
As Streaming Costs Rise, Torrenting Makes an Unlikely Comeback - paulpauper
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/joker-movie-download-torrent-free-pirate-bay
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pwg
The conclusion here in this article should come as no surprise.

As has often been pointed out by sites such as TorrentFreak, the one aspect
that paid content has an advantage over pirating is the convenience factor.
There is a huge convenience factor in the flow of "open Netflix" -> "search
for movie/show by title" -> "start watching".

And, as the world has witnessed over the last few years, many individuals are
indeed willing to pay some amount of money greater than zero to achieve that
"convenience factor".

But, the balkanization of streaming content into separate, non-cooperating,
silos is causing both the cost to increase while simultaneously causing the
convenience to decrease. For the decrease in convenience, compare the flow
above to the new flow: search for title in Netfix, find it is not there,
switch to Amazon Prime Video, search, find it is not there, switch to CBS All
Access, search, find it is not there, switch to Hulu, search, find it is not
there, until one finally finds it in new service X, which itself wants an
additional $10/month on top of the $10 per month that all the prior searched
services also want.

So, less continence (can't just find it as easily anymore) and more costly
(have to pay for 5 or 7 or 10 separate services).

What the streaming market is discovering is that there is an upper limit to
how much viewers will pay for convenience, while the streaming services are
simultaneously reducing the convenience factor (the one factor where they do
have an edge over the pirating method).

Therefore it is not surprising that pirating might take an uptick. With
pirating the user gets to go to a single search system, perform a single
search, look through and select one of several results, and wait a few minutes
for the content to download.

Pirating always had the advantage on cost, now the balkanized streaming
services are slowly handing over the convenience factor to pirating once again
as well.

~~~
krustyburger
Convenience is not the only advantage that streaming services have over
torrenting.

As quaint as it may seem, there are still those who prefer to support the
creators of their favorite programming by paying for the content’s production.
The satisfaction they gain by having legitimate access to the shows and movies
they watch is not something that streaming offers.

~~~
krustyburger
I meant torrenting instead of streaming in the last sentence.

It’s times like this I wish we could edit our comments for more than a few
minutes after hitting the reply button.

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AcerbicZero
If someone hasn't come up with a Laffer curve type concept for
Streaming/Torrenting already, I'd be amazed.

If you take all the "costs" associated with piracy (legal, accessibility,
quality, etc, etc) and compare those to the "costs" of acquiring the content
via streaming services, I suspect it would be pretty obvious where the lines
cross.

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scld
As always, the only true cost is opportunity cost.

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MaupitiBlue
Who knew it ever stopped being a thing?

