[rhino369]

I bet the amount of pirating of Netflix content is up since password sharing is being clamped down on—not that Netflix cares. If an unpaid user falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, did it make a sound?

But I can’t help but feel that 90% of the “back to the high seas” comments on Reddit or social media discussions of streaming is just pirates justifying the piracy they were already committing.

Pirates love having some moral justification. Shit, they should just admit they prefer getting something without paying for it.

[wkat4242]

Netflix used to advertise sharing your account with family and friends even those outside of the family. At least here in Holland they did. Clearly that made it ok and not piracy.

But since they clamped down I'm pirating again. Until then there was no need.

[harry_ord]

I think those tweets may still be up on a few of their twitter accounts

[Mindwipe]

No, they didn't.

[jjulius]

This is just what I could find with a quick, cursory Google search...

>In a March 10, 2017, Twitter thread that was promoting its original series Love, Netflix wrote, "Love is sharing a password." The single tweet in the thread garnered more than 15,000 likes and more than 4,600 retweets.[0]

>Netflix CEO Says Account Sharing Is OK[1]

[0] https://www.newsweek.com/netflix-encouraged-subscribers-shar...

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/11/netflix-ceo-says-account-s...

[jachriga]

> “We love people sharing Netflix whether they’re two people on a couch or 10 people on a couch,,” Hastings said. “That’s a positive thing, not a negative thing.”

> To illustrate this example, he spoke of how a parent may share their login with their child. And when that child grows up, they will usually subscribe to Netflix, too.

> “As kids move on in their life, they like to have control of their life, and as they have an income, we see them separately subscribe,” Hastings told reporters at CES. “It really hasn’t been a problem.”

> While Hastings didn’t directly address how he feels about non-family members sharing their credentials – such as in the case where friends or roommates may split an account

From [1], at least, it doesn't appear that he ever intended password-sharing among multiple households to be a thing?

Even in [0] (which I would consider a poor reference since it's about the crackdown and therefore starts out trying to prove a point...), I think there is a fairly reasonable interpretation of "Love is sharing a password" that doesn't include 3+ households sharing an account.

[chiggsy]

>Pirates love having some moral justification.

Quellism is fictional, but that does not make it invalid.

>the personal, as everyone’s so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here – it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide from under it with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way, you stand a better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference - the only difference in their eyes - between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life and that it’s nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal.

--Quellcrist Falconer.

NOTE: "Make it personal" but this is business not war. Kinda feel I need to clarify that last line.

[mcv]

I've always been really happy with Netflix. I was still happy with Disney+. But now I'm also paying for Amazon Prime. And then some of the things I want to see are on something called Paramount+, and I don't even know where to get that.

A single, cheap streaming platform is awesome. Fragmented streaming platforms that raise their prices while offering less content, is significantly less awesome.

Maybe I should cancel every subscription every time I'm done watching a show and only subscribe to a single streamer whose show I'm actually watching right now. They'd get a lot less money out of me that way.

[yieldcrv]

I just cancelled Amazon Prime completely.

Just found out you dont even need it for Amazon Video anymore, and most of the good stuff you had to pay for there anyway.

For deliveries it was always barely worth it for me with prime same/one/two day free shipping being novel 10 years ago, but always hard to quantify how much I used it and the speed has gotten worse and worse, with Amazon Video being the extra thing to keep it just interesting enough.

For the low volume I order I’m often on a retailer’s website. Same day delivery is just gone in my area, and actually Uber and Doordash will just go straight to retail stores for you and its actually 20 minute delivery. They have subscriptions too that reduce some fees.

And if I’m not saving money while using something more convenient, then Amazon Prime time to go! Thanks for the last decade, obsolete this decade.

[mcv]

I don't need it for Amazon Video? Are you sure? Then what am I paying for? I certainly don't intend to ever buy anything from Amazon, they just have a handful of really good shows.

I'll try cancelling it and see what happens.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

Just a warning for what it’s worth: I have heard of some heinous dark patterns with cancelling Amazon Prime. (This thread is reminding me to do that myself.) I would be skeptical of any “Success!” messages until I’ve crossed several layers of “are you really super duper sure with a cherry on top?”-hell. And even then... probably wanna double-check.

