The Rise of Netflix Competitors Has Pushed Consumers Back Toward Piracy (vice.com) 184
A new study from network equipment company Sandvine finds that BitTorrent usage and piracy is increasing after years of declines. The reason appears to be due to "an increase in exclusivity deals that force subscribers to hunt and peck among a myriad of streaming services to actually find the content they're looking for," reports Motherboard. From the report: Sandvine's new Global Internet Phenomena report offers some interesting insight into user video habits and the internet, such as the fact that more than 50 percent of internet traffic is now encrypted, video now accounts for 58 percent of all global traffic, and Netflix alone now comprises 15 percent of all internet downstream data consumed. But there's another interesting tidbit buried in the firm's report: after years of steady decline, BitTorrent usage is once again growing.
According to Sandvine, file-sharing accounts for 3 percent of global downstream and 22 percent of upstream traffic, with 97% of that traffic in turn being BitTorrent. While BitTorrent is often used to distribute ordinary files, it remains the choice du jour for those looking to distribute and trade copyrighted content online, made easier via media PCs running Kodi and select plugins. Back in 2011, Sandvine stated that BitTorrent accounted for 52.01% of upstream traffic on fixed broadband networks in North America. By 2015, BitTorrent's share of upstream traffic on these networks had dipped to 26.83 percent, largely thanks to the rise in quality, inexpensive streaming alternatives to piracy. But Sandvine notes that trend is now reversing slightly, with BitTorrent's traffic share once again growing worldwide. That's especially true in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa, where BitTorrent now accounts for 32% of all upstream network traffic.
According to Sandvine, file-sharing accounts for 3 percent of global downstream and 22 percent of upstream traffic, with 97% of that traffic in turn being BitTorrent. While BitTorrent is often used to distribute ordinary files, it remains the choice du jour for those looking to distribute and trade copyrighted content online, made easier via media PCs running Kodi and select plugins. Back in 2011, Sandvine stated that BitTorrent accounted for 52.01% of upstream traffic on fixed broadband networks in North America. By 2015, BitTorrent's share of upstream traffic on these networks had dipped to 26.83 percent, largely thanks to the rise in quality, inexpensive streaming alternatives to piracy. But Sandvine notes that trend is now reversing slightly, with BitTorrent's traffic share once again growing worldwide. That's especially true in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa, where BitTorrent now accounts for 32% of all upstream network traffic.
Ads don't help (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ads don't help (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to watch something calm like Mr. Rogers or Reading Rainbow with my son is frustrating on Prime when they stick a radioactive ad for their latest neon-colored jump-cut scream-fest abomination in front of it. I don't even understand - they're literally advertising things which I could watch on their service for free but am obviously choosing not to. Instead of getting ready to sing with Mr. Rogers or read with LeVar my son is changing his mind and wanting to whatever whatever the hell that was that I skipped as quickly as possible.
Now I pirate things I could watch with a service I pay for.
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Have you ever tried to cancel Amazon Prime? First you have to google the cancellation page because you sure as hell can't find it on their site, and then you have to click "yes, I want to cancel and give up all my benefits" about 15 times before it actually does it.
The ads are just another way to convince you not to cancel by reminding you of stuff that their UI is too crap to help you discover.
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Thank you for warning me off. I was rather tempted by the Prime thing because of Jack Ryan, though I don't buy enough through Amazon to make it worthwhile otherwise. Combining TV shows with free delivery is certainly a bizarre, counterintuitive bundling, but it might have worked.
I guess I'll have to do without. Or look up this "piracy" stuff of which you speak.
Mostly, though, I've just been discovering all the TV I missed over many years that is now in box sets at my library. When it's easy for me to b
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It's worse than that, I logged onto Amazon Instant Video to find something to watch the other day and a big banner was at the top with a new show that looked interesting.
I clicked it, and it said something like "Boost your Prime Subscription with a Starz Subscription for £4.99 a month".
Like seriously? I'm expected to pay for a subscription in my subscription to get any meaningful content given that Prime Instant Video became a wasteland after they blew their entire budget for 5 years on Top Gear
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It doesn't help when they put ads on the service. Amazon Prime Video has started randomly putting ads between show which is annoying but they also have copied what older ads used to do which is pump of the volume for ad which is really annoying.
It's not just streaming services. Here in the UK, most sports coverage is now on one of a number of competing subscription-based broadcast channels. Even though you are paying a subscription, they still show ads at every opportunity. Basically, there are just too many channels chasing too few viewers. Hence they monetize the content any way they can.
