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The inert-ness you're referring doesn't really apply in a world where all this digital content is streamed from servers in the cloud. The infrastructure to prov

• aninhumer 12y ago
  The distribution costs have nothing to do with maintaining the content itself, and given that pirates apparently manage to distribute content for free, the necessity of those costs becomes highly questionable. Indeed, these costs are artificially imposed by the streaming model which is used, despite its inefficiency, to control consumption.
  • moskie 12y ago
    > given that pirates apparently manage to distribute content for free Well, that's a strange statement. The computers and internet connections (and time) used for piracy are not free. And the costs of pirating/torrenting/peering this content are offset by the savings of the pirates/peers not paying for the content itself....
    • aninhumer 12y ago
      >The computers and internet connections (and time) used for piracy are not free. Yes, but you still have to pay for those if you stream the content. It seems rather dubious to suggest the streaming infrastructure is "necessary", when apparently pirates can distribute fine without it. Time used to be a factor, but with things like Popcorn Time starting to appear, piracy is approaching the usability of legal streaming services.