[Vivtek]

But look, this is exactly because Spotify/Amazon/Netflix are responding to reality and providing media at a price point that reflects it.

That's a desired outcome.

[blfr]

Will they keep providing the media like that once the threat from piracy is gone? Even right now most video platforms only offer the lowest quality to people on platforms free from DRM.

I can easily get a 4k h265 video packed in mkv to play on my Linux laptop. I haven't tested lately but a while back Netflix would serve 720p max.

Spotify has been very cool, going as far as delivering a .deb package and Ubuntu repo for their client. However, Rogan podcast doesn't work on Linux because it includes video. Will it before they go exclusive? Maybe, maybe not. I can easily youtube-dl the latest podcast and watch it on Linux.

[kaszanka]

> only offer the lowest quality to people on platforms free from DRM

That's not correct, accessing their content at all still requires running malware like Widevine on your computer even on Linux.

[TeMPOraL]

Not really, because Spotify/Amazon/Netflix aren't giving you media, they only rent it out to you. They can and do retroactively take away access to any piece of content, while keeping the money.

[phjesusthatguy3]

They're not renting media to you, they're selling you an access license to something they may or may not have at any given moment. Literally Nothing-as-a-Service.

[gamblor956]

Note: it's also the industry adapting to reality.

Spotify, Netflix, etc., are possible today because the copyright owners created streaming licenses that recognize that ephemeral access to content is a different use case than downloading. (Streaming licenses are cheap compared to download licenses; my old employer streamed millions of hours of music from the Big 3 labels for a total annual cost of less than $2500.)