Another reason why people across the globe will pirate instead of buying an expensive and limited subscription.
Edit: Changed to a non-paywalled article and added more to the title.
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It most certainly feels like this was the thought process for this kinda thing:
We aren’t making enough money from our streaming service in Australia and New Zealand because they are buying DVDs/Blu-Ray so they can watch whenever they want.
How do we make more money, then?
Pretend that less people are interested in physical media and disregard literally everyone else who says otherwise!
Honestly I’m not surprised, I haven’t seen much of a physical media culture around these parts, and Australians who do actually want to own and collect dvds, bluerays or whatever, can also afford Amazon or some other provider. Though niche, I’ve seen more interest in collecting music in vinyl records, than in collecting movies as physical media.
All I’m saying is, if anything made piracy more popular here, it was the increase in streaming services prices and the poor variety of content forcing you to subscribe to too many platforms. I don’t mean to be a party pooper but I don’t believe this will make a big difference in either piracy or consumer satisfaction. The changes have already happened.
Agreed
Back in the Era where the only streaming platform available here was Netflix, the only reason anyone had to pirate was when Foxtel held rights to shows like Game of Thrones and there was no legitimate way to watch it besides subscribing to a $50/month cable package.
Edit: Holy run on sentence. I’m sorry.
They still make DVDs?
Yeah, despite being low quality and using outdated codecs conpared to Blu-ray and 4K UHD, DVDs still consistently outsell those two combined.
The music industry has figured it out for those of us that are willing to pay if it’s easy. Lossless, high fidelity, DRM-free digital media is very easy to get these days for almost all artists, and the price is usually pretty reasonable.
There’s no physical production cost and infinite supply to worry about the cost of production and inventory with declining sales if the video media industry would be willing to do the same. I’m never buying digital video as it exists today, but I will if they learn the lessons of the music industry and make digital video media more convenient. I’m sure there are plenty like me that just want something convenient and consumer friendly, rather than anti-consumer
I recently got a record player because I have a lot of old vinyl. (yes I know it’s super toxic)
rummaged through the clearance bin, got a few cheap new ones, and most came with a download card for lossless files. I find it difficult to praise the music industry for anything but this is a huge step in the right direction.
Man, that’s such a shame. Disney has also shut down everything but Disney+ in Southeast Asia, so combined with this announcement, it seems pretty likely that they’ll pivot entirely to VOD worldwide.