The vast majority of pirates are indeed just cheapskates; absent the availability of pirated content some fraction of them would indeed just pay for the content. But there are also people who pay for streaming services but still "pirate" their shows anyway because the streaming user experience is vastly inferior to renting VHS tapes, not…
The vast majority of pirates are indeed just cheapskates; absent the availability of pirated content some fraction of them would indeed just pay for the content. But there are also people who pay for streaming services but still "pirate" their shows anyway because the streaming user experience is vastly inferior to renting VHS tapes, not to mention playing a high-quality DRM-free digital file in the manner of the viewer's choice.
Content owners use streaming platforms a) to steer users towards the cheapest / most profitable content and b) to collect data on viewers' habits. They will never, ever allow a third-party app to deliver the kind of unified experience of a content-manager like Plex, Jellyfin, Kodi, etc. pointed at a pile of digital files. And because they have a monopoly over (most of) their catalog, there is no competitive pressure to make the experience better (only to make better shows; see, piracy).
To stream a show you must first remember which streaming app to open. Then you have to use whatever terrible device has been blessed with the appropriate DRM to allow you to use said app. (Bonus, if you use the in-built OS of your TV you are being spied on by the content owner *and* the data broker your TV's manufacturer sells your data to.) Once the app is open, you have to recall the quirks and proclivities of the app:
Netflix will do its best to disorient you by playing clips of shows you don't watch while you stab at your remote until you find the right sequence of widgets to navigate back to the show you are actually watching. Oh, but you can just search for what you want, right? LOL, the search feature just leads you to more shows you don't want to watch—did it get pulled from Netlix or was I one character off with my search phrase?
Disney+ will throw an unhelpful grid at you that includes the misleading "continue watching" row—misleading because what it means is "continue watching the seven minutes of credits of the last show you watched". Want to find a specific movie or show? The search feature somehow manages simultaneously to return too many and too few results, none of which match the exact title that you meticulously typed. (Something most Americans probably have never experienced: download a Disney+ show to your phone in the tiny European country in which you live, get on a plane and be met with "Content not allowed, re-download in this country".)
HBO Max loads sometimes. And occasionally, after a cumbersome romp through a clumsy UI the show you load actually plays... after the fourth time you force quit the app and try again.
Anyway, the point isn't that bad user experiences are driving everyone to piracy. But as much as we like to talk about how precious the theater-going experience is because it is all about The Experience*, there seems to be this assumption that we're so grateful that we can finally watch a movie on the toilet that we'll happily tolerate an actively hostile user experience right up to and including "sorry this HDMI cable isn't compatible with DRM so you can't plug your laptop into the TV to watch the movie you just paid to rent".
* I saw Avatar 2 in 3D iMAX and it was glorious. It will never be as good in another format—in fact, I'm pretty sure it is a mediocre movie, but it is one heck of an Experience.
Thank you for writing this. Ease of access DOES matter when it comes to combatting piracy (as the music industry learned once Steve Jobs convinced them to sign on to iTunes). It's too bad the film industry has failed to take note of this.
Just yesterday I was watching a show in Disney+. First episode played fine, but then the second threw a strange error about content being unavailable on the first try, just froze up completely on the second and, on the third, told me my HDMI cable was incompatible with HDCP and that I'd need a new one if I wanted to keep watching. A few force-closes later and I managed to watch two more episodes. Pretty sure I could have pirated all three episodes in the time it took to get one to play.
When that kind of stuff happens it makes me think of those anti-piracy ads where they said that, by pirating content you are bankrupting all the hard-working set builders, security guards and hundreds of regular folk who work in the industry. So, like, now the executives hold blue-collar workers hostage and demand that we pay a monthly fee or they'll be fired. If the user experience were, you know, good and nominally user-focused I would feel differently.
The vast majority of pirates are indeed just cheapskates; absent the availability of pirated content some fraction of them would indeed just pay for the content. But there are also people who pay for streaming services but still "pirate" their shows anyway because the streaming user experience is vastly inferior to renting VHS tapes, not to mention playing a high-quality DRM-free digital file in the manner of the viewer's choice.
There is a great write up about how terrible the user experience is for streaming apps (https://hypercritical.co/2022/02/17/streaming-app-sentiments) that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Content owners use streaming platforms a) to steer users towards the cheapest / most profitable content and b) to collect data on viewers' habits. They will never, ever allow a third-party app to deliver the kind of unified experience of a content-manager like Plex, Jellyfin, Kodi, etc. pointed at a pile of digital files. And because they have a monopoly over (most of) their catalog, there is no competitive pressure to make the experience better (only to make better shows; see, piracy).
To stream a show you must first remember which streaming app to open. Then you have to use whatever terrible device has been blessed with the appropriate DRM to allow you to use said app. (Bonus, if you use the in-built OS of your TV you are being spied on by the content owner *and* the data broker your TV's manufacturer sells your data to.) Once the app is open, you have to recall the quirks and proclivities of the app:
Netflix will do its best to disorient you by playing clips of shows you don't watch while you stab at your remote until you find the right sequence of widgets to navigate back to the show you are actually watching. Oh, but you can just search for what you want, right? LOL, the search feature just leads you to more shows you don't want to watch—did it get pulled from Netlix or was I one character off with my search phrase?
Disney+ will throw an unhelpful grid at you that includes the misleading "continue watching" row—misleading because what it means is "continue watching the seven minutes of credits of the last show you watched". Want to find a specific movie or show? The search feature somehow manages simultaneously to return too many and too few results, none of which match the exact title that you meticulously typed. (Something most Americans probably have never experienced: download a Disney+ show to your phone in the tiny European country in which you live, get on a plane and be met with "Content not allowed, re-download in this country".)
HBO Max loads sometimes. And occasionally, after a cumbersome romp through a clumsy UI the show you load actually plays... after the fourth time you force quit the app and try again.
Anyway, the point isn't that bad user experiences are driving everyone to piracy. But as much as we like to talk about how precious the theater-going experience is because it is all about The Experience*, there seems to be this assumption that we're so grateful that we can finally watch a movie on the toilet that we'll happily tolerate an actively hostile user experience right up to and including "sorry this HDMI cable isn't compatible with DRM so you can't plug your laptop into the TV to watch the movie you just paid to rent".
* I saw Avatar 2 in 3D iMAX and it was glorious. It will never be as good in another format—in fact, I'm pretty sure it is a mediocre movie, but it is one heck of an Experience.
Thank you for writing this. Ease of access DOES matter when it comes to combatting piracy (as the music industry learned once Steve Jobs convinced them to sign on to iTunes). It's too bad the film industry has failed to take note of this.
Just yesterday I was watching a show in Disney+. First episode played fine, but then the second threw a strange error about content being unavailable on the first try, just froze up completely on the second and, on the third, told me my HDMI cable was incompatible with HDCP and that I'd need a new one if I wanted to keep watching. A few force-closes later and I managed to watch two more episodes. Pretty sure I could have pirated all three episodes in the time it took to get one to play.
When that kind of stuff happens it makes me think of those anti-piracy ads where they said that, by pirating content you are bankrupting all the hard-working set builders, security guards and hundreds of regular folk who work in the industry. So, like, now the executives hold blue-collar workers hostage and demand that we pay a monthly fee or they'll be fired. If the user experience were, you know, good and nominally user-focused I would feel differently.