@ButteredBread@sh.itjust.works
When did we reach a point piracy has better service than paying?
2026-07-06 07:22 UTC
Replies (31)
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@Hxrmit@thelemmy.club 2026-07-06 07:24
As early as companies started putting price tags on everything, more or less
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@ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-07-06 07:42
It seems to have gone back and forth a bit. I started pirating 25 years ago in no small part because of price. But then streaming came along and delivered a good and reasonably priced solution that worked well so I stopped pirating about 15 years ago. I got sick of the continuous degradation of service and ever increasing prices a few years ago and now I don’t have any streaming subscriptions anymore. This time it is a combination of poor service quality and price that caused be to ditch them.
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@OwOarchist@pawb.social 2026-07-06 07:51
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@Fleppensteijn@sh.itjust.works 2026-07-06 08:18
Has paying ever been an easier option? We used to copy each other’s floppies. That was already easier than buying them in a store. With internet, we got Napster. Now torrents and streaming.
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@unabart@sh.itjust.works 2026-07-06 10:10
Back in 1983, when my neighbor copied the Monopoly game for me to play on my C64. Cassette drive. Shit took forever to load. Fun af. At that point, the idea of paying seemed ridiculous. Then came the npd bbs era. Aye, matey. 🏴☠️
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@BurgerBaron@quokk.au 2026-07-06 10:44
idk about everyone else but that was the year 2001 when my family got cable internet. I’ve never paid for anything streaming, I’m against subscriptions more strongly than most people admittedly, so I actively avoid them and it changes my hardware buying habits too if there’s paywalled things like online play for example. Consoles are dead to me now. 360, PS4, then the Switch. Now they get none of my money, I bought used and piracy modded them.
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@Fizz@lemmy.nz 2026-07-06 10:54
Piracy is always better than paying. There is no way for a product that has to pay for content and provide infra + development to be better than something you can get for free and do whatever you want with.
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@tremble5218@programming.dev 2026-07-06 11:54
It has always been the case except for a short period of time when Netflix was decent but then streaming turned into cable with ads and shitty content. Now it is all the more enticing due to Jellyfin, arr stack, Seerr and faster Internet speeds. If I had to pay for streaming all the shows I liked, I’d be paying in excess of $200 per month. No, thank you. The seven seas it is for me.
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@northernlights@lemmy.today 2026-07-06 12:39
It was already the case 20 years ago when I was selling burned CDs in high school for pocket money.
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@gegil@sopuli.xyz 2026-07-06 12:43
I dont know when, but in my country community translations of anime are way better than those on an official streaming, if they are available at all. There is no point for paying for streaming when some random teams do better job at voicing anime while being funded by donations.
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@blartcap_@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-07-06 14:23
Decades ago when things weren’t available for purchase easily in many parts of the world but they still wanted to get their hands on that product.
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@rumba@lemmy.zip 2026-07-06 14:25
That’s a tough line to draw; it’s different for everyone. In the US, it used to go: Parents buy kids stuff Kids start buying their own, but can’t afford what they want to they bootleg Kids get decent-paying jobs that make the time needed to bootleg a bad equation. Kids become parents But the coming and going of cheap music, streaming music, cheap video, and expensive video has wrecked the market. I stopped pirating when purchasing music became cheap (apple music) I started again when catalogs weren’t what I wanted. And supported artists directly. I stopped video piracy when Netflix was cheap and good and started again when they sucked. If you can bring me long-form entertainment that I enjoy and own for less than a meal out, I’ll buy it. If you can bring me short-form entertainment that I can re-partake hundreds of times for less than a snack, I’ll buy it. If I can’t buy it, or it encroaches on my other comforts, that’s where the line is for me
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@RiQuY@lemmy.zip 2026-07-06 14:27
“Always has been.”
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@technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-07-06 14:29
if you wanted to support the creators you could do it separetely with merch, other proyects they have or direct donations if any of those are aviable. Yeah, I’ve been getting more into Bandcamp so I can more directly support the bands that I like. I’ve given my wishlist to family, etc. for gifts.
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@bss03@infosec.pub 2026-07-06 14:55
Sony rootkit or before.
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@SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2026-07-06 15:07
Torrenting has been more stable than paid services for years. I have prime video, but I watch torrents of the content.
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@Morgikan@fedia.io 2026-07-06 16:11
I would say it reached a better service position in the early 2000s with the rise of broadband (1.5Mbps to 3.0Mbps) internet speeds. Prior to that, you still had IRC and BBS, but there was a divide between filesize and your ability to download that filesize within reason. There also existed a divide between what was accessible to technical users vs everyone else. Non-technical users might copy 3.5 floppies or cassettes but weren't present in the internet space. Broadband opened the door for services like Napster, Kazaa, and Limewire which granted everyone access. That service model was so successful to the point that it completely altered the music industry and how people bought music (ex. iTunes).
