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Platforms wonder why piracy is spiking (7news.com.au)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by PremiumNick@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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It's not even surprising anymore platforms do this & act all Pikachu face why piracy is spiking

Netflix & all these streaming platforms have completely lost touch & they will lose more customers in the long run

To quote Gabe Newell on Piracy

"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable."

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[-] sloppy_diffuser@sh.itjust.works 145 points 7 months ago

I accidentally pirate crap I have legitimate access to because I can't be bothered to figure out which damn platform its on. I have access to quite a few through work due to my industry at no out of pocket costs.

The times I try to actually search for something, it'll be listed on multiple platforms but 0 to 1 of those platforms will actually have what I'm looking for included with the subscription forcing me to manually check each one.

It is easier to just pirate.

[-] cerement@slrpnk.net 58 points 7 months ago

when you need the modern equivalent of TV Guide just to find a show …

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 8 points 7 months ago

Yeah that’s called the *arr suite

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[-] fushuan@lemm.ee 8 points 7 months ago

Your case would apply for the legitimate use of streamio, where you can log into all the services and you can watch whatever through that service's credentials.

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[-] cobra89@beehaw.org 91 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Cable TV exists

Customers hate it and people start pirating

Netflix comes around, other streaming services

People happy, piracy goes down

Streaming services go back to the way cable was, increased prices, reduced content, started bundling shit you don't want.

Customers start pirating again

Surprised Pikachu face

[-] Holzkohlen@feddit.de 55 points 7 months ago

Maybe if we put ads in and take away the ability to download content foe offline use?

[-] snownyte@kbin.social 12 points 7 months ago

NO! I've got something better!

We make the ads guilt you into using ad blockers! Then we pepper your active streaming with ADs every 30 seconds! YOU WILL BUY! YOU WILL CONSOOME!

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[-] RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Netflix comes around, other streaming services

The (admittedly inevitable) appearance of other streaming services was shit already since with it came exclusive content.

[-] darkphotonstudio@beehaw.org 75 points 7 months ago

I despise ads. I can't even bring myself to watch Netflix or Amazon Prime. If there is advertising, it ain't worth it, no matter how cheap.

[-] InternetUser2012@midwest.social 29 points 7 months ago

There's not enough of us, but I still don't care. I refuse to pay to watch ads. Also, I had Prime and they wouldn't let me watch high def with firefox on Linux, so even though I paid for it, I had to hit the high seas to watch content in high def.

[-] businessfish@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 7 months ago

There’s not enough of us, but I still don’t care. I refuse to pay to watch ads.

i had this conversation with my dad recently about how shitty everything is now with ads etc, and his response boiled down to "i don't care enough". sucks to see people being complacent in being subject to greedy corporate whims. as much as i want people with that mindset to care, i have no idea how to effectively argue against "i don't care".

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[-] cerement@slrpnk.net 67 points 7 months ago

very much a convenience factor – Apple broke the MP3 sharing scene with the simplicity (at the time) of iTunes – video streaming started out simple but now it’s turned into cable TV, trying to find out which service is streaming a particular show, if it’s region-locked, or gated behind a premium upgrade, or just been dropped completely, or two services are still arguing over who gets the rights, or find out all the seasons are on one service except one season is on another service …

[-] viking@infosec.pub 11 points 7 months ago

Was iTunes popular outside of the US? Everyone I know hated they intrusive software and DRM that prevented you from playing the songs elsewhere. Don't think I know a single person who actually purchased music there.

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[-] Doubleohdonut@lemmy.ca 66 points 7 months ago

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Dear Netflix, I've been a loyal customer since 2013. I've been perfectly happy with our arrangement. YOU are the one terminating our contract, not me. It seems you'd prefer to get rid of a happy, paying customer in the hopes you can somehow persuade them to embrace a higher cost or shittier experience (ads). That's a bold move Cotton. Buh-bye dons pirate hat

YARR MATEYS

[-] Lets_Eat_Grandma@lemm.ee 21 points 7 months ago

AOL still has 1.5 million active monthly subscribers. People forget to cancel subscriptions all the time.

Subscriptions are a great way to sell a service to someone who isn't using it, and when they want to cancel it getting the spent money on something never used is generally impossible.

IMO for something like a streaming service... if you don't stream a minute of video in a month you shouldn't have to pay anything.

[-] cerement@slrpnk.net 9 points 7 months ago

thing is, most of us should of known, they pulled this same crap back when they tried forcing everyone to drop the physical discs and switch to streaming only …

[-] Evilsandwichman@hexbear.net 62 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Guys running the one platform be like "they're pirating our show," other guy hosting a different platform be like "no, in this region it's us hosting that show so it's us they're pirating from," third guy hosting another platform be like "next month it's our platform that'll be hosting it so it'll be us they're pirating from", fourth guy hosting another platform be like "we're the guys authorized to actually be selling that show in this region at this time, so they're also pirating from us", fifth guy also hosting another platform be like "wait, they're also pirating this show only we're authorized to stream but we don't offer our service in that country"

Pirate be like "I host everything"

(Not justifying it, just saying Gabe was right)

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[-] anticurrent@sh.itjust.works 41 points 7 months ago

they first succeeded in curbing piracy before the moved to ruining the value of their offerings.

