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Comment by shmde | Hacker News Reader

I used to pirate a lot of video games when I was young. Steam ( later epic ) entered India and started regional pricing and now I have pretty big collection on steam and epic ( free games )

Same thing with Movies and music. I made a huge offline collection worth 2-3TBs before I just had to throw it all away because everything was available on spotify, Netflix, Disney+Hotstar, Amazon Prime. Their services are top-notch and most importantly affordable.

I think something similar must be done to the online article/news market to make people want to pay them for easier and affordable access. Until then I will use every extension the internet has to provide to read any article I wanna read.

View on HN

> “One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue,” explained Newell during his time on stage at the Washington Technology Industry Association's (WTIA) Tech NW conference. “The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”

https://www.gamesradar.com/au/gabe-newell-piracy-issue-servi...

I subscribed to the New York Times once and it's nearly impossible to cancel. You have to call up a phone line and from memory, it takes ages. Given that, I would never subscribe again, even though I've considered it.

As such, I "pirate" New York Times articles because the service sucked, not because the price was an issue.

Sorry but this is not true. I canceled my NYTimes subscription online, in a less than two minute chat.

Why do you have to chat and interact with someone in the first place?

I know this is rhetorical but yeah; retention games. I’m guessing that many of these places do weigh the brand reputation hit of doing stuff like this but just don’t think it’s that important or valuable. I do. I don’t support companies that play these games, which makes it extra upsetting that I literally do not have a competitive choice vs Comcast for home internet. I can get 768K DSL through ATT, or 1300/45 from Comcast. They’re about the same price. No FTTH, no Sonic, wireless options are under 50mbit down, etc.

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