Netflix raises prices on standard and premium plans

I generally agree with this, but I think I may be a sucker for subscribing and not being one of the people that "churns" in and out based on what is available. It sends a signal that it does not matter whether in a given month I have anything I find interesting to watch or not, since I'll stick around no matter what.

I want more sci fi and fantasy series. Ideally, I'd like at least two per month year round. I want the equivalent of the expanse and the boys or the witcher. Right now, that kind of genre content I desire is too spread out. And if I cancel and come back based on the stuff I want to watch being there, it might send an infinitesimal signal to cater to more of my preferences.
Check out some of the non american series like DARK.
Also rather enjoyed Maniac, NightFlyers, Love Death and Robots, and Altered Carbon was fucking beautiful is a bit... annoying.
I haven't gotten to The Umbrella Academy yet, and there's always a fucking bajillion Sci-Fi anime titles on every service.
They just announced a Pacific Rim Anime and I'm pretty hype for that, but I enjoy giant robots beating up Kaiju in all of its forms.

I do wish there were more shows like The Expanse in general though, I love that show and I also love those books.
 
Check out some of the non american series like DARK.
Also rather enjoyed Maniac, NightFlyers, Love Death and Robots, and Altered Carbon was fucking beautiful is a bit... annoying.
I haven't gotten to The Umbrella Academy yet, and there's always a fucking bajillion Sci-Fi anime titles on every service.
They just announced a Pacific Rim Anime and I'm pretty hype for that, but I enjoy giant robots beating up Kaiju in all of its forms.

I do wish there were more shows like The Expanse in general though, I love that show and I also love those books.

I've seen everything you listed aside from maniac. I tried Dark but it just seems to slow to me. Maybe it picks up, but I was 5 episodes in and still did not have any decent hooks.

Another Life was god awful, one episode and I was done. Away was another slog, and too focused on the mundane. The Expanse is grounded sci fi but still extends beyond into territory that is not completely mundane. That is where netflix needs to go more. Lost in Space was barely ok, but it's at least passable if frequently annoying. Dark Matter was a much better boiler plate space themes show than average (still below the expanse) and netflix did not lift a finger to save that. IT makes me think the people in charge of content are dull to the genres I favor. The opposite is true of amazon prime, they just don't have the back catalog. Bezos put up money to save the expanse, bankrolled a lord of the rings series in development, and did the same for the wheel of time series. There is a clear and obvious interest in expanding blockbuster class fiction properties that might have been movie series that could ACTUALLY garner ticket sales rather than low budget indie content. Even apply tv is making a Foundation tv series.

HBO Max has raised by wolves, which was surprisingly compelling and lovecraft country (bad ending, but at least interesting) and a good single series of watchmen. They are shooting for the fences. Not netflix. I still think people with my tastes need to send more signals with unsubbing to them.
 


Lol! My last GPU was only $88 (GT-1030) I rather pay for more storage as that is where I store "my" movies and music.

I frequently go thrifting so I get second hand media (CD's/DVD's Blu-ray disc's and the occasional HD-DVD or Vinyl) I rip those to my hard disks for network media server (Kodi)

I am backing off the pirate scene for awhile now. I do have Netflix access and Hulu also through a family member how granted me access maybe this is why they are raising their prices to combat "account-sharing"
 
I've seen everything you listed aside from maniac. I tried Dark but it just seems to slow to me. Maybe it picks up, but I was 5 episodes in and still did not have any decent hooks.

Another Life was god awful, one episode and I was done. Away was another slog, and too focused on the mundane. The Expanse is grounded sci fi but still extends beyond into territory that is not completely mundane. That is where netflix needs to go more. Lost in Space was barely ok, but it's at least passable if frequently annoying. Dark Matter was a much better boiler plate space themes show than average (still below the expanse) and netflix did not lift a finger to save that. IT makes me think the people in charge of content are dull to the genres I favor. The opposite is true of amazon prime, they just don't have the back catalog. Bezos put up money to save the expanse, bankrolled a lord of the rings series in development, and did the same for the wheel of time series. There is a clear and obvious interest in expanding blockbuster class fiction properties that might have been movie series that could ACTUALLY garner ticket sales rather than low budget indie content. Even apply tv is making a Foundation tv series.

