Slightly older (2021) article I found while searching for this place. It pretty much says what we’ve all been saying.
It stopped it for a while when we had 1-2 good streaming sites, then everyone made their own, pulled all their stuff from previous ones. I am not going to pay for 15 accounts. I still have Netflix with family, but it will end soon with password sharing.
I stopped pirating about 10 years ago as it was easier just to pay for the service and stream. Then the providers got greedy; complete segregation of the content not only by platform but also by region. Streaming was no longer easy; you don’t know what platform the show/film is on or if it’s available in your region. So now it back to the high seas for films and TV shows as well as paying for an IP TV service that includes movies and TV on demand as well as live streams.
It all to do with ease of use and accessibility; I mean the music piracy has dropped off a cliff due to Spotify.
I had taken a break from Piracy when US Netflix via VPN had the library it used to 10 years ago, it’s mainly in the last couple years that it made sense to return to selfhosting.
Yeah. The paid product must be superior.
I don’t generally pirate games, because in the case of games, the paid product is superior to use. Automatic updates, online functionality, workshop integration etc. All reasons to prefer the paid version on something like Steam to pirating the game.
With a home media setup, you are probably still paying money. You need storage, things like VPN and Usenet subscriptions etc. It’s not like I’m using them because they are free. I have spent money on them. I’ve just spent money on the superior implementation. It became the superior implementation once corporations predictably all wanted a slice of the pie and now my media server is much more enjoyable and easier to manage than 10 different subscription services I need to juggle because no way am I going to pay exorbitant amounts a month for all of them.
Stop blaming the pandemic. The reason Netflix can’t hold on to customers is they canceled everything worth watching.
Jacked up prices, added a ton of crappy content instead of focusing on fewer but better quality shows, “crackdown” on password sharing when they once encouraged it.
Yeah, they started canceling shit long before the pandemic, I think around 2016. Once they decided to go all-in on original content, they began letting licensing contracts expire.
The problem is entirely exclusive streaming rights contacts.
Spotify works because they have just shut everything most users care about, so the few gaps aren’t that big a deal. Sure, you can switch to Amazon Music, or Some Music, or whatever, too, but you only need one subscription.
TV streaming is dying because none of the platforms have all the content people are looking for. And not many people are willing to put in the effort of cycling subscriptions and waiting to watch their shows until that subscription is active, nor are people willing to pay old cable TV prices to get a half dozen different services.
The problem now is that anyone who licenses their content non-exclusively is then going to lose all its subscriptions. And it’s not clear if other services will be willing to pay for non-exclusive rights since the perception seems to be that content only “matters” if it’s exclusive somewhere to drive new subscribers looking for that content.
What did they cancel? Legit question because I only had one of my shows cancelled.
A better question would be - what DIDN’T they cancel? Here’s a list of Netflix Originals they cancelled:
https://decider.com/list/canceled-netflix-original-shows/
That list also doesn’t seem to include shows that were informed they were getting cut, so ended it prematurely.
Point taken.
Make streaming actually convenient and I’ll pay for it.
What I’ve learnt from this is that I need to find better sources of live sports.
The streaming industry had a couple of benefits, being convenience for an acceptable price. Corporate greed pushed these streaming services to lower convenience and increase the price and they expected people to just eat it. I don’t mind paying for good products that I regularly use, but the price has to be acceptable. This doesn’t however justify piracy, but it is one possible way forward.
Easy to see why. Streaming services went through enshittification just like all the social media.
It was supposed to be easier to stream. And it was, until everyone wanted a cut of the streaming pie and made it more difficult. They did this to themselves.