Bundles (Score:2)
it's like there needs to be some company like comcast that could sell you al the channels for one price.
Re:Bundles (Score:5, Insightful)
The irony of it all is cable companies exactly fit the bill for this, except they basically worked themselves out of their own market by abusing customers and refusing to give them what they actually wanted. It's doubly so since most (nearly all?) cable TV is now an on-demand stream anyhow. Even 'normal' channels are still an IP video stream, just without the ability to select a start point.
I wonder if cable 2.0 will come and be an aggregator of streaming services. I hope not, since cable companies are still utter scum.
Some streaming services are getting smarter and allowing an offline mode. THAT will drive down piracy if it's robust enough. Well, that and ending this idiocy of exclusive movies and all. It's one thing if you (netflix, amazon, etc.) make your own shows that only you host...but playing that game with movies? Broadcast TV shows? Yah...cut that shit out.
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Some streaming services are getting smarter and allowing an offline mode.
Absolute requirement for me. Until last year (and possible again in the future) a good portion of my video watching was done on trains or airplanes.
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Same.
Plenty of time flying or on trains (and elsewhere) that service is spotty or not available. Also, there's lots of people with data caps (phone or broadband) who simply don't want to use the artificially high-priced data for streaming video when they can just download it once.
Plus I can take a USB drive full of movies and watch them on basically anything.
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Since moving to switched digital video in order to free up channel bandwidth for internet service, some providers actually have been allowing "start when you want" functionality because it's not a direct repeater feed from a satellite anymore.
They still charge outrageous fees for basic service and have the most horrid hardware known to man with absurd specs and awful user experience though, so SDV solved none of that.
Re:Bundles (Score:5, Interesting)
When they finally installed FIOS in my neighborhood, they door to door salespeople were greeted as heroes. We invited them in and made them tea or something. We gave them cookies. We signed up with whatever the hell they were selling. Neighbors made offerings of their first born.
Don't get me wrong, Verizon sucks. But holy hell, Comcast is even worse. They are so bad that we were happy to do business with Verizon.
Re: Bundles (Score:3)
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Their customer service is awful, as is their automated calling to schedule thing.
But it's still better than Comcast. My personal favorites are:
1. Anyone can add services, but you need the account holder on the line to remove services "for your protection". Assholes.
2. That eager anticipation of awaiting your next bill to see how badly the customer service rep botched your call. Yay! Another hour-long call!
I also liked how you'd get an offer from them in the mail, call the number printed on the offer, and th
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I dodged a bullet there. Tried to get Comcast when I moved, verified that they offered service at my new address and everything. Installation contractor showed up, looked up at the pole, and said "There's no line." Brought a supervisor out the next weekend, the supervisor looked up at the pole, said "There's no line." Called up Verizon, waded through menus for an hour, and had FIOS installed the next weekend. A few months later, Comcast started sending junk mail and leaving stuff at my door advertising that
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Ohhhh, you triggered me again :)
I had the Com-craptic modem that they rented to me in 2009 when we moved in. It was, I think, $3/month. At that rate, you'd figure it would be fully paid for in 3 years at the outside. One day after a few years, with no notification whatsoever, I open my bill and the rate has jumped to something like $4/month. I grumble but pay it. Then a few years later it goes to $6, then $8. What the hell? Can you imagine if you leased a car, and then suddenly they just increase your month
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I bought my house with a bizarre spaghetti explosion of cable tacked to the walls and inside the garage. A sales guy on foot came by trying to sell me Comcast one day. I asked who and how they installed the lines. "Our guys are great! They do a great job." I glanced over at the side of my garage -- we were both in the driveway. "Um. Wha. We didn't do that..." Yeah, right. As if the Cable Fairie from a parallel universe where the Comcast boobs were not the only game in town just felt like 'effin ov
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The spaghetti is amazing. When I moved in here, they had a cable come in from the pole, go to a splitter, which went to another splitter. One wire off the first splitter went into the basement to yet another splitter, which itself fed another splitter. There was another splitter after that to feed the two hookups in the basement. When they first tried to hook a digital box up, they were like - huh - weak signal... weird. They then proceed to replace the cable between the last splitter and the TV. I get it,
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Yes, but less sadistic [youtube.com].
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Exactly, where you could watch them on the time of someone elese's choosing
Are you referring to live events, such as news, sports, or media award shows? Because just about everything else is on your own schedule with Xfinity On Demand.
on a device that someone else chose
Or any device that runs the Xfinity app.