HBO Max has raised by wolves, which was surprisingly compelling and lovecraft country (bad ending, but at least interesting) and a good single series of watchmen. They are shooting for the fences. Not netflix. I still think people with my tastes need to send more signals with unsubbing to them.

I loved all the new HBO series. Was really surprised by Lovecraft country. I am waiting to see what they got in store for season 2 on both. I ended up really liking lovecraft country even more, I guess I went in with such low expectations it blew me away haha.
 
While you have some good points that video is such fucking bullshit, filled with half-truths and a total lack of understanding of the industry. It is a REALLY bad video to use as part of your point.
The point of the video is that streaming services don't compete with each other, and therefore don't have to improve the service or lower prices. It does focus on anime but you can apply this to any online content distributor. The only real form of competition is piracy.
You don't need to be subscribed to all of them all the time. Watch what you want, cancel, move on. Hell, use free trials to watch stuff over the course of month and make sure to cancel the moment you subscribe (so you don't forget to do so later on). It's inconvenient, but still a fuck load better than cable.
It's like magazine subscriptions in that they hope that you forget and you usually do. It is a minor hassle but it's still far easier to just pirate.

It is convenient. I go on a list click on what I want, and 10 minutes later I Can watch it on any TV in my house, without using third party app. For example netflix only works on smart tvs and the app ranges from complete garbage to mediocre depending on the make model and year of manufacturing.
NetFlix has often been a huge problem for me. I use Linux often so in the past it didn't work. Thankfully it does now, but there are still some devices I own that it won't. Then there's the problem where a movie I like on Netflix might vanish because NetFlix stopped paying the royalties to have access to it. So you never know what will or won't be there. I have cars with built in Android stereos and NetFlix isn't even found on the Play store. I can install it by downloading a really outdated version of NetFlix's app but that won't last forever.
 
I think this is the wrong argument.

The person lacks moral character here, not Disney, even though I don’t like their service etc. Just because I don’t like it isn’t a reason to steal it.
No this is exactly the right argument. Blaming the "moral character" of your customers instead of providing a service they are willing to pay for is the problem.
Disney can go on all day on the moral character of people who don't subscribe to them, especially those outside of the US who they don't even allow to subscribe to them.

if all piracy had stopped by a sleigh of a magic wand, disney or whoever still won't have more paying customers, because their service will still be garbage tier. They get more paying customers by providing better service, and not taking the customer for granted.

If I won’t pay for bread at the store does it make it right to steal it? Regardless of anything else?
Bread = basic foodstuff, necessity of life
Netflix = Luxury
How do you imagine that to be a valid comparison on any level?

The fact is a person won’t buy it but they will steal it. It has value whether it’s chosen to be seen or not.
Piracy still doesn't equal stealing, no matter how much grandstanders like yourself repeat it. Call it what it is: Copyright infringement / piracy / illegal distribution of intellectual property, those are valid terms, stealing is not one of them.


I choose to not go to the movies (very often) because of the high cost. However I don’t sneak in or try for a free show illegally.
Again you are missing the point. Service issue does not necessarily equal high cost. It is telling however that all you can relate to is money and stealing.
I'm not pirating netflix shows because of the cost, I'm doing it because it is more convenient than using their shitty app.

Just because you won’t purchase it doesn’t mean there isn’t value or a cost associated with it.
I don't know what do you mean. When someone who does not pay for netflix pirates their shows that does not incur additional costs on netflix.
Theres far to many streaming services to justify cost all the way around. To many limitations on internet services for some people, and to many justifications for just being a thief.
Stealing, thief, you just sound like sour grapes and jealusy. You see, I can name call too. It doesn't lead anywhere. You do the exact same thing as the streaming services. But asserting moral high ground still won't give them more paying customers. I'm telling you and them, what can get more paying customers: More convenient and less restrictive service, perhaps an universal platform for all streaming services where you can pick and choose what you want. But no, all we hear is hurr-durr thieves. Name calling potential customers certainly won't make them paying clients.
 
