[kaba0]

Why would it be an entitled viewpoint? He/she wants to watch a series on a service he/she pays for. It is entirely reasonable to expect said service to continue to serve previously available content - it was of course a legal way of operation that the owner didn’t extend their license and that Netflix removed episodes. But gp has every right to be upset that netflix due to any reason didn’t live up to expectations.

[johnchristopher]

Netflix is a rental platform. Like the old DVD and VHS rental shops. And regularly some content gets pull off the shelves because they don't have the licensing fees. It's a pretty well known fact some movies and TV shows come and go on Netflix.

And for what ? Pirating "culture" that is not available on Netflix ? Star Trek Voyager ? I am huge Trek fan but come on.

This is entertainment we are talking about.

> He/she wants to watch a series on a service he/she pays for.

It's like complaining a vegan restaurant doesn't serve meat.

Netflix has very few of the shows, movies and documentaries I can watch on ARTe. Do people complain that ARTe doesn't stream every Netflix shows and vice versa ?

There are a lot of comments on HN when this topic comes up that feel like people want their cake and eat it too "or else I'll just pirate, there's a gun to my head, they give me no choice".

[ClumsyPilot]

> "It's like complaining a vegan restaurant doesn't serve meat."

No, it's like complaining that a chain of restaurant randomly takes dishes off the menu, and it's different in every country. Eventually you get fed up with unpredictable menu and stop going there.

[johnchristopher]

> No, it's like complaining that a chain of restaurant randomly takes dishes off the menu, and it's different in every country.

Which is still ridiculous. Even McDonald's don't have the same menu everywhere.

All restaurants I know have dishes that are taken off (because if's off season, because a new chef, because they try something else, etc.).

Plus, the analogy is distorted, you can't complain about a different menu in another country, it's not like you can hop from countries to countries 20 times per evening to get your Mc Bulgogi Burger.

> Eventually you get fed up with unpredictable menu and stop going there.

Good, that's what competition is about between services.

[nextlevelwizard]

The food analogy is shitty because you know what I do when McDonalds takes burgers off of their menu? I go to the grill next door to get my burger.

With movies/shows the problem is that there is no alternative. If I want to watch Startrek I can't just put on the Simpsons as an alternative and if I've purchaced a streaming service explicitly because of Startrek then I'm going to feel like I was cheated.

You can argue until heat death of the universe whose fault it is, but in the mean time if there is no way of legaly watching the content piracy is the only way. (and importing expensive DVDs in an erra where literally none of my devices have optical bays is not actual option)

[johnchristopher]

> The food analogy is shitty because you know what I do when McDonalds takes burgers off of their menu? I go to the grill next door to get my burger.

You don't pull a tantrum on an Internet forum about how you are now forced to hire an anon crew to get into a McDonald's warehouse to get your Mac Something ? Indeed you just go to another service provider to see if they have the Mac Something or something else to satisfy your palates. (sorry I kept the food analogy going).

> and if I've purchaced a streaming service explicitly because of Startrek then I'm going to feel like I was cheated.

Read the lines on the contract. No one is cheated. Especially for the price you are paying by the way. Netflix is still a rental service. (fun fact: Netflix doesn't even have full international rights on its own productions, see: orange is the new black, arrested development).

> You can argue until heat death of the universe whose fault it is, but in the mean time if there is no way of legaly watching the content piracy is the only way.

I will argue until heat death that SG1 content owners are not forcing people to pirate their content. It's just hard cold facts. You may not like it because you feel like you are entitled to it or that it doesn't matter much that no one gets hurt or it's stupid or whatever, that's not really the point. The point is that they are not forcing you. It's on you when you decide to go torrent hunting, launch a DCC+, get popcorn, whatever.

> if there is no way of legaly watching the content piracy is the only way

Doesn't mean you are entitled to it or that you are forced to do it. No one is forcing you to pirate SG1 or Star Trek Voyager. It's entirely on you, own up your actions.

I am not saying you should or shouldn't, I am not questioning the morality of it. All I am saying is "nobody forced you".

> (and importing expensive DVDs in an erra where literally none of my devices have optical bays is not actual option)

Again, that's on you. Not content owner's fault that you don't have a DVD player.

Now let's take a step forward. Imagine you pirated off those SG1 episodes. But then you get a letter from copyright holders and a fine from whatever judicial instances in your country manages these kind of things.

