The Athletic, for having a separate mailing list for every one of your terrible sub-orgs, I deeply regret paying you a dime). I'll be sailing the seven seas as long as it's viable.

Aurornis 7mo ago
> Every new service is a colossal headache to set up payment, remember to cancel payment if you only wanted to see the single event and have no need for the service the rest of the year, find what's playing on what when I just don't find these arguments convincing after watching my friend spend cumulative hours upon hours jumping between pirate streaming services trying to find a stable feed for every game. This feels too much like a post-hoc rationalization. I know I'll never win this argument on Hacker News because every piracy conversation turns into an infinite game of moving goalposts, where there's always a new rationalization at every turn. I don't think it's worth discussing until we can be honest and admit that a lot of people pirate because they want free stuff. Every HN piracy conversation has a lot of words written to try to avoid admitting that "free stuff" is a big motivator for a lot of people
- squigz 7mo ago
  In my experience, people's reasons for piracy are a pretty even mix of all these issues (service problems, principles, and cost) I'd certainly pirate less if I could afford it, but even if I could, I'd still pirate a lot of stuff because I don't want to worry about what streaming service it's on this week, or because I don't want to contribute to monopolization of some industry. And sure, I'd still pirate some things because I find they're overpriced. > I know I'll never win this argument on Hacker News because every piracy conversation turns into an infinite game of moving goalposts, where there's always a new rationalization at every turn. What argument are you referring to, out of curiosity? That some people pirate things 'cause they're poor and make nice-sounding rationalizations about it? Okay, that definitely happens, you win. But I don't think that really takes away from the other valid arguments for piracy?
  - akramachamarei 7mo ago
    > I'd certainly pirate less if I could afford it
    - squigz 7mo ago

bjourne 7mo ago

Maybe he does not think he deserves it? The logic is as follows. If he has to pay $10 for 90 minutes of watching football then he must think he deserves that. But if he can get it for free then he does not need to think he deserves it. Similar to how fat people may feel less guilty about eating candy when it is given to them than when they have to buy it.

catlikesshrimp 7mo ago

Netflix was ok when it was the only platform. Now that there are 10(?) platforms, and each of them has tiers, it is a service problem Remember when a directtv subscriber bought the annual sports pack because they wanted to watch their team's matches, and just when the game was about to start the transmission was interrupted showing "not availabe in your area", and they called support to ask and were told for the first time by the rep that someone else has the airing rights, and to read TOS? It is the same thing you are going towards. Your friend exists, and he is not alone. But the vast mayority of people just want to watch what they were told they paid for, and not paying 10 different people either.

nitwit005 7mo ago

Some people are just like that. They'll spend several times as much effort as just earning the money honestly would take. The thrill of petty crime I guess.

irishcoffee 7mo ago
It’s probably more the challenge and the puzzle. I “played” PokémonGo until they shut down the apis. I had an absolute blast making a bot for that game, letting it run all night, making sure I wouldn’t get caught. As soon as they shut the api down I uninstalled the app. The fun bit was the challenge.

londons_explore 7mo ago

I am part of this crowd. I have never paid a cent for software. I have spent many hours with Ida pro and Ghidra. That time was well spent for the knowledge I gained, even if it wasn't worth it to save a few bucks.

halJordan 7mo ago
But see you're making up reasons that are separate rationalizations. Which just proves the guys point, that even you don't think what you're doing is reasonable without some superfluous reason

cik 7mo ago

It's absolutely a service problem. I can pay for the local sports rebroadcast packages.. but oh wait, you just don't feel like this week, playing the Raptors game, because there's a local thing you think people will watch? Fair enough, subscribe to DAZN, and pay there.. oh sorry, we've opted to stop carrying <insert all leagues>. Sigh, fine, I'll pay for NBA Leaguepass. I don't live in your country... great, random blackouts. Fine, I'll try and use a VPN (hell, I literally used tailscale to a friend's house for a bit).. but then those games are blacked out too, at random? I'm literally paying you for the service. So yeah, giving some insanely sketchy crypto website $5/month for unlimited whatever that just always works, is worth it. 10/10 will definitely do again. I'm sick and tired of fighting with the NBA, the CFL, or G-D only knows what just to try to watch the things I'm paying for.

