Quote:
Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube
Bragging about pirating stuff is always kind of a weird flex, yet everyone who does it wants to tell everyone they know.
Like yeah, "stealing" is a way to get literally anything for free, who knew?
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I'll agree with you here
only where music is concerned. I used Napster, KaZaa, Limewire, torrents, etc. for MP3s when I was younger; of course I did, I was a broke-ass minor, I didn't even have a job. Once I started making a proper income, I signed up for a streaming music subscription and stopped pirating songs. They made it convenient, they had no idiotic rules that prevented me from listening to the music that they insisted they offered, and as long as I had an internet / data connection, I could play what I want when I wanted as much as I wanted for a reasonable sum of money. That lives on today.
The music industry figured out how to encourage people to acquire content legally; make it easy, make it affordable, and if you're going to have to play by stupid and convoluted rules about how you access what, where... then make sure it isn't obvious to the end-user. I'm sure there is content on Spotify I could listen to stateside that users in Canada aren't permitted to stream and vice-versa. But I couldn't tell you what.
It's the same way I started paying for software. Steam? Jesus, how many games do I own --
games I've paid for -- that I've
never played? XBL discounts, Xbox Game Pass discounts on purchases, Humble Bundle.... Give users a convenient, reasonable, and cost-effective option for acquiring useful applications and games, and they'll give you their money.
Video? F-ck no. [Rant=on] Content licensing with stupid-ass regional restrictions that are
overtly thrown in the face of end-users and greedy streaming platforms (Netflix is raising their prices AGAIN by the way) have somehow managed to make cable an unpalatable solution while also turning legit avenues for cord-cutting from attractive alternatives to cable...
into cable (or at least cable providers' VoD with ads or stupid restrictions all over again).
I was out with the girlfriend for a bite to eat the other night and TSN had a game on. After the game, it was about to show the next game only to present all the patrons in the restaurant with "The scheduled programming is not available in your area" blah blah blah. If that happens at home and I am paying $100 for the privilege of subscribing to your broadcast service, I will rightfully be pissed off -- I really don't care whose fault it is -- and it is sh-t like that which is why I cancelled cable and all my streaming services in exchange for grey market Plex-share subscriptions and sailing the high seas for sports streaming (for what little I partake, anyway).
If I pay a handsome sum for a service that is meant to provide entertainment programming and someone starts telling me I only get to watch it if I'm in PEI or some f-cking place, then remind me again what I'm paying for. No question this exists in music streaming too but it's handled transparent to the user; don't give me the option to view only to say "no, f-ck you" if I have no legal way to procure the content through your sh-tty service. [Rant=off]