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Comment by henriquez | Hacker News Reader

Yarr harr fiddle dee dee…

I canceled Netflix years ago on the heels of a previous absurd price hike. Somehow I still am able to watch all the shows I want. Weird!

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OK I'll say it.... What are you going to watch when no-one bothers to make good TV anymore, because people like you don't pay for it, but watch it anyway?

I'm sure you are employed also, so how about I say 'hey I'll take and use your output, but I won't pay you for it' ? You'll be fine with that, right?

Pirating TV/Films that you can legally watch in your country is immoral, and left unchecked will lead to the overall decline in quality shows.

However... pirating a show (that you've been watching for a few years legally already) because for some dumb reason it's now no longer available in your country (I'm looking at you, Paramount+) is different thing entirely!

I am not worried, they will never run out of people like you who will keep paying no matter how high the prices are.

I do have some morals. I wouldn’t download a car.

Video streaming services, games-on-demand like Game Pass or PlayStation Now, or even launcher storefronts like Steam are providing a valuable and _convenient_ service. They are all middlemen. But when their value decreases to the point where it becomes _more convenient_ to seek alternatives, then it’s these middlemen who get what they deserve in the sense of market economics. It is widely accepted and even celebrated in the U.S. that corporations behave amorally in our so called “Free Market” so don’t give me a sob story about how some poor Netflix exec can only afford to resyndicate Mexican telenovelas because of me and what an immoral dude I am. What goes around comes around.

There's nearly a hundred years of good tv, and more than a hundred years of movies.

shouldn't have moved from Netflix then, not my issue anymore

Pirating is driven by more then just price.

When the streaming service blocks certain subtitle/audio languages (that they do have available if you have an account with them but in a different region) and they DONT allow you to watch their content in a 3rd party player (so I can actually get those subs/audio channels), they ASK for people to pirate the content.

I would subscribe back to them instantly the moment they simply provide their content over an API so I can use things like plex or kodi to watch their content.

I think I'm the only one still renting their discs by mail. I've been on a tear for several years now trying to fill out the "1001 Film To See Before You (I) Die".

I reupped for a while earlier in the pandemic. Their back catalog has withered though and whether it's COVID or just my tastes I dropped it when I wasn't finding a lot I wanted to watch.

It has withered. I think as old discs crack in the mail they are no longer replacing them.

I do like lists like this that remove the illusion of choice.

I feel like they represent a consensus of sorts as to the "great" or influential or somehow representative films.

I am looking forward to completing the list to restore choice (ha ha), but I can tell you there are "genres" (dislike that term) of films that I would not have otherwise even known to explore before.

I’m like you. I got grandfathered into their old 2-disks-a-month plan that costs 5 dollars. I do enjoy putting movies on my queue and then getting pleasantly surprised a few months later when I receive them.

Too bad their fantastic DVD catalog dwindles every year. Soon it will be reduced to not much bigger than their streaming catalog.

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