Netflix: Piracy is Difficult to Compete Against and Growing Rapidly
Netflix: Piracy is Difficult to Compete Against and Growing Rapidly
Netflix believes that it's difficult to compete against the free entertainment piracy offers. Not only that, it's growing rapidly too.
Weird, Netflix used to compete with piracy so well that many people stopped pirating altogether, by offering a more convenient service at a reasonable price that was hard for even the most stubborn of pirates to refuse and resulted in a massive boom for its own industry. I wonder what could have changed that caused the people to leave Netflix and return to piracy. Hmm. I wonder.
No - piracy, since it always carries at least some amount of difficulty and risk, is easy to compete against. And in fact, paid services, including Netflix, have proven that over and over. All it takes is to offer dependable convenience and quality and to treat customers well. People are always willing to pay a reasonable price for that.
The problem is that piracy becomes difficult to compete against when, as Netflix is currently doing, you shift from a business model of providing good service under fair terms for a reasonable price to a business model of providing crappy service under onerous terms for too much money, because the greedy, selfish, short-sighted sacks of shit at the top want to make even more obscene amounts of money. That's the point at which piracy gains enough of an advantage to outweigh its difficulties and risks.
And when that's the case, it's pretty obvious what the real problem is.
Piracy isn't even free! People pay thousands of dollars for hardware, and hundreds per year for electricity and various service providers.
But they actually get what they want for that money: Being able to watch whatever you want, anytime, on any device, in high quality and without ads. It must be really hard for streaming services to compete with features as futuristic as that!
It's not like I dropped Netflix and opted to pirate their content instead because of their password sharing restrictions or anything. Nah, can't be that.
Infinitely reproducible digital media has little inherent value. As the article acknowledges, the value proposition Netflix offered was convenience. If pirate sites offer more convenience than Netflix offers legitimate users, Netflix will lose. I find it baffling they are fucking around with ads and locking down access, making their experience worse. Same with Amazon Prime. It's like they forgot their own business model.
Press releases like this are corporate signaling to US Congress that they would like some lawfare and are willing to pay for it.
Pirate streaming growth itself doesn't 'threaten legal services' as TF suggests. Any threat that arises is created by industry's market response. It comes back to margins. Netflix could decide overnight to invest in a long-term 'hearts and minds' approach that includes a quality platform user experience free of hostile design, non-discrimination amongst devices, relaxed household access rules, attentive customer service, commitment to finishing programming properly, improved stream quality, etc. Becoming the Valve of streaming represents an expenditure increase, though. You're now a lower margin business with a very sticky and content customer base. That's not a story industry wants to tell its investors, knowing they will respond with 'you should be petitioning for bills that enable more market captivity'.
They do the right thing only as a last resort, because the right thing is expensive.
Piracy is really easy to compete against. Ask GabeN. Steam has singlehandedly taken me out of the piracy game because they have what I want, it's super easy to get and if it's not reasonably priced today I'll wishlist it until it goes on sale (and it will). If it sucks, or my hardware can't run it, I just dm someone and I get my money back. I know they can disappear shit from my library like any online store but they haven't abused that privilege with me yet and that makes me confident they won't.
With Netflix, there's a small chance that they actually have what I want. If they do, it's gonna disappear soon. Prices only ever go up, not down, and that series you love is gonna be cancelled as soon as it stops driving new subscriptions. To watch everything I want I can spend a hundred dollars a month on a rotating set of accounts on several streaming services or I can go LOOK for the MOVIE 2 stream for free without even messing with a DOT TOrrent file.
Piracy is easy to prevent if you provide a better service than the pirates. What he meant was that it's hard to get people to pay you to shit in their mouths when someone else is giving out sandwiches.
So here's a novel idea, maybe stop driving people away from your business with constant rate-hikes, removal of content, killing new shows after 1 season, etc...
Yeah back in the golden era of streaming you only needed Netflix, most of the shows on there were good, and everything would eventually be on there. So piracy was too much of pain in the ass to bother with to save $10 a month.
Now there's 10 different streaming services most of them cost a lot more than $10 per month, you have to wade through pages of crap to find anything worth watching. If you hear about a show or movie that sounds interesting you can't just wait for it to show up on Netflix. You have to go and search for which streaming service has the show you want and there's a good likelihood you're not subscribed to that one.
It's now far easier to search on the 'bay for what you want to see (you have to do a search anyway) and they always have it. Yeah I guess you're not instantly watching it, but you're not instantly watching a thing you want to see on a streaming service now anyway, because have to scroll past a wall of crap to find anything.
My general feeling on piracy is that when you're young and don't have much money, you can't afford to pay for it anyway, you may as well pirate it. When you get older and can afford it then you should pay for movies and video games and stuff. But when they make it more of a pain in the ass to buy something than it is to pirate things, then I dunno what to say. I have money and want to pay for a service that I can just chill and watch cool stuff, but they seem more interested in various schemes to impress shareholders than providing me the thing I'm willing to pay for.