FireBeyond 7mo ago
> Sigh, fine, I'll pay for NBA Leaguepass. I don't live in your country... great, random blackouts. Fine, I'll try and use a VPN (hell, I literally used tailscale to a friend's house for a bit).. but then those games are blacked out too, at random? I live in an NBA "dead zone". I'm in the streaming blackout zone. But not in the TV zone (even if I did pay for TV, which I'd almost consider).[1] And then I VPNed to Canada for international LP, but that wasn't much better. Then Mexico. And then ... Then I found a site that had an actual Roku app (at least) that took payment in Crypto or Amazon GC but was absolutely uninfested, no ads, no garbage, probably at times more reliable than even the NBA's app. But they got shut down. Not to mention LP refused to refund me though my subscription was effectively useless because I "could still watch the games, and without commercial or timeout breaks, even!" - yeah, 24 to 72 hours after it was played. Yay. Lucky me.

Cider9986 7mo ago

Most software piracy is more convenient then what you describe.The warez takes pride in making the best cracks available.

tristor 7mo ago

> see things like their $3,000 gaming PC build, but if they see a chance to avoid paying $10-20 for something they will take it. A common phrase used to be "I pirate the software so I can afford the hardware". There's a tangibility to hardware that's not present for software and media, which means many people simply don't feel it's worth what is being charged, especially media intended to be consumed once and forgotten about (e.g. a sports match). Computer hardware is a durable good. That said, I pretty much stopped pirating things when Steam got decently good and I was working a normal professional job. Prior to that, I really did have to choose what I was willing to pay for, and I really did get a better experience using pirated software vs buying the legit thing. At this point though, I get a better than average experience through Steam on Linux (I just avoid any games with Denuvo or other kernel-level bullshit), and I can easily afford both the hardware and the software, so the convenience and quality of experience + my better purchasing power makes it pointless to even engage in piracy anymore. I'd like to think I'm a rational actor, sort of, and so are a lot of other people. Paying 79-115 EUR/mo to watch a few matches, in a country where the average monthly take-home pay is around 1700 EUR, you're talking about asking for nearly 7% of the average take-home pay /just/ to watch soccer. To put this into context, the common wisdom is to spend 30% on housing, so La Liga is saying its reasonable to ask a Spaniard to spend 1/4th what they do on housing on just the ability to watch soccer matches. No wonder people would rather find pirated streams.

milkytron 7mo ago

One of the easiest things to pirate is music. Spotify basically killed mainstream piracy of music by making it cheap and easy to pay for nearly all music. I used to pirate video games, but Steam basically ended that for me. The sales no longer make it worth it for me to pirate a $60 game, instead, I can buy it for $12 on sale. For software, I used to pirate Adobe products and Sony Vegas, but there are alternatives for those now. For something like sports, I think the cost can be hundreds of dollars per season. I watch the NFL and NHL, and to watch every game that I'd like to watch, it would cost me something like $600+ per year. There aren't really viable alternatives. I'd have to get three services to watch all of the NHL games I want to watch, and I don't even know how many services I need for the NFL. Amazon Prime, Sunday Ticket, CBS, Fox? Or cable/YouTubeTV with additional packages? I'd happily pay $100 or $200 per year to watch all games in a league for a year if it was through a single service. Or a lump sum for all sports. But in the same amount of time to enter my payment information, create an account, etc. I could have easily found a stream and have it on any TV in my house.

dzhiurgis 7mo ago

So obvious solution is for sports streamers offer free stream too, but riddled with ads just enough that it is slightly better than illegal ones?

AnthonyMouse 7mo ago

> It becomes culturally embedded in some bubbles The question is, how does this happen? Which brings us back to the "it's a service problem" thing. If your company is using intrusive DRM, lobbying for draconian laws, violating antitrust, filing menacing lawsuits against individuals or smaller companies etc. then it's not hard to see how a lot of people could conclude they have a moral obligation to never pay you a cent. And the same sentiment can affect the whole industry when companies in a position to don't push back against other companies doing those things, since the stink spreads to anyone using the same laundromat.