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The era of cheap streaming is officially over (www.cnn.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.ml
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[–] 330 points 3 years ago (5 children)

Pirating went down when paying for streaming was more convenient. Well, you are making it far less convenient.

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  • [–] 105 points 3 years ago (10 children)

    Streaming has become cable 2.0.

    It was wonderful when everything was on one, maybe two providers. Could watch everything in a very easy, very affordable way.

    But everyone saw that, went "I know, I want that money!" and spent billions building their own individual infrastructures so make their own streaming services, and right around we go right back to the absolute worst days of cable and bullshit.

    Only thing stopping me from saying fuck it and downloading shit I want to watch, is the fact that I no longer know what the good sites are.. since I havent pirated since the heyday of the bay.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    And the irony is that people switched to cable for the exact same reason. They got tired of the nonsense that broadcast TV pulled with subscriptions for different channels and all the ads and everything, and went to cable because you paid one bill for every channel. Then, everyone moved to streaming because you had to buy 50 different cable packages for the one channel on each you actually cared about, and there were just too many ads to deal with, etc.

    Something something, those who don't listen to history are doomed to lose profit margins or whatever.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Broadcast tv had different subscriptions for channels? Where? Free to air tv is free with no subscriptions or options.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    I may be remembering that wrong, as it was before my time, but I had heard that people moved to cable for the same reasons that people moved from cable to streaming services. You bought one cable package, it gave you access to everything, and there were no ads. Then came the ads, and eventually, the packages you have to buy in addition to your cable subscription for the channels you actually care about.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    People went to cable because it had no ads and let you have the opportunity to watch stuff you’d missed because they looped content regularly. Missed an episode of the Simpsons? All good, it’s on again in 12 hours. It also has movies and shows long before free to air because they paid for it. Cable was the start of subscriptions and paying for individual channels.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    That and movies just suck nowadays. This is partially old man yelling at cloud stuff but also true since the death of DVD's means studios won't take risks anymore since they can't recoup funds after a poor box office.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    This isn't yelling at clouds, it's check l correct.

    It's also not quite so much "recoup funds at a poor box office" as it was "count on DVD sales to make up fifty percent of revenue for certain kinds of movies."

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    On the usenet side of the house, I think the only big change was NZB Matrix going away.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    I can't tell if no one talks about usenet because no one knows about it or because they don't want anyone else to know about it.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I prefer torrents because it's totally free, unlike Usenet. I don't even pay for a VPN since I don't care about a few love letters in my inbox. It's not about the cost; it's a matter of principle that I disagree with commercialized piracy.

    But Usenet is a good option for other reasons.

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  • [–] 16 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    Well, this time they have Google and Microsoft on big brother duty to make sure you don't get crazy ideas. And I'm not seeing enough people jumping away from Chrome and Windows to stop it.

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  • [–] 33 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I'm on Windows and it's never hindered me when I needed to go download something that would make a studio exec cry. Granted, I use Firefox, but I'm not sure what Chrome would do differently - it's just a matter of clicking links that get sent off to qBittorrent to handle. What "big brothering" do they do?

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  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago

    But so far google and microsoft are incompetent big brothers, to the point that most people will find free streaming sites just by searching "free streaming epx of show". Now we are not talking good streaming, or even safe but if you want an example just look at any place with poor users (like a school or library).

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