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Comment by galahad_ | Hacker News Reader

The problem ist that a production of f.e. a movie costs money. If the people that make movies don't earn money, they will not make any movies. So they have to earn that money somehow. If the price of their good is 0 why should they bother with filming?

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They could earn their money by not actively pissing off their customers. The streaming industry proved that consumers prefer paying for convenient streaming over messing around with privacy.

For some reason, they feel they need to burn their own industry down in order to prove that people prefer piracy (or not watching) over inconvenient streaming setups. Is anyone really surprised by the current outcome?

Yes, distribution is a service, and providing good service adds value that people are willing to pay for.

I can cook myself using only my free time.

But I'm willing to shell out some money for having someone cooking for me and doing the dishes.

Yet, only if the price is right.

A good legal bargain kills illegal ones. But then capitalism greed comes, with that enshitification, and as that lowers the legal bargain value, illegal comes back.

Everyone else saw Netflix making a lot of money and decided just making a healthy amount of money renting the rights to them they had to try and make more money releasing their own service. Gotta love modern capitalistic greed. I wish streaming services was like movie theaters where production companies are not allowed to own theaters (aka the distribution network).

Owning theaters was forbidden for movie studios, but afaik making movies was always allowed for theaters.

> Everyone else saw Netflix making a lot of money

At the time Netflix was literally making a cash loss despite paying less than the cost of production for most of it's output.

1. That IF is untested, it's hypothetical corporate propaganda.

2. That's a problem for them to solve, it's not a problem for me to solve by going like "alright Sony, I'll do you this solid and pay and inconvenience myself instead of pirating just because I like you and I know you're struggling" wink wink

Honestly that sounds like their problem, not mine. There is a catalogue of movies and TV shows stretching back a century, I don't need more made. The number of worthwhile movies made a year is roughly 100x less than the number of worthwhile movies already made, and there are enough of those to last me forever.

Don't polarize. There are many in-between states.

I pay to see movies in the cinema. A few weeks / months later I could pirate them if I want to watch them again.

I have paid once. I am not paying again. It really is that simple but they will rather die than do honest business.

If the market sees movies as being worthless (a price of 0), why would they even consider making movies? Clearly nobody wants them.

Because they love making movies, and can find other ways to get people to pay them for their labor rather than for copies of the movie. This is already happening today.

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