Also, the content will disappear after a time.
to get the content you want, you need to purchase other crap content.
Likewise with Netflix.
Re: Bundles (Score:2)
If Xfinity on demand worked as smoothly as Netflix or Hulu, I'd likely have cable
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I can just type what I want to watch on my phone and hit cast?
Or do I need another remote, and another box, and another HDMI hole to use it nicely on my TV?
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Bundles of Internet and TV (Score:2)
A lot of cable system operators jack up their Internet-only price such that a bundle of expanded basic TV and Internet isn't substantially more expensive than Internet alone.
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In addition to the antenna that AC mentioned:
If you have Netflix, you probably already have World Wide Web as well. Weather programming on Weather.gov is convenient. I can get the current conditions, radar, 48 hour forecast, and 7 day forecast whenever I need. I can also read local and national news, which is faster than watching it.
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Also, you need to purchase an inexpensive $400 device to record the content , one is necessary for each user.
But only for a limited time. If you don't act fast you'll soon need two devices for each user. After all, why should they let you watch with both eyes for one low price? You're practically robbing them.
Netflix, others keep dumping 3rd party content (Score:2)
It’s getting back to the point where the *only* way to find many movies and shows you want to watch is by finding the torrent.
Netflix likes to pretend they’ve got a huge audience for their self-produced stuff - just like they tried to pretend everyone was rating it five stars. I know there are some folks who like that stuff, but in my experience it’s a pretty limited group.
Re:Netflix, others keep dumping 3rd party content (Score:5, Informative)
That's not Netflix's fault really
The studios that make the movies and shows are starting to push them out their own streaming services and refusing the sell them to Netflix
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Well, that and the idiocy of copyright/DMCA
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That's not Netflix's fault really
The studios that make the movies and shows are starting to push them out their own streaming services and refusing the sell them to Netflix
Yeah well, people aren't going to start paying $10/mo for this service, and $10/mo for that service. The reason why netflix became popular is because it gut the piss out of high cable costs, all of these companies weren't hurting when they put their shows on netflix, in many cases it increased the viewership and sales from merchandise.
But hey, I guess they haven't learned. If you offer something at a reasonable price people will buy it. If you don't, well pirating is still a solid option. Now if you'll
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Exactly this.
Studios have settled on the cable tv mantra of 20 min of commercials per hour for $10 a month. Once one has better-than-average content, no ads, and a reasonable price then *everyone* will flock to it.
It worked for Netflix back in the beginning, now everyone wants their own home-grown money stream and won't play well with others. Greed is gonna bite them in the ass yet again.
"Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it" and all that.
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Netflix has no choice but to pull it when their distribution contract ends, and there isn't a new one to take it's place. What are they supposed to do in your mind, just continue distributing stuff they have no rights to distribute and get sued into oblivion by ComcastNBCUniversal21stCenturyDisneyABCBSViacomTimeWarner?
Yeah, that's a great solution. You have demonstrated that you have no actual knowledge about how media distribution works.
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Reality presents a new problem a lot of the content is bad rehashed content, one show on one network, much like different shows on other networks. They all become boring bleh, apart from the occasional good show but there is so much content, so just watching the season of something else is good enough and movies, well, the trailers being better than the movie is pretty much the norm, so watching anything else.
The only really selective content out there now is video games. The idiot box is still the idiot b
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Video games have gotten the distribution right. Sites like Steam and GoG have huge selections and make it easy to buy individual games. If you don't like the middlemen, a lot of game devs also offer direct purchases for the same price. If you prefer something more like a subscription, then you have the humble indie bundle and the like. The more popular games can be expensive, but you get plenty of entertainment from affordable indie or older games.
Compare that to TV shows, where your options are: get multip
Routing around censorship? (Score:2)
I wonder if part of bittorrent's resurgence is due to the fact that it offers a way to access censored material.
What's the old saying-- the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it? That's being put to the test, right now, on an unimaginably huge scale. You have totalitarian regimes like China (to name but one example) which restrict free access to information, and massive corporations like Google that are eager to help them restrict free access to information, and a population that i
technology hasn't made things better (Score:1)
commentsubject (Score:4, Insightful)
>competitors
How generous.