The point of the video is that streaming services don't compete with each other, and therefore don't have to improve the service or lower prices. It does focus on anime but you can apply this to any online content distributor. The only real form of competition is piracy.

They do and don't compete. Like I said, the video has a misunderstanding of things. Even just focusing on the anime industry there is a ton of competition between the distributors. Licenses are insanely expensive and often exclusive or heavily controlled, this means companies have to fight for them or make their own original content. Expanding outside that niche, true content competition is fading but now they'll all fighting for subscribers by trying to create specialized offerings. Netflix, Disney, etc all compete for subscribers, they know they need something compelling to get people. Disney has the Disney stranglehold on media, Netflix has a lot of their original content, HBO Max has the massive Warner library, CBS has...Uhhhhhhhhh...Things, and so on. It's not traditional competition, but it is there. There's a reason Disney came out of the gate with a super cheap price, big service bundle, a rather consumer "friendly" (for lack of a better term) set of features, and a bunch of deals with companies like Verizon. That said, you are right about piracy. At least, right now. While I doubt piracy is big enough to put a huge dent in things, I'd imagine it has risen over the last couple years and might be at just enough of a point to get the attention of the mega media companies running this stuff.
 
Source? My understanding is this strategy was arrived on by the cable companies as a way to maximize profitability. Is there some law behind it I'm not aware of?

Closest thing I can find is this FCC report finding that the government should not intervene to prevent bundling:

https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/6518330656.pdf
The elected officials told us that unless we allowed them to regulate the costs would go up endlessly. They passed the legislation and within a few months my bill went UP 20%. https://www.fcc.gov/media/engineering/cable-television

The Cable companies wanted the regulation because it carved out exclusive distribution areas (Monopoly) and in exchange the regulations force carriers into compliance. Content is saddled with "Must Carry" rules that in essence passes monies on to content creators that may otherwise fail in the free market.

The reason your bill is so high is that your exclusive "Provider" really could care less about how you feel about its service. And is OK with being the extortion arm of .gov and its re-distributive policies. Now as the cable is crumbling the streaming services are picking up the same bundling practices ...again to carve out exclusive access. If we were able to buy all content ala carte there would be more good content at lower prices and the creators making sub standard content would disappear.
 
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A lot of blah blah but you did not answer my question

yes they should exist like any other person or organization provider a service to other under and agreement you are free to take advantage of or not.
I dont care for you fictions world philosophy, taking ownership of other property without the arranged permission is bad morale.

If they are paid through taxation ( a system that does exist in other countries) that would be fine too. but its paid and under the arrangement the service provider is offering.
you have still yet to answer my question

Moral might be empty word for you I do not doubt that.

I doubt you even know what poster your addressing. In fact you don't given the question was directed at me, and your response above was directed at someone else, if you can't even read the user name correctly, I have sever doubts you can follow a conversation.

The fundamental flaw that every 'piracy is bad' person makes is that they assume, somehow, we can exist in a world where piracy doesn't exist, and that by just creating enough of a 'moral character' you can eliminate it. The flaw is that people are vast, varied and different, and that means you will always have piracy (and rapist and murders because you seem to think that the two groups are completely interchangeable and might as well support them all, that's called the slippery slope fallacy FYI).

The reality is, we cannot beat piracy and it is largely a waste of time to try. The moral arguments will fall flat against a pirate for any number of reasons, maybe they are working poor and having this access is simply a greater benefit to them then the feeling of moral superiority when they don't access it. Maybe they can't access the content through legitimate means (much of the world outside of the US has roadblocks to content) and that desire to watch it, be part of that zeitgeist, trumps the moral argument for them. See the moral argument is effective on establishing a majority culture, but ultimately useless against certain sub-culture (or other cultures), companies know this, countries know this, yet somehow the individual doesn't.