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@HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2026-07-06 16:28
Always, It’s just been about ability to do so. I did nothing but piracy in the 2000s but then went mostly paid in the 2010s and now I’m back to basically pirating everything but YouTube since family premium ends up being easier and cheaper than the effort to get around it. However YouTube premium is slowly getting to a point where privacy seems inevitable in my case.
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@Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-07-06 16:45
And most pirate streaming sites have a better player (and subtitle encoding of new episodes] than HBO Max. Seriously, there’s no fucking excuse for a multiple billion dollar conglomerate with some of the highest rated entertainment programs in history in their library to care THAT little about UX!
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@jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-07-06 21:58
People here might be interested in retrovibed. its an early stage personal media library/player with builtin tooling for distribution for artists and dead simple setup for power users. its primarily built for music/podcasts, but supports video media as well.
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@veniasilente@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-07-06 23:02
Probably around 1998, when you could just copy a few files on a floppy drive and play the Pokémon games for free on the library or school PCs.
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@Kolanaki@pawb.social 2026-07-06 23:36
When broadband became the predominant way of using the internet and it didn’t take an entire day to download a single episode of DBZ.
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@resipsaloquitur@lemmy.cafe 2026-07-07 00:24
The tenth time I told someone “watch X show on Netflix” and they said “it’s not on there.”
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@Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca 2026-07-07 02:33
I started pirating so far back I cannot remember. Soon as things started getting too expensive and shitty EULA’s that basically exempt the Software maker from any liability whatsoever. This is what started me pirating. I would say it was in the 90’s then I got lazy as things got cheaper but now I think I may start up again. I have ton of rock FLACS and a fair number of movies (a lot of original YIFY’s with subs) I could seed etc. Just need to setup with whatever is used nowadays.
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@Analog@lemmy.ml 2026-07-07 06:40
Maybe with the *arr suite? It was better waaaay earlier than that for other reasons. The inverse is also a good question, as I left piracy behind for Netflix and was happy to be legit… right up until so many studios got $ signs in their eyes (envious of Netflix’s success,) and instead of building their own platforms and letting folks choose where to consume their content, the studios pulled their content and fractured the market. The greedy fucks! So no, I don’t feel bad pirating content. Not one bit. (Felt bad for Netflix but their oh-shit-we-need-content in house studio is doing ok, I’d say! Also I paid for Netflix for far longer than anyone else, by far.)
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@LemmyEntertainYou@piefed.social 2026-07-07 07:32
I don’t watch a lot of films or TV so I used to buy blu-rays and rip them myself but I really don’t want to store a load of useless discs in my house. If companies offered DRM-free digital purchases of the remuxed blu-ray files then I’d pay but since that’s nowhere near being the case, I guess it’s piracy for me.
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@Barbarossa@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-07-07 13:09
Movies? Just owning a dvd or bluray. It was filled with a bunch of trailers and other junk when I just wanted the movie itself to start and didn’t care for all of the other. TV Shows? Right when it releases, so I don’t have to see the between ads and I couldn’t actually buy it until the full season released. Even then, now they moved to streaming only, where even now you can’t buy the optical media if you want leaving you with only the option to download it. Even if you wanted to pay, they won’t let you buy it. Music? Instead of a bunch of music at the time, on MP3 player, I could just rip my discs or download them. If my disc was damaged, I could download. Instead of just having all of these crappy songs, I could select just the ones I want and put on cd at the time. Software? When I couldn’t afford it, and still refuse to pay for subscription. I usually try to use open source now other than gaming. I will buy games, on sale, on gog or steam. Provided it’s on sale, and not $60 or $80. $20 or $30? Sure. Now? One time license? Sure. I specifically own a computer, for dedicated cracked software and cracked games that doesn’t ever connect to the internet. So, no issue if it’s infected. I only install trusted sources, but you never know.
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@melsaskca@lemmy.ca 2026-07-07 13:24
When individual and corporate greed raced passed universal societal progression. Nothing counts unless it sells.
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@LodeMike@lemmy.today 2026-07-07 19:17
The 90s when the Internet became commercialized
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@exaybachae@startrek.website 2026-07-07 10:23
Well, I grew up with knowledge of cable pirating in apartment complexes, VHS recording of retals to share or rewatch or watch later, and tape and CD sharing and mixing... So as far as Im aware pirating was always a easy, viable, and economically savvy choice. I did explore Netflix for a brief time 15 years ago, but the quality of their service degraded heavily, and I still pirated alongside my Netflix membership, as their content was always limited. And I shared my member ship with others, then later occasionally used a membership that was shared with me, until Netflix broke that system.
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@ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-07-10 18:48
For me it stopped being that way because decent commercial options were available. Then every asshole competed with Netflix and now you need multiple subscriptions to watch shows. Then they raised prices, started advertising when you already paid, and then stated selling the next season of your show to some other assholes who also required a subscription. If it’s easier to pay than to pirate, people will.