Greentext

Except people aren’t necessarily going back to piracy en masse

Torrent sites are dwindling, even the big ones have sad membership numbers compared to 10yrs ago

A large amount of internet users access the internet via devices that are openly hostile to or outright disallow anything that would enable piracy. The devices are then connected to an internet that is further hostile and aims to steer you away from anything deemed unsavory

Phones and tablets are cumbersome and unintuitive to navigate. In the case of apple torrent clients are not allowed to be listed on their app store and sideloading is involved and kind of a pain. Chromebooks and windows 11 are better obviously but less utilized then you’d think

But that leads to the second point, which is kind of angry old man yells at cloud, but people are just less tech inclined now. It makes sense because modern tech is designed to oppress the user whereas tech in the late 90s and early 2000s was more to empower them. They don’t bother to figure out how to install applications, use the file explorer, change settings, etc. the very basic steps needed to pirate shit (you obviously don’t need to be a super hacker). They don’t need to. The command prompt or a terminal is something that makes them think you’re hacking shit

They download applications like steam and then their browser auto opens the installer, then steam handles installing games and mods from that point on. They are safeguarded against having to deal with the icky filesystem and their hand is held every step of the way. Or they just download stuff from the official MS app store and even more hand holding. It’s okay because they’re only gonna install 5 streaming apps anyway and then use the browser to visit the 6 approved websites that google or bing search sends you to for basically any query.

And that’s only if they actually have a proper computer. If they have a tablet or phone they either are pushed extremely heavily towards the above scenario, or in the case of apple they simply have no other option

10 years from now the internet will just be 2-3 social media sites, a few shopping conglomerates, wikis, and streaming sites. The devices used to access will no longer let you access the filesystem directly, apps will be unable to be installed if they aren’t code signed by apple or google or ms or whoever, sealed in epoxy, and draconian drm everywhere. 40 years from now your grandchildren will think you’re weird for complaining about how you used to have autonomy and authority over your devices once you owned them and they’ll remind you it’s time to pay another $400 bezobucks to rent the google chrome ar internet hub for another month because you’re not allowed to own it and it’s a federal crime to take it apart

2007? I remember watching a DivX of The Matrix back in 99. Prior to that I remember watching south park episodes in the RealPlayer.

I haven't stopped sailing those seas. A pirate's life for me. :)

Try the 70s.

That was when VHS and cassette tapes started to hit the market and there was no copy protection on those. Following that, people copied floppy disks enough that they had to make that "dont copy that floppy" jingle.

There was a brief period with the switch to digital and CDROMs where piracy stopped, but then CD burners hit the market and it started again.

2007? Anon is a sweet summer child.

everyone is forced to pay for media

Anon never copy vhs, cassette tape, cd, and dvd. I lived in southeast asia and pirated cd/dvd is openly sold in night market and low foot traffic part of the mall throughout the late 90s till early 2010s, only occasionally they got raid. Before that we basically record show from cable and rental then copy for each others.

But yes, as GabeN proved again and again, piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. Almost.

All I'm going to say is every computer I had was equipped with 2 disk drives until 2010. Elder Millennials and Gen X know why.

You pirate because prices are too high

I pirate because I have kleptomania

We are not the same

Netflix entered into the already existing sphere of greed based commodification / exploitation that legacy media created decades ago. these legacy media conglomerates (owned circularly by the same big players in wall street black rock, vangaurd, state street et all.) dominate and control multiple industries and now Netflix is just part of that same ecosystem amassing wealth for their own self centered agenda without much, if any oversight at all. Theres just few greedy old cigar smoking men or rather boardrooms lead by these same men controling a majority of the world. Blackrock, blackston, state street and vanguard circularly own about 20% of disney and they own around the same percentage of netflix as well. Nevermind all the other media outlets they own large shareholding positions of. Greed is not the accidental result its the primary objective

People are willing to pay at least some amount if priced appropriately. Otherwise, we're going to take it for free. Remember, companies we're reporting record PROFITS during a pandemic when most people were struggling.

https://www.vendavo.com/all/willingness-to-pay/

https://fortune.com/2022/03/31/us-companies-record-profits-2021-price-hikes-inflation/

I want to watch Dark Matter without a million popups, malware or shady "trust me bro" programs.