The solution (to most piracy, not all as there is a group that will never pay for content) is to remove those barriers of entry (always been my point in this thread) and by netflix raising rates, and other streamers jumping in and walling off content both by service and by region, the barriers are going back up, and thus so will piracy. My second part was that the inevitable rise in piracy is a shame and something that could be prevented but likely won't as people lack both foresight and often the intelligence to think outside the box and solve the problem.

The reality of my position, is that very few even here bother to try and understand it, most people default to the 'hurr durr theft is bad' position and thus fail to both comprehend a nuanced position, the underlying problem, the potential solution (and benefit of more paying customers to the economy), and they in turn just become part of the problem.
 
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While I doubt piracy is big enough to put a huge dent in things, I'd imagine it has risen over the last couple years and might be at just enough of a point to get the attention of the mega media companies running this stuff.
https://wikileaks.org/sony/docs/03_...hedules/History/2005 Cost of Movie Piracy.pdf
 In 2004, the MPA commissioned a study to provide an accurate and detailed assessment of the film industry’s worldwide losses to piracy and the demographic profile of those engaging in piracy

Piracy has fully the attention of media company since at the latest 90s in music when Napster become popular and the early 2000s for the rest when torrent become popular.

Piracy is giant outside Japan and the USA (where it is maybe the biggest in the world but paid media consumption is quite giant in comparison), in some part of the world there is about 0 money after theatrical for movies with how prevalent piracy is.
 
The point of the video is that streaming services don't compete with each other, and therefore don't have to improve the service or lower prices. It does focus on anime but you can apply this to any online content distributor. The only real form of competition is piracy.

That sound extremely counterintuitive and wrong to me, the competition between streaming service is giant, the R&D to improve their service is huge and the competition for content is giant:

How those kind of price war for content:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/21/...cial-hbo-max-one-time-streaming-date-may-2020
https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-news-cast/#:~:text=Several months after Amazon's acquisition,to more than $1 billion.

Amazon spending 1 billion on a Lord of the rings series, the price Friends/Park Recreation/Seinfeld/How I met your mother/etc... the Abrams and other big name in tv creator get for streaming deal all make it sound that there is a huge competition right now and that it is hard to make it (see Apple TV, HBO launch) while some that achieved a better launch with competitive advantage did a better job like Disney+

Netflix success versus other platform was in part there better service (work better on more platform that the competition)

How can we not consider spending a 1 billion Lords of The Rings show from Amazon a form of competition to HBO Max ? That the only competition AT&T face with is HBO Max offering face is piracy, not disney, not Amazon, not Apple, etc.... That HBO Max would not have been more popular if it was on Roku for example ? Because there is no competition and service quality do not matter ?

Why Disney launched to such aggressive pricing if there is no pricing competition ? It is arguably a streaming war right now with some of the biggest war chest in the world involved the very opposite of no competition.
 
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The unsaid opinion is this:

Should servers like Netflix or Hulu even exist?

What if the bittorrent protocol was the ONLY option, and artists and creators would be paid directly via taxation from the government? All creators would be paid via patronage of the government.

Hey, taxation is theft, because even if you say "no," they say "yes," so what's this "morality" we speak of, if not raw strength of those with power? Might is what's right, in practice.

True ethics have nothing to do with applied law and justice, so let's be creative.

If all content was completely free by law, and it was ILLEGAL to charge money for art, media, music, or anything else, due to the fact that the government itself was the patron of all artists, then how does that affect your moral position?

And don't tell me something about "that will never happen! What an unlikely paradigm shift."

I'm not naive. I hope you're not either. ;)

Morality is one of those words that can be spoken easily, but ... it's just an empty word at the end of the day.
Only the truth of nature matters.

I am not sure I follow you. Should Netflix or Hulu exist? This is a capitalist economy, so they should exist as long as people pay for the service, that is the way.

