Netflix became popular because it was easier then piracy.
With more and more content silo's (Apple, HBO, Prime, etc.) and Netflix creating friction like this I wonder how long before we are back to people pirating stuff like it's 2005.
I couldn’t agree more. I was using torrents 10 years ago and stopped when Spotify and Netflix had great offers.
But now, every second show is one yet another platform. I don’t even start with movies… So I’m back to using torrent because it simply became easier: there is one place to find everything.
We're definitely getting to the point where piracy is getting more convenient than paying again. At one point I was paying for Netflix, prime, disney+, and videoland (a Dutch VOD service). There was a show my wife wanted to watch so I check it on the well-marketed "don't steal, get a subscription - everything is available :)" service film.nl. Not available.
I do some googling and it's available on Prime, for $20 a season. Fine. Whatever. Go to checkout but can't pay because I need a US bank account?
Next weekend I spent a bit of time setting up the arrs and life has been great. Open Overseerr on my phone, request a TV show or movie, arrs do their magic, and within ~10-60 minutes I can watch it on any of my devices through Plex. The ecosystem of Overseerr, Sonarr/Radarr, Prowlarr, Bazarr, Plex.. and whatever *downloadclient+vpn) is just super well integrated. This all being a bunch of simple docker-compose files makes it accessible for anyone who has a little bit of technical skills and a free afternoon.
I still have spotify but honestly also thinking of cancelling it, I'm stuck in my bubble anyway. Paying 10 euros a month for the same few albums just isn't worth it.
Ditch Spotify and start contributing to open source personal library streaming apps — I’ve been using Jellyfin+Finamp+Sonixd for streaming my music library for a couple of months now, and I’m so glad I made the switch from Spotify. As a bonus, my money now goes to artists I choose on Bandcamp to buy physical + digital album files… instead of to the army of UI redesigners, podcast-pushers, and VC firms associated with Spotify.
This is what I have done but now that Bandcamp has been purchased by Epic I have nothing left because I refuse to use it now. It might be the same now but how do I know what's changing behind the scenes or if it's something I want to support?
I know how you feel. I suspect for now it’s fine to use Bandcamp, though I don’t like the feel that I’m contributing to Epic’s bottom line. Right now, I have to assume it’s just as good for artists as it was before, except with someone new signing the checks. I’ll be on the lookout for news about Epic changing things, abusing artists, or funnelling egregious amounts of money into podcasts, though…
I wonder if there’s an opportunity here, for someone to put a frontend on torrents, charge $0.xx per show, and pass it along to the rights owner after taking y%.
With all the people saying they pirate for convenience, not for cost, maybe enough of them would pay to be “legal” to make it worthwhile for rights owners to collect that money.
You could be Netflix minus the distribution issues.
This is legally quite simply not an option. You must make deals with every publisher separately and those deals will involve geofencing and folks saying "no".
It's going to be a cold day in hell when any of Apple, Netflix, HBO, Disney, Amazon, etc. license their own produced content for anything else then their own streaming service.
It works amazingly. They download everything for you, you can stream directly and even on your tv via their app or chrome cast or you download on your computer or phone. Seriously, the experience is as good as Netflix. It’s 10USD a month and you have access to everything you can think of.
Put is the best. Their secret sauce is they cache all popular torrents so they appear in your locker instantly.
It is especially good combined with Chill Institute. I can get nearly anything on my television from idea to streaming in < 15 seconds. I can’t program, but I’d like to figure out how to turn this into a Siri shortcut…
I went on the website and I seriously can't figure out what they do? I'm not joking, if people on here are recommended I'm genuinely interested, what does it do?
This used to exist! It was called joker.tk I think.
It would allow you to paste a magnet / torrent link and it would start streaming the file to you. Ironically I found it cause it was posted on hacker news. As you can guess it was shut down immediately
This is why I never stopped using torrents. Even though I have subscriptions to nearly every streaming service in my region (creators are getting their cut, right?). They're super convenient. I can search what I want in a giffy, even very obscure titles I can't find anywhere else. And I don't need to deal with variable bit rate or streaming interruptions or learning to deal with a dozen different UIs.
All media companies need to do is setup a subscription based private tracker and host their content there. It's cheaper for them, more convenient for users, but no, can't let users consume content on their own terms now, can we? Psychological control is the only means to growth.
>With more and more content silo's (Apple, HBO, Prime, etc.) and Netflix creating friction like this I wonder how long before we are back to people pirating stuff like it's 2005.
