It's been said to death but at heart, I've always felt that when it comes to piracy, it's a service issue, not a cost issue.

Except for you Adobe. That's a cost issue.

Streaming companies are lucky that not more people know about Stremio + Torrentio + Real Debrid. That combination is a game changer and allowed me to get rid of all streaming services.

The issue with streaming companies is the exclusivity. I would happily pay for Netfix if I could watch Ted Lasso (= Apple+) and Halo (= Paramount+) on it.

But if you want access to original series you have to buy the platform. I pay around €45 total in VPNs, Seedboxes, Usenet indexers... per month. I would happily pay for Netfix if I had access to everything in the world for up to €50/month. But with netflix you get access to a shitty catalogue on only one device for €8/month... That's not okay for me.

It’s why I pay for Spotify, convenience and pretty much everything in one place. For TV/Movies it’s Plex and the high seas.

I've posted as much here in three weeks as i did on Reddit in three years. That's one post, but still. I am trying to be more active though to keep lemmy active and because it just feels more meaningful here.

My game changer was going to bflix.gg and downloading the android app from there (OnStream).

Every episode of anything can be streamed! If I get problems I can download an episode str8 on my phone. I use xcast to then chromecast it directly on my tv.

For anime, I go to 9anime.

LITERALLY FREE

It's weird that we have "capitalism" and there are people, who clearly have desire for a drm-free content. Hell, we even have a gog, where you can buy drm free games. Yet the market does not want to provide legal option to obtain films/shows that are not locked into the service.

And even with the gog there are still many games that are impossible to get drm-free in a "good" way. Not to mention emulation where things get kinda grey, depending on the system you are emulating

With Sonarr/Radarr and Jellyfin, that convenience has effectively been trumped. I don't know how they can compete

If I wanted to drop my Netflix, Prime, and Disney+ and still have lots of options for stuff to watch, what would you guys suggest. Please explain like I have the IQ of a half eaten apple that's been sitting out in the sun for a week, I can barely figure out Lemmy having come over from Reddit.

Dropped Netflix and got a Plex share with tens of thousands of movies and TV shows. Costs less than their 4K plan for several streams. Now they’re doing the “you can’t login in more than one location” bullshit? Back to sailing the high seas for me and hopefully many others

I think piracy is more convenient

I think they're already over the tipping point.

Piracy is the only viable option. The problem isn't the concept of a streaming subscription service, the problem is how many of them there are. A couple would be fine I guess but if we consider the fact that all the content is divided in more than 10 major services, it's no longer a viable option.

I pay for Amazon Prime, but still get less buffer time by streaming torrents with Stremio, which also never fails to remember where I left a movie at (even if I change the torrent source, which is crazy)

One day piracy will catch up and everyone will be trading episodes of family guy, just like they used to with scanned disk and vhs cassets.

I got no problem with streaming services competing and putting exclusive content on platform. What do I have problem with is them backing off from the things they advertised as when they were starting. Netflix literally rose in populating with ads saying "love is sharing the password" and other bullshit. Premium accounts were more expensive just so you can share your password with others. Nowadays they say it's no longer possible and you have to pay extra.

We traded ownership (physical media) for convenience. I was a matter of time until that came biting us in the ass

PS: I love the convenience of everything being in my computer without having to lift my ass to change media, so it's possible to have ownership AND convenience.

This reminds me of the meme subreddit called r/Piracy. That was quick.

I don't use piracy for convenience. I watch movies and series together with my girlfriend (in a remote way) and we haven't found a way to watch together (Like Teleparty for Netflix or Disney Plus native "Watch Party") the content without the remote partner watching it in 320p (using Plex "Watch together" functionality). It simply doesn't work.

For me it hasnt been for along time. The site I use has everything as soon as its available, stores which episodes and at which time I was last time, has intro skip, autoplay and autonext. When i want to watch a series i just type the name in my browser, auto-complete the URL and i'm done. On netflix i have to tap through multiple menues, have to login and might even get blocked because im not on my home device. I get a better service in every aspect for free.

Fmovies is more convenient than many streaming services though

Pay $100+ to get all streaming services or use my favorite site through my smart tv with adblock from my phone for free and get it all....... hmmmm