4 ms·

A while back I was at a friend's house when we decided to watch a movie. My friend mentioned that he could stream The Avengers from his Netflix account, so taki

A while back I was at a friend's house when we decided to watch a movie. My friend mentioned that he could stream The Avengers from his Netflix account, so taking his word on it I was like "Ok awesome"! It turns out he was wrong. A Netflix search showed that the movie was only available via mail-in DVD, not Instant Watch. I joked that I was impatient and didn't want to wait a couple of days for a DVD to be mailed. "Not a problem" he said; my friend just hopped onto Usenet and downloaded a Blu-ray copy of the film in about 45-50 minutes, in about the time it took to cook some BBQ for the both of us. My argument is not about the legality of this scenario; it's that rather decentralized, open networks are doing a better job at distributing high quality content than the very corporations producing and selling this content. Considering that you have to pay anywhere from $10 - $20 a month for Usenet access, people buy into this service not because they want "free" movies/music, they're paying for the ability to download virtually any movie/album they want... at any time they please. It's like Netflix Instant Watch on steroids, at a more affordable price.

incision 14y ago
>Considering that you have to pay anywhere from $10 - $20 a month for Usenet access, people buy into this service not because they want "free" movies/music, they're paying for the ability to download virtually any movie/album they want... at any time they please. Dunno about that. I'd wager that "free" is a pretty damn big part of it, bigger than the size of the catalog for many folks. The most prolific Usenet users I know aren't using it for convenience or access to rare content. They're amassing a hoard of utterly mainstream movies (Avengers...) and video games that could be enjoyed conveniently for a reasonable price from any number of sources. Personally, if I cared to watch Avengers I'd have paid $5 to start streaming it on my Roku from Amazon immediately.
- illuminate 14y ago
  "Dunno about that. I'd wager that "free" is a pretty damn big part of it, bigger than the size of the catalog for many folks." Many folks will refuse to pay under any circumstance. This is not to "fix" that. iTunes, Amazon digital, Steam, and Netflix are proof that most people will pay to license content if the terms and technology are not intrusive enough, and they're not being exploited at the "convenience" price point.

incision 14y ago

>Considering that you have to pay anywhere from $10 - $20 a month for Usenet access, people buy into this service not because they want "free" movies/music, they're paying for the ability to download virtually any movie/album they want... at any time they please. Dunno about that. I'd wager that "free" is a pretty damn big part of it, bigger than the size of the catalog for many folks. The most prolific Usenet users I know aren't using it for convenience or access to rare content. They're amassing a hoard of utterly mainstream movies (Avengers...) and video games that could be enjoyed conveniently for a reasonable price from any number of sources. Personally, if I cared to watch Avengers I'd have paid $5 to start streaming it on my Roku from Amazon immediately.

illuminate 14y ago
"Dunno about that. I'd wager that "free" is a pretty damn big part of it, bigger than the size of the catalog for many folks." Many folks will refuse to pay under any circumstance. This is not to "fix" that. iTunes, Amazon digital, Steam, and Netflix are proof that most people will pay to license content if the terms and technology are not intrusive enough, and they're not being exploited at the "convenience" price point.