You don't want to pay the fine, you go to courts.

Do you believe for an instant arguments like "I pirated those episodes because they were not available anymore on Netflix, they basically forced my hand ; promised, once they are back up I'll subscribe again to Netflix" will fly ?

[ClumsyPilot]

"Especially for the price you are paying by the way."

Customer - Sir, there is cow shit in my burger instead of meat

Chef - you should be happy for the price!

Its their job to set the price, and they dont offer a premium subscribtion for $50 or whatever. I don't want a burger with shit even if it's free.

"Read the lines on the contract. No one is cheated."

Thats a really bad argument, any lawyer can write a ccontract that will let you cheat or scam laymen. In UK we have been selling apartments with 'ground rent' fees that grow exponentially, pyramid schemes have contracts, people pressed into debt bondage have contracts.

[dmitriid]

> Which is still ridiculous. Even McDonald's don't have the same menu everywhere.

That's why analogies never work.

Here, it's simple:

- that person is already paying Netflix, legally

- SG1 was available on Netflix, so the money was going to whoever owns the right to SG1, too

- Then SG1 was not made available (for whichever reason, in 99% of the cases blame the rights owner, and you'll be right)

So now the rights owner earns exactly zero dollars for SG1 from people who are paying for Netflix.

If those people chose to pirate SG1, literally nothing in the equation will change: the owners will keep not getting the money.

And the only fault lies with the people who decided to pull SG1 (and other content) from Netflix.

[dylan604]

>So now the rights owner earns exactly zero dollars for SG1 from people who are paying for Netflix.

That's not how it works. Netflix pays the licensing fees to the content owners, and then hope to recover that money from subscribers. Maybe there's a clause that says they get extra money based on number of viewers, but very doubtful for some catalog title. The fees have to be paid upfront, and it's not a monthly pay as you go where if you miss a payment you get the license reposessed.

[johnchristopher]

> If those people chose to pirate SG1, literally nothing in the equation will change: the owners will keep not getting the money.

Wrong. The owners won't get money from people who pirated content once they make their content available again.

> And the only fault lies with the people who decided to pull SG1 (and other content) from Netflix.

No. The only people responsible for pirating SG1 are the pirates. The owners of SG1 don't owe anything to Netflix viewers and they certainly didn't force the hands of anybody to pirate their content.

[dmitriid]

> The owners won't get money from people who pirated content once they make their content available again.

1. Their own fault

2. It has been proven, time and again, that piracy goes down, significantly, once content is available.

So they will get their money even from people who pirated this content previously. Why? Because it's much easier to just pay Netflix and watch or re-watch.

> The only people responsible for pirating SG1 are the pirates. The owners of SG1 don't owe anything to Netflix viewers and they certainly didn't force the hands of anybody to pirate their content.

Ah yes. The poor owners who didn't anything at all and now are suffering. Except they did: they made their own content unavailable.

The person was willingly giving them money, legally. The owners made their content unavailable. Guess they didn't want money after all.

Edit. Oatmeal's evergreen take on this: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

[kaba0]

> All restaurants I know have dishes that are taken off (because if's off season, because a new chef, because they try something else, etc.).

And it is perfectly okay to not spend money at that restaurant in the future when your favorite dish disappears.

Except that the analogy breaks down since it is a subscription model, where you are not really “constantly evaluate” whether this other month is worth it.

[johnchristopher]

Of course the analogy is weak (like all analogies), especially if you believe its purpose is to represent the whole of the Netflix responsibilities, flaws and success.

Doesn't mean you are entitled or forced by the content owners to pirate content that is not available on streaming platforms.

Netflix deals in TV shows and movies, not in access to drinking water.

[etripe]

> Good, that's what competition is about between services.

Except the competition isn't between services but between streaming services and local TV channels. It's between artificially maintained "content regions" that have no basis in technological reality. The choice to host content isn't up to consumers. The period of availability is hardly ever displayed. There are platform and operating system constraints.

Finally, the pricing model doesn't allow you to say you want to watch one series and that's it, either - you'd have to sign up for a month of services, a cable package, etc. In fact, it can't reflect the price of individual content at all given that everything is a package.

You have the right to disagree, but calling a dissenting opinion ridiculous is uncalled for, given that there are actual service and distribution failings in the sector.