They didn't seem to have any problems before they started fucking around with their pricing and policies and everyone else also started their own streaming services, splitting everything across multiple subscriptions instead of 1, convenient service.
I could keep up with what's available where and shuffle my subscriptions around every few months to see what I want when it's new... But it's way easier to just use a torrent site now.
I’m kinda surprised that the article only mentioned convenience and completely skipped rising costs, ad injection, crackdowns on password sharing, and more fees.
The subscriptions cost a shitload more, even if you’re a paid subscriber you still get ads, you have to pay more fees to get rid of ads or watch a program that is either new or the service has decided to charge for, and you can’t share password with anyone outside your household.
It’s not a convenience problem, it’s a money problem.
Piracy is service problem
Netflix Buddy, friend, matey. If I have to pop open Google to find where I can watch something, find the best offers on pricing, and how to circumvent ads or whatever, or how to get Netflix to run on my devices without installing invasive crap or derooting my phone etc, and it's actually quite expensive.
I'll just do one search and not worry about whether I'll have to fight ads, or automatic iffy quality settings, weird compression algorithms, device compatibility etc.
I was happy to hang up the peg leg when I could just VPN to usa and watch everything for the price of a lunch a month. I like simplicity, I enjoyed your more arty shows. It was you who changed the deal Netflix, not I. you decided being insanely profitable wasn't enough and you needed infinite growth.
Bullshit. Make it reasonably priced, fast and easy to access, no bullshit, clean interface, no ads, great customer support, and I'll rip this parrot right off my mother lovin shoulder.
Once, not so long ago, streaming was more convenient than pirating. But, as expected the commercial services went through their Standard Cycle of Enshittification and now we either let ourselves get flogged by 50 competing predatory services or just take the easy way and sail the high seas.
The choice is not that hard. Yarr.
Of course this returns us to the state where the streaming companies who have literally "enshitted their own beds" now turn to legislators and policymakers (who they hated, just couple of weeks ago) to ask them to provide some "law and order" to this unruly mob and to defend the corporations right to put thumbscrews on the population for ever increasing profits.
And so it goes.
🤏🎻
CEOs: *Do a greedflation, raking in historic profits.*
Also CEOs: "Why does no one want to pay for a subscription?"
I was rather happy with Netflix for nearly a decade. The price was reasonable and family members could also watch. When I moved out I upgraded to the 4K package (split 3 ways between family members) and it was fine at first.
But there were several caveats:
- 4K only works on TVs, on my 1440p monitor I could only watch 1080p. Sucked, but it's not too bad
- Price kept going up, in the end it was 18€ a month. That's okay split between 3 people, but otherwise far too much for what is offered
- Series that I liked kept getting cancelled, while trash was getting renewed or they messed up the later seasons (Looking at you, The Witcher..)
- They cracked down on password sharing, suddenly you need to be in the same WiFi to count as home or you need a travel code (limited to 2 a month and only for 2 weeks each), so if you regularly move between places it's a no-go for a service you pay for
I finally cancelled it, sick of their shit. Which also has the benefit of no longer having to take care of the account for the family. Unfortunately my dad accidentally took over the account (while trying to create a new one) and keeps paying the 4K price (I suggested at least going down to 1080p as the quality is shit either way). Simply idiotic :-/
Personally I tried out Real Debrid and it has been pretty alright so far. The quality is better too, which is ridiculous.
Netflix literally will not take my money anymore. I had cancelled my subscription during covid because money was tight, but I was willing to temporarily re-subscribe when the next season of select shows came out. I tried to re-enable my original account, but I couldn't because they wouldn't accept my credit card. I tried different cards, then tried to make new accounts with different emails and different credit cards, but still couldn't. Netflix kept rejecting all my cards. I ran out of credit cards.
Look, I was willing to give Netflix my money, it's not my fault they were unwilling to take it.
Says the guys that reduced piracy to a fraction of its former self before getting too greedy. Piracy wasn't affecting them, but it's a side effect of what they have become.
Hey Netflix, you need to compete on price AND the service offering. Make piracy feel inconvenient compared to paying and subscribing and you'll retain the userbase that is willing to pay. You'll never get those who aren't willing to pay no matter what.
As long as Netflix doesn't do 1080p on Firefox and reduces their price considerably and gets rid of stupid limitations on account sharing and ads, I'm never paying for it. Same for games with DRM. I'm not suffering from DRM bs when I can pirate the same without DRM. Why should i pay these asshole companies more and be more restricted than a pirate lol.