They're not offering a competitive product. In fact, "exclusivity" means the product in question no longer exists. Even if you disregard the fragmentation, neftlix/streamers have become more finger-grubby, more "inform you of viewing opportunities you may be interested in", more metrics and number-mulling, more watch-as-you're-told and curating. And who can blame them, it's just optimal use of a sea of shallow dullards.
But I won't disregard it. Fragmentation isn't driven by "healthy market competition", this is kids taking their ball and going home. Kids trying to cut themself a bigger slice of a limited consumer pie.
Seriously, that pie isn't infinite. We heap out a trillion hours of viewsumption every year and they pick it clean apart. Everyone wants their pile to be given more. A billion eyeballs live in screens and the attention economy claws for more, big or small.
Oh wait, actual TFS is just eagerly interpreting a relative increase of torrenting in the upstreams. "97% of file-sharing is torrents" is like announcing 97% of typing is being done with fingers. It's not like we, being raised as consumer cattle, do much in the upstream anyway.
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Seconded. The title was phrased as if competition is bad.
Whole story would be better interpreted as "How Anti-competitive agreements between media oligarchs hurts competition and the push for legal content."
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Maybe I expect to much from other people, but that was how I actually parsed the title. It's not the competitors that's the problem, it's the content access restrictions inherent in the exclusivity deal being spread across all those competitors. It would actually be nice if the majority of third-party content was available on each of the competitors and the competitors would compete on service and in-house content exclusives, instead of mostly competing on who has the right to show what 3rd party content.
The old adage is true, competition is good, but .. (Score:5, Interesting)
The old adage is true, competition is good, but too much competition is bad and leads to market fragmentation.
Listen up you Weekend Harvard MBAs.
NOT EVERY COMPANY NEEDS THEIR OWN STREAMING SERVICE, YOUR CONTENT ISN'T THAT VALUABLE. You don't have to fragment the market just to justify your existence and try to show everyone how you saved a penny by not letting Netflix rob you blind.
Seriously, negotiate a long term deal with one of the following and go play golf or mine cryptocurrency:
Netflix
Amazon
Hulu
YouTube
Done...
New flash! people can only watch one show at a time. We realize your catalog is Huuuuggggeee, but remember, only one show at a time, and people pretty much want the NEW shows.
If everyone in the USA watched a show simultaneously, that would be 300 million shows. That is the max.
Remember, no matter how you slice it, Amazon and YouTube own the streaming cloud, so you are paying either Amazon or YouTube indirectly at some point. Even Netflix hosts in the Amazon cloud.
So stop it already, pick a streaming partner and go play nice. Stop the fragmentation before it bites you in the ass.
Re:The old adage is true, competition is good, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Competition is not what is bad.. competition is GOOD. Exclusivity is bad. Exclusivity is what leads to market fragmentation.
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Competition is bad for TV. Look at how many shows get cancelled before the first season has even finished airing. If they don't immediately become massive hits they are mercilessly put to death.
It's bad enough that they cancelled Star Trek after season 3, but these days they would probably have killed it after 8 episodes and not even completed the first season.
There are so many channels and so many shows competing for views that stuff which takes time to become a hit or stuff that is niche like a lot of sci
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Fragmentation is fine if there's no silly barriers to entry.
Food shops are very fragmented, but I can easily wander into any of them and get food.
If the streaming services sold a la carte DRM free shows for a reasonable price, the fragmentation wouldn't matter.
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Its not competition, its the exclusivity that is killing it.
Show 1 is on Netflix
Show 2 is on Amazon
Show 3 is on Hulu
Show 4 is on HBO/ Other..
That's four monthly subscriptions just to watch 4 shows.... If all 4 shows were on all providers that would be competition, as then it would be the cheapest or perhaps highest quality content provider that would win.. THAT is competition..
Re:The old adage is true, competition is good, but (Score:5, Insightful)
The old adage is true, competition is good, but too much competition is bad and leads to market fragmentation.
That is wrong.
What is bad is exclusion, not competition.
The more companies manufacture a gadget, the more choice you have, the more they all are under pressure to improve efficiency (so they can offer lower prices) and to innovate (so they can offer new features), all in an effort to stand out from the crowd.
This works for smartphones, for cars, for almost all consumer gadgets, because all smartphones use the same carriers and WLAN and Bluetooth. All cars use the same roads and the same single-digit number of types of fuel. All electronic gadgets have the same power connectors. All washing machines take the same washing powders or liquids. You get the idea.
