LOL.

We pay for 4K, but we don’t get more than 720p unless we use some proprietary shit hardware and agree to their super-invasive “privacy policy” - and they expect people to NOT set sail in the high seas? GTFO…

  • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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    10 months ago

    I generally agree with him, but there are a lot of people who pirate simply because they don’t want to pay. And I’m not casting moral judgment here, i just feel like it bears mentioning lol “almost always” is pretty generous

    • tryptaminev 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺@feddit.de
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      10 months ago

      Lets compare three options as example:

      One streaming service with everything:

      • monetary costs: 25 €/month
      • opportunity cost: login, type name in search bar, enjoy in good quality, language and subtitles of choice

      Piracy:

      • monetary costs: 0-5 €/month (hardware/vpn)
      • opportunity costs: keep up to date with existing aggregator sites, take protective measures against identification, be wary of malware, limited scope of languages and subtitles, varying quality

      Current streaming services:

      • monetary costs: 100 €/month or more, if you cover most services
      • opportunity cost: login to each service, look if they have the particular series/movie, be limited by region to which languages and subtitles you can use, have only certain episodes or certain seasons of a series, get a movie as a result, but actually have to pay extra for lending it…

      People choose whether to pay monetary or opportunity costs. For a broke student priacy might still be the way to go, because they have time but not money. For most people a convenient streaming service will be the way to go though, because not having to worry about everything around and just finding your movie/series in 30 seconds, after you put dinner in the plates is the preferred option.

      The current situation combines high monetary costs with high opportunity costs, so that piracy becomes attractive to many people, who would be happy to pay for a streaming service, that actually covers everything.

      So i think “almost always” is perfectly applicable. Also keep in mind, that the offer of pirated stuff is directly related to the demand. if the demand reduces, so will the offer, which in this case would make piracy even less convenient. Of course the pricing matters, and if the one streaming service would cost say 50 €/month, more people would pirate again. But the dominant factor first is the service quality.

      • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        He made that statement when streaming barely existed. People were still primarily buying DVDs. That was the late 2000’s when it was only Netflix, maybe Hulu was just starting, and game streaming was barely a concept.

    • VR20X6@slrpnk.net
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      10 months ago

      If that’s true on its face, then you’re not losing any money either way since they are never going to pay regardless even if you try to force them to.

      Meanwhile, you can absolutely scare away what could have been a paying customer by offering dogshit service.

      • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        That’s never been an assumption you can make.

        If you hand me a $10 version of a thing or a $5 option of the exact same thing, I’m taking the $5. Free is no different. Especially when they can do it from the comfort of their home and not drive to a mall to buy the CD or whatever. Remember what year it was when this all started man.

        • VR20X6@slrpnk.net
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          10 months ago

          Remember what year it was when this all started man.

          1903 when Edison v. Lubin was filed?

          • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            If you’re going to be a smartass then I have no desire to continue this conversation. I am talking about when piracy became mainstream via napster because it became easy for people to get free music.