[godzillabrennus]

I think with price hikes and tools like Plex / Jellyfin making it easier to create your own streaming service for content you want the social media posts are accurately representing a shift of consumers back to piracy.

[yieldcrv]

Moral justification: it’s never been on the consumer to know if a distributor has a license. We dont know if Walmart has a license to every media we bought there, we dont know if Netflix really has a license to every media we watched there, we dont know if the seeder on a torrent site has a license either. There is nothing preventing Walmart or Netflix from distributing via bittorrent as seeders either.

Not our problem, never was.

Turn off upload if you don’t have a license, enjoy.

[rhino369]

You do know the seeders on BitTorrent don’t have a license though.

Just admit you don’t care about pirating from a major company. You don’t have to lie to yourself to concoct a moral justification.

[yard2010]

Justifications or not, when I can't easily pay for something and get it, I will torrent it. The ball is in their court like ever. The tao of piracy

[dfxm12]

How easy is easily? It seems like you would either be able to buy something or not...

[rixthefox]

The problem is these studios don't seem to get or understand that nobody likes the subscription model. Nobody likes to feel like they spend thousands of dollars a year to essentially own nothing.

When you bought a DVD in the past it was incredibly easy for you to take that DVD and as long as you have a DVD player you can rewatch that movie over and over again without having to pay another dime for the privilege to do so. Now you have to contend with licenses expiring and a show you wanted to watch on Netflix (for example) is now no longer available because people at the C-level can't stop being greedy and pushing for more and more money.

Edit: Not to say the subscription model is completely wrong. It's actually a very compelling model, pay once each month for access to an entire catalogue of movies and TV shows is amazing. It's just really frustrating to watch streaming platforms hemorrhage content as the original media owners look towards higher licensing fees or even consider standing up their own streaming service, making yet another streaming service you have to pay for to access content.

[dfxm12]

You can buy a DVD today still, also, even if you're talking about something that is streaming only, buying a subscription to a service is easy. If you don't think there's enough value in it, that's a different conversation.

[Izkata]

Can't play a DVD on a phone/tablet though. Unless you want to rip it, and that's way more difficult/time consuming than a torrent.

[dfxm12]

Setting aside that some physical media does come with a digital download/digital code/whatever, or that you can just purchase digital media direct, or that you can just use use a streaming service on your phone/tablet, if you look at the top of this thread, we're talking about "moral justification" for piracy.

You're not suggesting that the small hurdle required to clear before you can watch a DVD specifically your phone or tablet justifies piracy beyond you just not wanting to pay for it, are you? If so, you're making OP's point...

Also, using handbrake is not "way more difficult/time consuming than a torrent", come on.

[WarOnPrivacy]

> I bet the amount of pirating of Netflix content is up since password sharing is being clamped down on

I pay for Netflix and Prime but typically stream their content on pirate sites - because pirate sites at least try to deliver a good experience.

[Yeul]

This is not entirely true. There are services that provide pirated TV and streaming for a subscription.

https://tweakers.net/nieuws/150656/europese-politiekorpsen-r...

Remember there was a time when criminals made lots of money selling bootleg DVDs and CDs. Obviously those buyers had money.

[namlem]

Pirating was annoying and I was happy to sign up for streaming services, but I just canceled my Hulu due to the price increases. Fortunately I haven't been kicked off my parents' Netflix yet haha. Not that there are any good shows on there anymore.

[worthless-trash]

This nails the streaming value proposition, it has to be cheap enough and less annoying than pirating.

Since your parents are paying for your netflix you have a tilted/unbalanced view of the 'cost' to you of piracy.

[jncfhnb]

Why is pirating annoying?

[mcv]

More work than just opening your app. At least as long as you need just that single app. The ease of streaming disappears quickly when you need 4 different apps need to keep track of which show is where.

[jncfhnb]

I don’t follow. Why is going to Netflix more cumbersome than going to SFlix?

[mcv]

Netflix is easy. Netflix+Disney+Amazon+more is cumbersome.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Peacock, et al. or SFlix.