If you bring a smartphone that only communicates with other smartphones of the same type to the market, and somehow manage to get a double-digit percentage of consumers to buy it, and then two competitors do the same - then you have market fragmentation. But the cause is not that there are three competitors, the cause is that they are not interoperale.
The subscription service model is one of those business models that has market fragmentation at its core. It wants to be customer-hostile. Forcing as many people as possible to subscribe to your channel, perfectly well knowing that this will make them unsubscribe from competitors, is the business model.
From a consumer perspective, the only solution is to pressure those companies into abandoning a customer-hostile business model and force them into an interoperable model.
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Here is how:
Where I live, Cable TV service from Spectrum costs you $65 a month for 125 channels, of which you give a shit about maybe 20 of them. 3 or 4 of those are broadcast in HD over radio waves for free, so the value proposition is already looking sketchy. By the way, it's more than that $65/mo if you want any other channels that may interest you, such as extra sports channels, or the premium channels where the signal-to-noise ratio of quality programming isn't shockingly low.
Then, if you dare to wan
Solution: Rotate Services (Score:1)
Every time this topic comes up people complain that "Well now I have to buy N number of services at the same time and that adds up to more than I used to pay for cable!". I call BS. Why don't you just subscribe to one (or two) services, exhaust all of their exclusive content that you're interested in, then cancel and move on to another service. Rinse and repeat. By the time you get back to the first service they should have a bunch of new content for you.
For the small handful of times that you need to w
Re:Solution: Rotate Services (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time this topic comes up people complain that "Well now I have to buy N number of services at the same time and that adds up to more than I used to pay for cable!". I call BS. Why don't you just subscribe to one (or two) services, exhaust all of their exclusive content that you're interested in, then cancel and move on to another service. Rinse and repeat. By the time you get back to the first service they should have a bunch of new content for you.
For the small handful of times that you need to watch a SPECIFIC movie or show RIGHT NOW you can temporarily subscribe to a service that has it, or buy the BlueRay or DVD.
Every time this topic comes up people complain that "Well now I have to buy N number of services at the same time and that adds up to more than I used to pay for cable!". I call BS. Why don't you just subscribe to one (or two) services, exhaust all of their exclusive content that you're interested in,
Because if I'm going to do the research to track down which streaming service has the content I want, I might as well make the extra click to download it.
Prior to Starz leaving, Netflix had a pretty decent catalog -- plenty of movies and TV shows I wanted to see. After that, their catalog has been getting steadily worse, except for Netflix produced content (some of which is really good). But when I want to watch something in particular, I don't want to have to go figure out which streaming provider it's on and then potentially have to sign up for that provider just for that content.
If it's easier to find content for free download than to purchase it legally, many people will chose to download it.
Re: Solution: Rotate Services (Score:2)
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Cool plan but it involves a lot more trouble, expense, waiting, and ads than torrenting.
If you make viewers work, they will cheap out. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: If you make viewers work, they will cheap out. (Score:2)
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If you make viewers work to find their shows by making them have to subscribe and pay for each network individually, they will just put that work into finding the 'free' content instead.
I know you're referring to piracy, but I think YouTube might actually the biggest winner from all of this.
It's convenience (Score:3)
Netflix and Steam became so convenient, people were willing to pay. But whereas game makers want their game bought by anyone and everyone via whatever method people want, most shows were viewed via broadcasters and cable companies, whose business is selling their channels not the shows -- so companies like Netflix are a moral enemy to them and their obsolete business model. Even the film companies play a role in this; they might not like the cable companies but they sure don't want new competitors to have easy ways to publish and popularize their productions.
tl;dr: They brought this on themselves.
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There is a difference between Steam and Netflix models which i think is worth mentioning.
With Netflix et al, there is a monthly fee and content is only temporarily available. Right now Netflix is essentially a giant cable channel.
Or Netflix is like a video store which charges a monthly fee for access, but no guarantee you will like anything new and no guarantee the things you liked yesterday will be available today. But you pay the same either way. So its a pretty crappy video store!
With Steam there is no
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Maybe if there was a streaming service which worked more like Steam; which aggregated all the titles and allowed people to buy a single episode or season, that might work better.
There is, isn't there?
Amazon video, you can "buy" an episode or season of a show. Granted, you will only truly "own" it as long as Amazon video exists and continues to make it available to you, but the same is true of Steam.