[-] DrummXYBA@sh.itjust.works 40 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Because i aint spending 3 figures a month on 5+ different sports streaming services to follow one team. Simple.

[-] wahming@monyet.cc 39 points 7 months ago

Infamous implies somebody is famous in a negative way. If anything, Gabe is a shining example that should be upheld.

[-] Ixoid@lemm.ee 9 points 7 months ago

"Infamous" - that means more than famous!

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[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I think in this example it could go either way, depending on who is viewing it.

Regular people would say he's famous.

People running streaming platforms and other big corpos (especially Tim Sweeny) might say he's infamous.

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[-] burgersc12@mander.xyz 38 points 7 months ago

They have billions of dollars i have hundreds. I'm sure they'll survive me not giving them any of my hard earned money

[-] loutr@sh.itjust.works 9 points 7 months ago

Yeah but for a publicly traded company, quarterly growth is the name of the game. If the numbers go down long enough, it's game over for them.

[-] Snowpix@lemmy.ca 20 points 7 months ago

Won't somebody please think about the shareholders?

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[-] burgersc12@mander.xyz 13 points 7 months ago

Fuck em

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[-] noisypine@infosec.pub 9 points 7 months ago

I'm crying for them.

[-] r1ch134dl3r@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 7 months ago

it's game over for them

Hopefully.

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[-] vithigar@lemmy.ca 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

They don't even have to go down. Staying stable or even going up at a consistent rate are both considered failure states, or at least unfavorable. If the rate of growth is not itself growing then they start worrying.

It's insane.

[-] fernandu00@lemmy.ml 34 points 7 months ago

The only thing that keeps me with subscriptions is the cartoons my daughter watches, because they are hard to find dubbed in my language (Portuguese). It's still more convenient to subscribe than try to find the dubbed cartoons online. For everything I watch I use my arr stack.

[-] QuietCupcake@hexbear.net 23 points 7 months ago

Sounds like your daughter is at just the right age to start learning a new language? (Half joking) pirate-jammin

[-] fernandu00@lemmy.ml 11 points 7 months ago

That's the best approach IMO but till she can watch a cartoon and understand it may be take a while..so in the mean time I'm kinda tied to streaming.

[-] prole@sh.itjust.works 8 points 7 months ago

I bet watching them in English with Portuguese subtitles would prob be a great way for a kid to learn English on the sly

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[-] prole@sh.itjust.works 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Depending on her age of course... But you can find SRT (subtitle) files for literally almost everything, often in dozens of languages. They're super tiny too since it's basically just a txt file

[-] Banzai51@midwest.social 6 points 7 months ago

There are still plenty of good deals in streaming if you have shifted to on-demand. If you want live TV or sports, they're out to gouge the fuck out of you. Luckily my Wife came around to on-demand only and an antenna. Of course, they're trying hard to take away the antenna option from everyone with ATSC 3.0.

[-] huf@hexbear.net 29 points 7 months ago

i dont think they've lost touch, they've never been in touch. this behavior is apparently what produces the biggest profits for the next quarter, so they'll do it until they drive the platform into the ground, then just start another one and repeat

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[-] enleeten@discuss.online 29 points 7 months ago

Reed Hastings: "But our stock price shows customers love enshittification?"

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 27 points 7 months ago

Gee, we've tried taking content away, raising prices, injecting adverts and forcing them to use our crappy clients.

Why are people turning to piracy?

Advertising and lobbying are the only thing these people know how to do.

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[-] Thrife@feddit.de 25 points 7 months ago

Happens here in Germany too. We were not informed via mail but via a message when we started the app on the TV (not even on a phone). Since there are two other people on that account I decided to not just cancel but talk with both of them. We moved one tier down.. Yet.

[-] metaStatic@kbin.social 19 points 7 months ago

The studio cash grab explosion of streaming services is simply too inconvenient.
Subbing to everything you want to watch would still be cheaper than renting it all before streaming.
But Netflix has changed the value proposition and the stuidios are slitting their own throats trying to catch up.

[-] Strayce 14 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Now I remember why I don't pay attention to 7 news. This article is an ad in itself.

[-] Nom@lemm.ee 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Customers will notice the change on their next bill. Netflix has quietly put up its prices across each subscription tier in Australia.

~~Why is this even legal, oh who am I kidding lobbying most likely.~~ They began notifying people on May 13. Thanks for the correction @blindsight@beehaw.org.