The rest is a bit of moral philosophizing, of course morality is established by the power holders in a culture, in a democracy it is largely dictated by the majority, and in a dictatorship it is literally dictated by the person/party in power. While people's lack of understanding of the root and source of power that creates morality I don't think the Netflix fee topic is the place to disect morality.
 
I am not sure I follow you. Should Netflix or Hulu exist? This is a capitalist economy, so they should exist as long as people pay for the service, that is the way.

The rest is a bit of moral philosophizing, of course morality is established by the power holders in a culture, in a democracy it is largely dictated by the majority, and in a dictatorship it is literally dictated by the person/party in power. While people's lack of understanding of the root and source of power that creates morality I don't think the Netflix fee topic is the place to disect morality.

If this is a democracy, then we need to talk about the effects Hulu, Netflix, and other big companies have on art and the profits surrounding media.

If we don't talk, then this is a tyranny.
If new ideas are forbidden, then it's a tyranny.

There are many things that can't be bought or sold, so why not art?
Make art free for all people, and the world would be different.

Would it happen? Well, it depends if people consider this, or if they are happy with the current state of affairs.
Are you happy? If enough people aren't happy, then let's do it my way.

And if you are happy, then we can continue with what we have.

But it looks like people want free media, and that's when they turn to piracy.
If you want it free, then let's make it actually free.
If you want to pay, then I expect people to pay.

Do people mind multiple media serving companies?
Are we ok with price raising?

Some half-hearted pirate mitigation strategy is just not satisfactory because why should some person pay when others don't?
 
If this is a democracy, then we need to talk about the effects Hulu, Netflix, and other big companies have on art and the profits surrounding media.
...

Some half-hearted pirate mitigation strategy is just not satisfactory because why should some person pay when others don't?

This is too political, so that should be taken to the soapbox.

Only the last point isn't political: Acknowledging the world, the paradigm, and reality is not half-hearted, there are limits to what people can accomplish and limits to how much budget can be spent on things (as well as diminishing returns). The music industry realized this, you cannot spend enough to combat piracy, you will go broke. So other solutions emerged, better solutions imho. If it means so much that others don't pay, either don't pay yourself and pirate, or just don't participate at all.
 
in some part of the world there is about 0 money
You are right about that part. IN some parts of the world working class people just don't have the disposable income like they do in the US, that's why piracy is more prevalent. As said. Ending piracy with a sleigh of hand, would not turn pirates into paying customers. That's why the "lost revenue" argument is bullcrap. Let's say you are giving away free drinks on the street. The industry's argument is that all the people who have taken a free drink would absolutely have purchased a drink and the exact same value drink at that had they not been given one for free. That's complete nonsense.
 
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I doubt you even know what poster your addressing. In fact you don't given the question was directed at me, and your response above was directed at someone else, if you can't even read the user name correctly, I have sever doubts you can follow a conversation.

The fundamental flaw that every 'piracy is bad' person makes is that they assume, somehow, we can exist in a world where piracy doesn't exist, and that by just creating enough of a 'moral character' you can eliminate it. The flaw is that people are vast, varied and different, and that means you will always have piracy (and rapist and murders because you seem to think that the two groups are completely interchangeable and might as well support them all, that's called the slippery slope fallacy FYI).

The reality is, we cannot beat piracy and it is largely a waste of time to try. The moral arguments will fall flat against a pirate for any number of reasons, maybe they are working poor and having this access is simply a greater benefit to them then the feeling of moral superiority when they don't access it. Maybe they can't access the content through legitimate means (much of the world outside of the US has roadblocks to content) and that desire to watch it, be part of that zeitgeist, trumps the moral argument for them. See the moral argument is effective on establishing a majority culture, but ultimately useless against certain sub-culture (or other cultures), companies know this, countries know this, yet somehow the individual doesn't.