Re:It's convenience (Score:4, Informative)
His point is that piracy is a service problem. The main PC vendors that literally blow all the other services out the water in both content and earnings is Steam and GOG. While Gabe kinda does have a monopoly for PC games his point is very poignant for this topic: https://games.slashdot.org/sto... [slashdot.org] Steam being such an easy service to use for having games and keeping them updated means that people will want to use them more. It's not Netflix's fault though since before Netflix became huge, they had licenses for really cheap because the studios didn't think Netflix would take off. Then it did so now they are making their own services for each of the licenses and now the fragments are ruining the issue making piracy a better service again.
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Re: It's convenience (Score:2)
You know what else pushed me back towards piracy? (Score:5, Interesting)
My new and improved cable PVR box.
We recently switched to a service called "Shaw Blue Sky" up here in Canada, and oh my god is the on demand system ever fucking shite. Like, I-can't-believe-I'm-actually-paying-extra-for-this-shit levels of crappiness. I've already cancelled everything I could relating to this particular "feature" (and bumped my internet plan accordingly), but let me give you a rundown of the overall experience:
1) Find a show you want to watch on demand
2) Click the show icon box art
3) Click the "episodes" button
4) Scroll through the seasons, click a season and unfold all the episodes
5) Scroll to the episode you want, click on it
6) Click on "Watch Options"
7) Find out the only options listed are for some random subscription service or some package I don't own
There is no way to filter for shows only actually available to me. I have to spend on average 35 seconds just figuring out if I can watch something. Then there's all the shows that I partly get- either one or two seasons but not the rest, or worse- some episodes but not others within the same season.
You can literally piss away hours just LOOKING for somehing to watch on that flying shitbox of a platform. I think they actually want to piss off people so they eventually subscribe to 4 different streaming services and tack on another $120/mo to their bills just to "get everyhing", because that's the only way to ensure that everything you hit in the browser will be watchable somehow.
This is why I've gone back to piracy. I tried going legit for 4 months, and just got shat on by Shaw's wonderful system. Sorry, but when I want to watch TV, I want to watch it- not browse through your shitty ass on demand browser that doesn't even have the decency to tell me what I can watch up front. It's way easier to just setup some torrents with an RSS feed watcher and dump everything to my media server instead.
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That sucks. I'd level similar (but maybe less extreme) criticism at Amazon, and even to some extent Netflix. For whatever reason, Netflix just can't surface decent stuff I might want to watch (maybe due to lack of catalogue in the UK?). Honestly, the best stuff I've found on Netflix was stuff I had to search for after looking up "good stuff to watch on netflix" on the Internet. Amazon can't filter between 'pay extra', 'already paid for' and 'free'. As such it's a constant 'upselling', which even my kids hav
The problem.. (Score:2)
The problem is that all of the streaming platforms treat their relation to the general public as a One-To-Many relationship (meaning one of them and many of us)
The effect of this assumption is that we will spend our money on one of them to get access to shows that are exclusive to their platform along with shows that are on many platforms.
They also assume that we will either choose to sign up with their competitors for other exclusive shows as well or choose to not watch the competitors exclusives.
They se
They never learn (Score:3, Interesting)
The studios again can't figure out how to get it right. None of them thought Netflix would amount to anything so they allowed it to germinate. Once it took off they did what any clueless, unimaginative Hollywood exec always does when faced with a competitor's success: copy it.
Only it doesn't work out so well. The fragmentation and exclusivity is turning off consumers, myself included. It becomes such an amazing pain to find the content legally that it's just easier and faster to get it in a torrent. I'd pay for it if I could get it from a single source (or a reasonably small number of them, perhaps 2-3 tops), if it came in a high-bitrate H.265.MKV file with lossless audio, and without ads or onerous copy protection. I have about 1,300 HD movies on my Plex along with about 3,000 TV episodes. I don't even own a Blu-ray player anymore. I doubt I ever will. That is how consumers want to consume content.
Exclusive Content (Score:5, Interesting)
No one is going to sign up for half a dozen streaming services just so they can watch all the exclusive content.
One . . . . MAYBE two. After that, fuck it. I'm not going to bother with it. I'll go find it on Yarr Matey TV.
It's like Sony vs Microsoft vs Nintendo in the console market. I'm not buying another GD console just for exclusive titles.
It's the same for Oculus vs Vive vs Sony in the VR world. I bought ONE. That's it.
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Exactly. It is not as if I am unwilling to pay a fair price for that particular movie or this particular TV season. It is not about a few dollars.
