this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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Back in the day, before streaming was a thing, there were lots of people saying that they'd gladly pay for content if it was served to them in a convenient way. But why would you pay for a worse experience (at that time physical media, often at lower quality, and lower availability) when you can get a better one for free?
Along came streaming. Lo and behold, piracy decreased. Where the fuck do you even go to pirate music anymore? All the big sites have shut down. Video piracy is kinda still going strong, probably mostly due to bullshit concerning exclusives, but it's way less than it used to be.
Its their platform, they can do whatever they want with it I guess, but this trend is definitely gonna be a big boost to piracy.
Did video piracy ever really falter?
Even semi popular movies and shows are always available in a range of qualities, going up to extremely high quality if you get on a private tracker.
Rarbg shutting down was the biggest hit imo, but still lots of options.
It never went away but lots of people I know who did all that stopped bothering.
When the range in netflix went down, fees went up and everybody launched different services, I was really thinking of sailing but it was Netflix blocking sharing that was the final straw.
I've noticed over the last few years that you can always find new releases but "old" material is increasingly unavailable. .
Want the new super hero movie that released last week? Easy.
Want 1984's "The Last Starfighter"? Good luck....
Content has always been available, but the number of people pirating decreased. It's now having a resurgence.
It wasn't just people saying that, it was backed up by studies.
Music piracy just kinda gets ripped from official sources. Be it Spotify with an Adblock script, or downloading the song from YouTube.
If you want super high quality stuff, you can find groups dedicated to it. But for most users, just modding streaming services to give them what they want for free is enough.