I can only speak for myself but I'm trading streaming services entirely for other activities and cancelling every streaming service purchased over the pandemic save the one or two my wife deems critical. Personally I'm just as happy to listen to a podcast or read a book, or even turn to creative pursuits like learning a new language. I wish more technical books were available on Amazon's Kindle Unlimited.
> Netflix became popular because it was easier then piracy.
It really didn't. Lots of people do not pirate. It became popular because it was cheap, and sold content for less than it cost Netflix to acquire or make it, and subsidised that with debt to built marketshare.
Now those days are coming to an end, Netflix is running out of road to borrow money, and it needs to bring in a sustainable amount of revenue or it will go away.
We can throw anecdotes around all day, but I personally know a good ~dozen or so people including myself who were huge into piracy before Netflix came along. Over the past few years, we've all gone "back to our roots" because paying for all the services today costs more than a full cable TV package did 10 years ago.
It looks like I'm headed back that way for music too. I'm a huge fan of rap and Death Row recently removed some of their most popular releases for the sake of NFTs?[0] This isn't how you get customers to go buy your music, it's a great way to piss them off and get your music for free. It's becoming a seemingly regular thing, with artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell removing their libraries where possible.
You can even look at Steam with their relatively wild success in Russia; GabeN himself has said "It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates"[1] that you realize it's not a pricing issue, it's an availability issue. It's a similar deal with Netflix, if we're browsing through movies we probably want to watch one right now, not wait a few hours to download one or go to a store to rent a disc.
Another case is that in my country, there is no easy way to get anything - credit card not easily available and services just not available. People have been paying to get access to a Netflix account (about 5 USD per person). Most people can't download torrent, but they will go with the easier option anytime - right now is telegram groups.
> Netflix became popular because it was easier then piracy.
Netflix became popular because it was easier than driving to the video store. Then they added streaming and it was popular because Netflix was already popular.
I'm already paying for the plan to view concurrently on up to four devices, specifically for sharing. Why would I need four concurrent screens for myself.
I was already contemplating canceling my subscription due to the constant price hikes and poor catalogue. If they add these extra fees I'm definitely canceling.
> Why would I need four concurrent screens for myself.
If you have kids. Which is, y'know, not uncommon. The four screen plan has always, since it's inception, stated that is for four people who live in your household in the terms.
> The four screen plan has always, since it's inception, stated that is for four people who live in your household in the terms.
As I read it, this is the parent poster's point. An individual person is unlikely to use Netflix on two devices simultaneously, so a notional "four screen plan" that also charges per profile (as per the linked article) undermines itself.
The linked article doesn't say it charges per profile, and nor does the Netflix document.
It says the additional household subs get an extra profile for them, and that there will be facilities to transfer profiles. There's nothing indicating that the account won't still be able to have five profiles for people who live in the household, as is currently the case.
> And what if my kid brings their tablet to a friend's house? What if they cast their tablet to the TV?
Then the streaming is being done by someone who lives in your household and is permitted under the terms and conditions. And will probably cause no issues, as Netflix will likely register that device regularly appears at your IP address with all your other devices.
I share my netflix account with my father-in-law and brother-in-law.
Last December I was tempted to cancel netflix, but that could mean some family issues... so I stayed.
I wonder how many people will churn if they have to pay extra for other households in netflix.
> Why would I need four concurrent screens for myself.
Most people don't. But they bundled it with 4K so that's why people have the multiple screen option. Not because they want multiple screens but because they want to be able to view 4K content.
My use case. Usually my TV will have it on but maybe another TV in the house and maybe a kids tablet. Or if I wanna continue a show in the bathroom or something with my phone.
I think this is a bad idea. Even if they can detect password sharing, I have to imagine being the first to market with this is really going to sour customers and drive them toward competitors who are happy to maintain the status quo with password sharing. It would be better to be the last company to do this.
I see a lot of haters here, but I tip my hat to Netflix.
Imagine if you were building a service and had trouble getting customers to pay their fair share. Netflix are making it easy for people to use it the right way. Its a gentle nudge in the right direction. They arent just blocking or banning the users. Its not everyone who has to pay more, just people who are already in the wrong. And for a discount of $3, thats less than a cup of coffee!
Is it that people are worried that they will unfairly be charged more or something?
Anyway, I think this is an interesting space. I wonder how many users are account sharing this way and how many are account sharing on other services.
