Streaming costs are rising, and there are more platforms than ever to choose between. Some people are going back to piracy
Streaming costs are rising, and there are more platforms than ever to choose between. Some people are going back to piracy
Continual price hikes and fragmentation of services have seen some Australians ditch their streaming services in favour of film and TV piracy.
You're viewing a single thread.
Just gonna re-post my own comment from another thread in this community, relating to a similar article, because it's just as applicable here:
This is honestly hilarious to me. The streaming companies actually had it right to begin with. They delivered on-demand content at a much lower cost than DVD distribution, without having to negotiate with cable companies to deliver it. They had a working system that delivered value for money, and kept the profits in their own pockets.
Then they shit the bed. Classic case of killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. Greedy dickheads.
I don't think that's what happened. Studios fought streaming tooth and nail. But they were willing to license their videos to Netflix because they were a DVD distributor. Then Netflix was really savvy and pioneered streaming, making a killing doing it. Those same anti-progress, greedy fuck studios who fought against streaming saw how much money Netflix was making with their content and spun up their own half-assed streaming services, then pulled their licensing from Netflix. Netflix didn't kill itself, the same greedy people who tried to kill the vcr, fought streaming, and sued Napster users, killed it.
Nah - Netflix, and all the others, have absolutely shit the bed on this one.
I was happily paying for 5 or 6 streaming services a month. Then they got greedy, started price gouging, and reducing the quality and/or range of content. Netflix even wanted to charge me for password sharing, because my stepkids used our account at their dad's house.
They all fucked themselves over.
I cancelled Netflix when they implemented that policy, but they reported that their revenue went up, so most people didn't cancel, and a bunch of people signed up.
The sad part is they were awake, in bed, not even trusting the wrong fart, just outright splatter blasting their sheets.
I'm no economist, but it's interesting how a free market and more competition doesn't result in a better product for consumers. Just each company going "oh, the other guy raised their prices, let's do the same or we'll fall behind"
It's crazy how consumers just keep eating the higher prices too, instead of rebelling by cutting their spending. I've been wondering if people are just charging everything and we're going to hit a major recession when everyone runs out of credit. I sure hope not! I've already gone through too many "once in a lifetime" economic events.
I can't believe this sort of thing is even a story. Guess most folks can't run a privateer.
In any case, I'm still looting and pillaging because damned if I trust my movies and books to an outfit that can take them away from me on a whim. I've got data from '98 or so, all backed to Google Drive and locally. No matter what, I can still have my media.
Absolutely. It all disappears in the general mass of their credit card payments. It becomes disconnected from individual cost.
The idea is supposed to be that these things wax and wane. And they mostly do.
We started stealing music with Napster -> the market eventually started offering affordable alternatives
We started stealing movies with The Pirate Bay -> studios finally came onboard with streaming
We stole games -> market reacted with serviced like Steam that make it too cheap and easy to bother pirating
And now that streaming greed seems to be biting them in the ass, we're due for another market correction.
We'll see, but I never stopped pirating. Only thing I pay for is Spotify because it's too damned convenient to get the music I want, anywhere I want, for $10/mo. Spotify: Test me with higher prices or stop me from making local downloads and I'll drop back to stealing that shit too.
Nice summary!