But I am unwilling to sign up for a service that only makes sense as a bundle -- I am unwilling to make even implied promises about piles of money in the future to buy stuff I do not want. No, I am not going to sign up to Paramount for an intro cheap price for one month to binge watch Trek-- signing up and unsigning up is playing their game, a game I hate.
Could be worse, (Score:1)
Smartphone Videos (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in 2011, Sandvine stated that BitTorrent accounted for 52.01% of upstream traffic on fixed broadband networks in North America. By 2015, BitTorrent's share of upstream traffic on these networks had dipped to 26.83 percent,
I suspect that Youtube/Facebook video uploads are a large portion of consumer uploads. Back in 2011, many more people were still using flip-phones that took 320x240 video. Now, most of those people have upgraded to phones that take 1080p or 4k video. The larger video file sizes makes Bittorrent data look smaller in comparison.
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At the same time, the codecs used for video compression have improved, meaning most TV show episodes are about half the size as compared to 2011. The cap-friendly size back then was 350 MB for a typical 40 minute episode, now it's around 200 MB for 40 minutes.
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Yes, but 4k gobbled that up so now they are back to 500 MB/episode again. :(
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Only if you insist on 720p at a minimum.
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Only if you like crap quality.
I notice that a half hour episode at decent quality with h.264 (and 1080i) is around 500MB nowadays and hour long episodes I generally go for the 800-1.2GB encodes with quality and surround sound.
YouTube video uploads by p
Greed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Greed (Score:2)
Starting to miss video rental stores (Score:1)
I have found myself lamenting the loss of the humble old video rental store in the last year or two due to this exact topic. If I want to watch a particular movie, just working out which streaming service is a pain, neither alone the need to subscribe to multiple services.
At least with the video store, you could just turn up, pick what ever recent movie had just come out off the shelf and go home a watch it. It was also a great way to discover long lost favourites or some weird esoteric Z grade movie.
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If you're in the US you can still subscribe to Netflix's DVD service. Yeah, it's a pain in that you're gate limited by the USPS, and you have to plan ahead, but it's the only non-pirated service that still gives you access to basically everything.
consolidate (Score:2)
So what we need is one service we can buy that combines all the streaming and web services under one roof for, oh, probably the sum of all the individual costs plus some overhead. But you wouldn't have to hunt around and it'd all be in one bill. The disadvantage is that you'd have to take some services you didn't really want, but people would get used to that. Municipalities could decide which consolidation service got to play in which geographical area.
Consumer dislikes getting screwed Film @ 11:00 (Score:2)
Go figure what's more they can easily figure it out, when a service has one series they actually want to watch and a bunch of crap you couldn't pay them to view.
Toss in the fact that so much of Hollywood is considered to be little more than greedy scumbags by the general population, yeah it makes it that much easier to download that movie.
It needs to be easier to use (Score:3)
What needs to happen is for someone to come up with a way to see all the content available to them (cable TV, cable co video on demand, streaming services, all of it) and be able to easily find everything you have access to (without displaying content you dont have access to)
The real problem here is that the cable companies don't want their content to become just another option in a list of available options (since they want you to watch their content and their ads rather than the other guys stuff) and they dont want it to be easy to hide/ignore the cable company-supplied channels and content you dont have access to (since they want you to have to flip past it all the time so you see what's on and become tempted to buy the extra packages)
Kodi again? (Score:1)
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And as long as Kodi is open source, it's not like they can add any protection like plug-in signing to prevent that garbage from b
There is no competition. (Score:1)
There now is a number of monopolies. The 'competitors' all just carved out their own corner with 'exclusive content'. With some imagination you can claim there is competition, but in the real world this is simply not true. Customers do not perceive it this way, they only see there is just one place where they can get their favorite series.
I blame vertical integration. Providing a better user experience is always the excuse for vertical integration, but the real reason is almost always that it provides the b
As explained by The Oatmeal (Score:5, Insightful)
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/g... [theoatmeal.com]
All these different producers need to stop thinking that THEIR offer is the only thing anyone could ever want.
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HA! That was brilliant, and very true.
Price = supply / demand (Score:3)
Price = supply / demand
When something is infinitely reproducible for negligible cost, the supply tends to infinity and price tends to zero. The only thing people have been paying for is "easy access".
KODI OK (Score:1)
Running on a raspberry pi. Easy to set up and has most of the new tv shows and films. Only issue in my mind is it lists cinema rips along with the other versions. If its out on bluray, its safe to watch on kodi.
Might get netflix again for a month when the new Stranger Things comes out.