It’s not like cable was going to vanish and leave us with this wonderful ad-free Ala carte service we've always wanted. They dangled the bait and once everyone bit they set the hook and reeled in the suckers with an even worse, and costlier, scenario. In every avenue of entertainment, marketing is there to make sure it fucking sucks. Even some of the pirate apps have ads in them. Greed ruins everything and will be remembered as the true folly of man.
Set sail mofos! 🏴☠️
SurprisedPikachuFace.jpg
The ever increasing subscription prices and rights holders pulling content have nothing to do with it at all I am sure. /s
Boohoo magic piracy is stealing all my stuffs, its not that i'm losing the content wars to other, bigger, meaner shitheads
OH NO BOO HOO!!
Maybe you shouldn’t have become the monster you fought to destroy.
Netflix should've realised this would be the end result. The moment you needed 5-6 different streaming platforms to watch all the movies and tv shows you want, was the moment it became easier and significantly cheaper to pirate the content.
None of the big companies that decided to cash in ever stood a chance.
I find that sarcastically interesting.
I initially signed up for Netflix all those many years ago because it was finally a solution that was easier than piracy.
Didn't take long for them to completely fuck me and the service over, and I left to go back to piracy and I'll never look at Netflix again.
Cable TV 2.0: "Boohoo, pirates are eating my profits!"
The thing is that we need an class action Anti-Competitive lawsuit that says that streaming providers are not allowed to only host shows on their own platform and need to "sell themselves" their shows at the same price as they sell to others in pay-per-view terms. That way all streaming providers can host all shows and everyone gets theirs.
It'll also bring out other streaming services that specialise in low-volume purchases with an a-la-carte payment model.
All shows on every platform should be the standard and subscriptions should focus on packaging it into "100/200/1000" views per month, SD/HD/4K model just like Internet service providers do.
Rip not going to see that before I die so that's the pirates life for me. 🦜🏴☠️
I wouldn't mind paying for netflix if I didn't have to pay extra to not get ads, and if I didn't have to use a "smart" tv to actually get uhd, and if I trusted them with the data that they would get from that tv, and if I could share my account with my family in different cities, and if they had shows I actually wanted to watch and probably some other stuff too, but i stopped caring.
It really isn't because Netflix did it easily in the 2010s. But then, as always, capitalism got in the way and we are back to the cable era where even if you pay, you still have ads.
Netflix: “Should I get short term profits by price gouging and forcing commercials on people (thereby driving people to piracy) or should I forgo year over year profit increases by continuing to provide decent tv with no commercials and no price increases and delivering consistent profits?”
Also Netflix:
Honest question: could some of Netflix's enshittification be because of the media industry, and not their fault? The fragmentation of streaming was the opposite of what they wanted. So maybe his point is that it's impossible to compete because the industry is so powerful and greedy that they couldn't hold onto their monopoly. Spotify has been able to hold onto theirs because record labels hold less power and don't want to get into the streaming business.
Jellyfin / self hosting is so great. You get the experience of a good streaming service and you can share with your friends and family, and there is no risk of a DMCA other than the initial seeding.
Unless you are friends or family with one of the Disney execs.
Good
The likes of FMovies and movie-web offer a virtually unlimited catalogue that contains everything you could ever stream, for free. And their streaming quality is almost always at par with Netflix, if not more. There is zero rational reason why anyone would turn to those "legit" streaming platforms if they know about them.
The only thing separating is app support on smart TVs. It's Game Over once TVs start allowing PWAs and ad-blocking browsers (do they already? I don't know).
CuriosityStream: “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth”
They really are just copying this statement lmao, I actually did try to find their content elsewhere since there's no way I'm paying for a streaming in USD, but couldn't, don't remember which documentary it was.
Most of this sits squarely on Netflix's fault. I had stopped torrenting when I started with netflix, but their sheer stupidity between the password sharing and constantly taking down titles, not to mention the fact the rest of the industry is going copying them has pushed me to setup a plex server and share between my friends. Yarr... Ye gang be back me maytees!
EDIT: Fucking LOL, Hulu just emailed me this...
There was a resounding chorus of "DUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" that echoed across the land as Netflix discovers this reality.
I've been using netflix and paying for it every month, but I also subscribe to a netflix downloader because there's no way for netflix videos to be saved permanently and that bothers me.
Try making a decent product again then, that seemed to limit piracy quite a bit
Gee whiz, can't imagine why...
Oh no!
Anyways
Netflix is getting worse month after month. Same for the streaming market as a whole. Much worse service than before, no accountability for failures on their part. I would gladly pay >15€ every month if I had at least FHD, no ads, all series / animes (excluding very nice ones ). Some months ago I did an experiment: subscribe to Netflix + Disney + hbo. I still had to torrent in order to get some content (not niche stuff) and good quality. If piracy is increasing, the culpability is also on streaming services. People are fed up of being stomped on
Hahaha, good
I love taking from all these billionaire companies.
SURRENDER, Netflix!
Guess they should give up and shut down.
Womp womp