[TeMPOraL]

> Which is still ridiculous. Even McDonald's don't have the same menu everywhere.

Except they mostly have. That's one of their huge selling points: wherever you go in the world, whatever weird cuisine they have going on there, if you can find a McDonald's, you can feel comfort in knowing you have a fallback - a place where you can find good food you already know.

[johnchristopher]

> > Which is still ridiculous. Even McDonald's don't have the same menu everywhere.

> Except they mostly have.

Which means they don't

So my point still stands.

You know, the point.

The one I made to demonstrate that even McDonald's don't have the same menu everywhere. Despite one of their huge selling points: wherever you go in the world, whatever weird cuisine they have going on there, if you can find a McDonald's, you can feel comfort in knowing you have a fallback - a place where you can find good food you already know.

[dylan604]

> But gp has every right to be upset that netflix due to any reason didn’t live up to expectations.

Those expectations are unrealistic, and quite frankly entitled. When did Netflix ever state that any content available now will be available for ever? It's the nature of the business that content is only made available for a set amount of time. What does complaining about it on the internet expect to do anyways?

[ClumsyPilot]

"Those expectations ... entitled."

He is the customer, Netflix is asking for his money

[abnry]

Right, he's the customer, but he violates the customer-supplier social contract by pirating.

[ClumsyPilot]

Well my grandma doesn't, and Netflix doesn't let her watch SG1 either, so how is this relevant?

[sillysaurusx]

What's wrong with being entitled?

We're entitled to our entertainment. If we don't get it, we torrent it.

[abnry]

You are not entitled to entertainment. If there is literally anything as petulant and first-world narcissistic it is the belief that one is entitled to entertainment.

[sillysaurusx]

But... we are, because we can pirate it if it's not available to us.

I suppose "entitled" isn't the correct word. Is there a word for "That's just the way it is"?

Basically, there exists a way to acquire entertainment. It's up to businesses to provide that entertainment to us at a reasonable market value. If the market value exceeds the threshold of reasonableness, then we downshift into torrenting the entertainment.

It's a business opportunity. The music industry learned this in 2008 or so.

[dylan604]

>"That's just the way it is"?

How many sins of the past have used that as an excuse? It's just a very immature way of looking at life.

>It's up to businesses to provide that entertainment to us

And that doesn't sound entitled??? Wow. Not that we are lucky for someone providing us entertainment (within the confines of how they choose to share it)?

>The music industry learned this in 2008 or so.

Did they though? Really learned it? Seems like they got what the wanted where nobody actually owns anything and is only able to rent the content from them.

[sillysaurusx]

It’s an interesting question. I think I’ll meet you halfway and debate it.

The central question here seems to be ethics. Is it moral to download entertainment when someone doesn’t want you to?

My view is, nobody is harmed. You could argue that there was financial harm to the original show — in this case, Stargate SG-1. But I would say they’ve failed to give us a way to reasonably enjoy the show, when the best alternative is to simply torrent it.

Suppose the show was made available for $2,000. Would you still argue that it’s wrong to torrent it?

If so, we’ll have to agree to disagree; my view is that if nobody is harmed, then it’s usually fine.

If not, then there exists a price threshold beyond which it would become unreasonable to expect someone to pay. The person you were replying to was saying that they felt the show crossed that threshold.

[sbuk]

When they signed up for said service, was there an implicit agreement in place that said they would show whatever show he/she wanted, when they wanted? While I agree that the GP has the right to be upset that their expectations weren’t met, it doesn’t make the unreasonable expectations right. I’d argue that Netflix, or whoever, not carrying a show or file for whatever reason, save them explicitly stating that they would do and failing to do so, is unreasonable.

That would be, to me, entitled.

[lloydatkinson]

Did I ever say that I expected them to show X whenever I wanted? No, I simply eaid "for no reason". If I was entitled I'd have said "I demand to watch it".

Stop being an idiot.

[kaba0]

It frankly, doesn’t really matter whether it is a reasonable or an “entitled” reason a customer is upset. What matters is he/she is not happy with a service and thus will terminate his subscription.

[sbuk]

That's how commerce works...

[lloydatkinson]

It's tragically my experience of HN - someone posts an interesting fact or discusses something they've done and someone comes up and picks up the smallest irrelevant detail to argue about.