Yeah, I don’t think piracy ever came close to dying. It definitely slowed down for a small time when Netflix was the only real player in the streaming space, as a lot of pirates didn’t actually mind paying for a service as long as it worked and had content. For those people, piracy was a service issue, not a cost issue.
Now that Netflix doesn’t have anything to watch and the content is spread across dozens of networks (again), piracy is back on the menu for that specific demographic. But there will always be a demo that will pirate no matter what, be it principles or be it cost.
Yeah I’ve been on and off dabbling in downloads for probably a solid 20 years now and it never really “died”. I frequently download things like games to avoid dropping £40+ on something that might be completely worthless before I’ll throw money at it. And I know steam refunds are pretty good now but they’re not perfect and anything out of steam isn’t affected by them. Hell my most played steam game, rimworld, I initially pirated and dropped before trying again later on and buying. I’m happy to pay for things like streaming services if they actually provide something I want and I don’t have to navigate the bs. If they can’t sort out licensing then that’s not really a me problem, it’s a them problem. After Netflix started price hikes and screwing around with recommendations I dropped it.
Also it’s unlikely it actually almost died
Yeah, I don’t think piracy ever came close to dying. It definitely slowed down for a small time when Netflix was the only real player in the streaming space, as a lot of pirates didn’t actually mind paying for a service as long as it worked and had content. For those people, piracy was a service issue, not a cost issue.
Now that Netflix doesn’t have anything to watch and the content is spread across dozens of networks (again), piracy is back on the menu for that specific demographic. But there will always be a demo that will pirate no matter what, be it principles or be it cost.
Yeah I’ve been on and off dabbling in downloads for probably a solid 20 years now and it never really “died”. I frequently download things like games to avoid dropping £40+ on something that might be completely worthless before I’ll throw money at it. And I know steam refunds are pretty good now but they’re not perfect and anything out of steam isn’t affected by them. Hell my most played steam game, rimworld, I initially pirated and dropped before trying again later on and buying. I’m happy to pay for things like streaming services if they actually provide something I want and I don’t have to navigate the bs. If they can’t sort out licensing then that’s not really a me problem, it’s a them problem. After Netflix started price hikes and screwing around with recommendations I dropped it.
I never stopped, OG Captain from Napster and long time NZB gang.
Dial-up BBS’es in my case. I ran a few too.
kids these days won’t know the joys of running a pirate bbs out of an abandoned subway stations connection box
Sounds adventurous. Wanna rell me more? :)
Sounds like something I would’ve read about like 20 years ago in 2600 magazine.
FREE KEVIN
It was truly wild to meet him briefly at Defcon after years of seeing “FREE KEVIN” and such.
me pirating everything for the last ten years
“it almost died?! On my watch!?”