The Rise of Kodi Hotboxes (Score:2)
Hotboxes running Kodi and a couple plugins have essentially gone mainstream.
Not only does the random guy at work have it, but he got the recommendation from his grandfather.
I'm surprised how many people I discuss movies with say they already saw something at home on a hotbox, while I'm waiting patiently for the bluray to be released on RedBox (my preferred way to rip movies).
Yes, ripping off RedBox is piracy as well, but it's not on the scale that these guys with no technical ability are able to stream movi
The Golden Age of Streaming is Over (Score:2)
Signing up for half a dozen or more different streaming services and paying more than the cost of cable on top of
Rise of Netflix competitors? (Score:2)
Why upstream traffic? (Score:3)
"BitTorrent now accounts for 32% of all upstream network traffic"
Is that because the numbers look more impressive that way?
Producers and distributors (Score:2)
Content producers should legally be required to be separate from content distributors.
That doesn't bode well (Score:2)
If consumers end up economically demanding centralized monopolies under pain of mass piracy, that suggests that the era of Tech Giants will be systemically reinforced for the foreseeable future.
Competition is great, but it's bad enough that the promise of mass economic markets generally means only the largest survive due to economies of scale, but now even a properly-competitive market participant can't win against the network effects of lock-in. Yikes.
just pick one (Score:2)
just pick one service, i have netflix, and i couldn't imagine where to get the extra time for another one.
there are already so many things to see on netflix that i'm time struck as it is. i'm sure there are many other good shows out there, but bad luck, i don't have time for them and i don't miss them either.
well, it's not really true, i also watch a lot of youtube, so yeah, with both netflix & youtube my tv addiction is complete.
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Nah.
The driving force behind Piracy is "ease of access", if I have to download a fucking app, then downloading a piracy app, or any app that "enables" piracy (such as Kodi) is just as easy. About a decade ago, people were downloading "unlimited cable" apps from sketchy people on eBay and all they did was skin VLC and use a playlist of the various "subscriber only" and "free to watch" websites directly, as media has no authentication control. That also mostly came to a crashing end as many of the same subscr
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Nope. It's completely about access. People don't want to have to subscribe to 10 different services, and go searching through 10 different services because of some contractual agreement that nobody outside of the lawyers and content producers know about.
So they'll go to the one place they know they'll find it, with the benefit of having extremely low cost: The Pirate Bay.
I would have thought that the media industry would have learned this lesson by now.
People lie. (Score:2)
For years we heard people complain about cable channel packages. "They're making me pay for dozens of channels I never watch. Why can't this be a la carte?"
Well, that's essentially what we are getting--a la carte channels. It's streaming services rather than channels from a cable company, but now it's a different bill for each channel. And it sucks. So we (some of us) just to to torrents.
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Well done in redefining it to mean the opposite!
a la carte; adverb
1.
as separately priced items from a menu, not as part of a set meal
How is netflix anything other that "a set meal"? It's the exact opposite of a la carte.
Nobody is selling single channels you can pick and choose from. They are all selling massive bundles. Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc.
You should go work for the Trump administration if this is your level of skill in defining things.
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For years we heard people complain about cable channel packages. "They're making me pay for dozens of channels I never watch. Why can't this be a la carte?"
Well, that's essentially what we are getting--a la carte channels. It's streaming services rather than channels from a cable company, but now it's a different bill for each channel. And it sucks. So we (some of us) just to to torrents.
Mmm - that's kind of a major oversimplification.
The fact is that the major streaming services all now produce their own, often superb, content - and they use their exclusive distribution rights to those programs to attract paying customers. Those programs simply aren't available via cable or satellite TV subscriptions, and they never were.
If that compelling streaming service content was also via cable/satellite subscription, and those companies changed those subscriptions to an à-la
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MachineShedFred opined:
Nope. It's completely about access. People don't want to have to subscribe to 10 different services, and go searching through 10 different services because of some contractual agreement that nobody outside of the lawyers and content producers know about.
So they'll go to the one place they know they'll find it, with the benefit of having extremely low cost: The Pirate Bay.
While I think your explanation of the motives for bittorrent piracy is incomplete, my real disagreement is with your conclusion. Have you actually tried acessing TPB recently?
The MPAA and the TV folks (at least, I assume it's their doing) have their third-world contractors DDoS-ing the living shit out of it. If you use a standard browser, it's all but inaccessible - although it's easy enough via Tor. They also have those same hirelings barfing screen after screen of bullshit torrents