The solution (to most piracy, not all as there is a group that will never pay for content) is to remove those barriers of entry (always been my point in this thread) and by netflix raising rates, and other streamers jumping in and walling off content both by service and by region, the barriers are going back up, and thus so will piracy. My second part was that the inevitable rise in piracy is a shame and something that could be prevented but likely won't as people lack both foresight and often the intelligence to think outside the box and solve the problem.

The reality of my position, is that very few even here bother to try and understand it, most people default to the 'hurr durr theft is bad' position and thus fail to both comprehend a nuanced position, the underlying problem, the potential solution (and benefit of more paying customers to the economy), and they in turn just become part of the problem.


It was addressed to you.
You are talking a lot of fuzz about nothing trying to appears smart, however you are just proving my point that pirates will go to length of weird logic to justify taking something and not living up to their part of the deal.
You don't live up to your side of the arrangement it is wrong no matter how you try to picture a new world in you utopian fantasy

Full discloure: I did not read your full post as it It seems you are just repeating yourself: "We cant beat people getting killed so we are mights as well go murder them" idiotics. Again just proving my original point of extreme lenghts to justify a amoral act
 
Not enough for me to cancel yet. Kinda wish they had another plan available for higher bitrate or something.
 
They recently cut the bitrate on their 4K content in half. In that context, a price hike the following month is pretty BS.
Ah, that makes sense. I've definitely noticed lately. If I remember right, they did something similar at the beginning of Covid. Unfortunate.
 
...and remember kids .. you have to have internet access of some kind to get these streaming services ..and that cost money too ..

With the broadcast networks in the USA getting a kick back from cable companies like Comcast in the "rebroadcast fees" ($10) being charged every month to cable customers, I thought it was rather hilarious for CBS to expect me to subscribe to their streaming service for $10 a month. Just for a new star trek show. Now CBS gets nothing from me as I dropped cable tv, dont subscribe to their streaming service and I still don't watch their local channel over the antenna.
 
You are right about that part. IN some parts of the world working class people just don't have the disposable income like they do in the US, that's why piracy is more prevalent. As said. Ending piracy with a sleigh of hand, would not turn pirates into paying customers. That's why the "lost revenue" argument is bullcrap. Let's say you are giving away free drinks on the street. The industry's argument is that all the people who have taken a free drink would absolutely have purchased a drink and the exact same value drink at that had they not been given one for free. That's complete nonsense.
Usually no they always (in the study I did read) a percentage of them would have, they do not use one purchase by one download in their revenues lost estimate. Specially with movies, has there is a wait for lower price that is an big variable as well.

And it is not no money (if movies does well at the box office) it is free > paying become a bigger variable when there is less money, people that choose convenience/image quality over piracy tend to have good money.
 
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Haven't paid for Netflix in a super-long time. I just piggyback off others accounts. And nobody could possibly guilt-trip me into feeling bad for companies like Netflix...or any movie studio for that matter. I would rather recommend people to not pay for any of this stuff if they can help it.
 
Haven't paid for Netflix in a super-long time. I just piggyback off others accounts. And nobody could possibly guilt-trip me into feeling bad for companies like Netflix...or any movie studio for that matter. I would rather recommend people to not pay for any of this stuff if they can help it.
Look what happened in the 2000s to industry when instead of people directly paying for something it derive into an ads/click bait type model a la Facebook / Twitter / News / youtube type content, the music industry versus the industry that continue to have people pay for like the VideoGames/Movies and the TV series golden age we had during that time.

It is obviously subjective but I think the argument that the paying customer industry gave us way better content than the ads/click bait one during that time is a strong one (while creating much better jobs for the creator as well). "Free" to play mobile games that you cannot pirate vs people pay for them game is a massive example of what I think we should prefer.

For people for which 2 hours of their time is worth it, how/why recommend to waste it on something that is not worth paying anything for ?
 
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I think they've had a string of decent original content over the last 5 years or so, and original content costs money, so it is not surprising.

Still not sure I think it is worth it, but...
 