Considering their quality keeps dropping, I can imagine this will get people to just give up on Netflix.
Aside from some of their K-Pop dramas, and BoJack horseman, everything they put out is absolutely bottom tier. I'll be watching it, thinking "Did you give a college sophomore $30 and tell em to write a script."
In From the Cold comes to mind, it comes off as a strange parody of itself.
Like a lot of the Disney plus content, it's okay as background noise. But if you go out of your way to become more hostile to end users, they might just put on YouTube.
Plus, what if you have a family with multiple residences so now you need to have an password for the timeshare, a password for the weekend apartment, a password for the vacation home.
Won't someone think of those who own multiple properties! I can imagine well to do people might be the stingiest about this, you tend to not get rich by wasting money
> Plus, what if you have a family with multiple residences so now you need to have an password for the timeshare, a password for the weekend apartment, a password for the vacation home.
> Netflix said it won't ban password sharing, but those who do it will have to pay. It will be testing the change in three countries — Chile, Costa Rica and Peru. For 2,380 Chilean pesos, 2.99 U.S. dollars and 7.9 Peruvian sol, respectively, *users can add up to two profiles.*
So apparently, the first adult profile (plus any kids-only profiles, which is still free) is included on the base price, while you can add more profiles (by twos) are charged. So it's more of a family plan in other straming sites.
This is annoying because an actual family who share a single tv may legitimately want separate profiles, in a way that is not password sharing per se. So now if my wife and I want to have our own separate profiles on Netflix they will charge us extra?
That doesn't say that you only get one adult profile on the base price. It says that you can add two additional households, and those get additional profiles. It remains to be seen but I imagine those households will get fully separate usernames and passwords.
It doesn't say that the existing household won't retain the five profiles it used to.
To my reading, it says exactly that. But we will see.
Netflix already allows you to watch on multiple devices simultaneously, and already allows you to watch from places other than your home. (Say, the gym, or airport, I dunno). It doesn't say they are going to stop doing that. So I don't know how they'd knwo which "household" a watcher is in, and the info doesn't say anything about new ways to monitor number of households, it doesn't mention households at all, only profiles. I can't read it in any way but they are reducing the number of profiles you get without paying extra.
That is an odd way to do it... people in the same household will still have to pay to have multiple profiles? That seems really crappy, going to make customers really unhappy. But will it lose them any? I don't know, I mean, what choice do you have, most people on netflix want netflix content.
Meanwhile, people can still share with folks in other households as long as they all share the same profile? Weird.
i guess it's hard to enforce otherwise. They already limit to only X simultaneous streams at once, depending on your account tier. But this does seem a way that will surely enrage customers... they probably know what they're doing and know it won't hurt their bottom line regardless?
I'm not so sure about that. Netflix has enough in-house experience in recommendation algorithms that they could pull something together without purchasing a 3rd party solution.
Plus you'll have two problems with Profiles. One, each user could have their own profile and therefore machine learning isn't going to detect abnormal viewing patterns. Two, some people choose to share a single Profile and so it'd be unpredictable whether you could deduce unusual viewing habits from that.
It's likely they will go based off of unique device type and location/IP. If you have a Smart TV streaming from an IP that's 3 states over, it's more likely to be sharing than if it's a phone.
> Plus you'll have two problems with Profiles. One, each user could have their own profile and therefore machine learning isn't going to detect abnormal viewing patterns. Two, some people choose to share a single Profile and so it'd be unpredictable whether you could deduce unusual viewing habits from that.
They'll just do it from account not profile.
And Netflix has external 3rd parties contributing to their recommendation teams and their geofiltering and proxy detection teams...
If you have 4 profiles watching wildly different topics, how would anything stand out enough to flag as another user? I think you've just added to my point.
However, I do have multiple internet connections, and frequently switch connections (all with different IPs).
Therefore, I have a feeling it'll eventually determine I'm logging in from multiple households and then ban me, even though it's all just me from different networks.
Yep, I would just cancel. Problem solved. I don't watch enough TV to even consider not being able to share a streaming service with my immediate family, and I think they would all agree. There's nothing wrong with the current model of limiting active screens. This is a greedy move for Netflix and if it's implemented it would completely change my opinion of the value of their service. I would sooner just watch youtube videos for the 30-60 minutes a night that I spend with the TV on.
With more and more content silo's (Apple, HBO, Prime, etc.) and Netflix creating friction like this I wonder how long before we are back to people pirating stuff like it's 2005.