Usually no they always (in the study I did read) a percentage of them would have, they do not use one purchase by one download in their revenues lost estimate. Specially with movies, has there is a wait for lower price that is an big variable as well.
I saw the lawsuits they bring against people, where every copy of every movie was listed at their full retail value.
And it is not no money (if movies does well at the box office) it is free > paying become a bigger variable when there is less money, people that choose convenience/image quality over piracy tend to have good money.
I specifically said piracy is more convenient, like talking to a literal wall. Pirate sites are more snobbish about the quality than you can imagine. Rivaling groups constantly compete on quality of their releases, not just speed. And releases get nuked for tiny imperfections that 99% of consumidiots wouldn't notice if it quacked at them. They often go out of their way to fix issues present in the original bluray release. They mix and match sources and masters to pair the best possible version of the video with the best possible audio source, and even add back deleted scenes that are missing. Quality and convenience over piracy is an oxymoron.
 
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Does anyone here pay for Netflix and any other streaming service but still download it from usenet/newsgroups or torrents ?

Is it wrong ? Just curious what people think.
 
I saw the lawsuits they bring against people, where every copy of every movie was listed at their full retail value.
Lawsuit starting point (to set example and fear all around) is completely different that what they argue it actually do in their study (or in their leaked internal documents).

I specifically said piracy is more convenient,
Ask you parents if piracy and all the step you took in your life for it to feel like it is convenient, is more convenient than launching the Netflix app from their television interface, the cases where piracy is more convenient are rare and for very few.

Does anyone here pay for Netflix and any other streaming service but still download it from usenet/newsgroups or torrents ?
Yes especially when we had low quality Netflix even at night for "covids" or content on CRAVE canada, the quality is terrible.
 
Lawsuit starting point (to set example and fear all around) is completely different that what they argue it actually do in their study (or in their leaked internal documents).
Which just goes to show that they are blowing hot air. Always playing the victim and always overstating the actual impact of piracy on their bottom line. The fact remains that most pirates wouldn't turn into paying customers overnight if they put an end to piracy. The thing is, they don't have to end piracy, they have to offer a service that is better, and people will pay for it. mp3 sharing didn't die, it has become irrelevant, because of music streaming services that are affordable and more convenient. Music streaming works because they don't have exclusives, they don't try to fragment the market, they don't geolock content, therefore people happily pay for it.

Ask you parents if piracy and all the step you took in your life for it to feel like it is convenient, is more convenient than launching the Netflix app from their television interface, the cases where piracy is more convenient are rare and for very few.
It is more convenient for me, not for the technically illiterate. But the technically illiterate won't pirate either way, so how is this relevant?
 
Does anyone here pay for Netflix and any other streaming service but still download it from usenet/newsgroups or torrents ?
I do.
Is it wrong ? Just curious what people think.
If we started to take a tally of what is "wrong" and "right" I'm pretty sure broadcasters, producers and content providers would come out looking much worse. For example is it wrong, to ask the same price for a service that lacks 90% of the benefits? Or is it wrong to disallow people from looking at certain content based on their geographic location? Is it wrong to assume everyone of your customers have bad intentions? Is it wrong to lock 4K content to certain hardware/software combinations?
 
Does anyone here pay for Netflix and any other streaming service but still download it from usenet/newsgroups or torrents ?

Is it wrong ? Just curious what people think.
Are newsgroups and usernet still a thing? I stop using them ages ago when my iso just blocked them.
 
Anyone using legal movie streaming sites like TUBI and VUDU? Downside is tolerating a few ads. Most ads are pretty short. Content is hit or miss.
I have a VUDU account, have had for years. Used their disc to digital program to convert my physical discs to my digital library on it. When you watch the content you own on VUDU, you don't see ads, that's only with the free with ads list of content, and even then if you own it you don't have to watch the ads.
 
What’s going to push me over the edge for Netflix is them charging an extra $5 a month to get 4K HDR streams. I feel like we are past that point where that should not be available in the normal tier.
 
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