Srajo101
86279
3714
72
May 19, 2021 2:21 PM
Srajo101
86279
3714
72
wongrich
I gave my friend a ride yesterday. I guess I just stole from the auto industry $30,000 ?
Elroydb
Say you've never heard of the term "Opportunity costs" without saying you've never heard of the term "Opportunity costs"
themikep
It's also quite possible that killing account sharing will make the subscription less appealing to consumers, causing cancellations.
RobJenkins
They are getting exposure and should be grateful
jethroismaxbaer5772
kingrd
Everyone was fine with streaming services when it was 1-3 with all the good shows, not a bunch of exclusives and shit as bad as cable
pattyofurniture400
My family pays for 1 netflix account. If we couldn’t share passwords we would pay for 0 netflix accounts, not 4.
sambaah05
I'm guessing they'd prefer the 0. You'd must likely be more expensive on their streaming cost than someone who only is one household.
bderail
DumpsterFireSandwichCookieXL
I remember when the gimmic selling cable TV subscriptions was the absence of commercials. Now I "only" have internet.
maliApple
I pay for a single screen. Letting my sibs use it when I'm not is just getting maximum value out of my subscription fee.
LucianKane
Best explanation of it all: https://youtu.be/GZadCj8O1-0
onlyfourlinks
that was pretty good, thanks for the share
Rhewin
I guess the obscene profits aren’t obscene enough?
Strangeboke
netflix isn't that profitable, is the funny thing.
Rhewin
They had a $1.7B profit off of $7.1B in revenue in the first quarter of this year alone. How is that not that profitable?
TheUnstoppableWampas
"No matter how much it makes it's never enough." Capitalisms: Greed made the central tenet of a society.
RayMC
Not capitalism, not consumerism (although my fellow Zoomers love blaming that one), but corporatism. Corporatism is were it all goes wrong.
Bhargo
Nothing is enough, it doesnt matter if they have a lot of money they want ALL the money. Ever increasing profits, constant growth forever
Bhargo
There is a word we use when something has constant, uncontrolled growth: cancer.
LeonTheLionRawr
Another big problem with game I particular is the annoying launchers and ads and spyware. Often I will buy a game then pirate it to play it.
TacoThePerson
If I had to give up access to the streaming app accounts I share, I would not pay to get them back.
RatsLiveOnNoEvilStar
And the company would not see a fasley inflated view of thier customers. They might provide better content to get those lost sales back.
HoldingAccount
Or the number of people who pay for the service could rise if you couldn't share it. Or fall if the price is too steep.
ZeCosmicRrope
It is not cost, it is loss of potential benefits. The fact that you are sharing does not cost them shit.
RatsLiveOnNoEvilStar
It costs them bandwidth. They are pumping data to more homes than there are subscribers. The cost will go up to account for shared accounts
ImpeachAllInvolved
Considering how most of those companies write it off in their taxes, I'll consider piracing an equal trade.
only90skidswillgetthis
Yeah you cannot write off "lost sales" lol
thecauseman
That’s not how write offs work.
Elroydb
If you have information in regards to this please report it to the IRS. You might get a bounty from a portion of the tax money recovered
AstroHun
Colopty
Maybe if they didn't insist on reinventing cable people would be less open to trading account credentials.
RatsLiveOnNoEvilStar
The best part about streaming over cable is that you can cancel and resub at any time. Have Netflix this month, D+ next, Paramount after
skellington01
“The book industry lost over $1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 due to unauthorized loaning of books AKA friendship”
RatsLiveOnNoEvilStar
The loaning of a book, or other products, is not a lost revenue because two people can't be reading the same book at the same time.
RatsLiveOnNoEvilStar
There is still one copy of the product out in the world, if a person wants to read while their friend has the book, they need to buy a copy
skellington01
The story lives in multiple minds though...
TitanKyojin
Me with my friend: Hey bro read it out loud to me.
RatsLiveOnNoEvilStar
Sure and having my friend over to watch netflix with me is fine. We are both using the same source/book. Not trying to use multiple copies
MangoITE
Big assumption that if we couldn't share passwords that we would pay for every subscription service we currently have access to.
StrictlyBull
It’s never about lost money it’s about un-obtained money. Shareholders don’t just want more money they want ALL the money, like greedy asses
circlebreaker
These same corps. will screw you out of maybe just tens, but even hundreds of dollars and tell you to eat shit when you complain. Fuck 'em.
Daarst
These corps would kill you for $1 if they could get away with it.
afatrollofmyown
These corps will kill you AND get away with it.
Iliketacos42
From a business perspective the free market regulates this. Let's say Netflix comes down hard on password sharing. It's possible their total
Iliketacos42
Number of subscriptions fall, while maybe Hulu sees an increase as they aren't cracking down. The only bad thing would be if government got
Iliketacos42
Involved somehow by allowing a company to fine someone for sharing a password.
daromander
Why? You would assumingly be breaking a contract. A fine makes perfect sense for that.
batman
That has to be negotiated in the contract, not by US regulation. It’s a contract between private entities.
daromander
Yes, but in a failure to pay it is enforced in civil court, which is the US. Also, doing something illegal is illegal regardless of contract
LurkerOfDarkness
There have been a few studies made on the effects of piracy, they both found that piracy resulted in a net profit for companies, but of ½
LurkerOfDarkness
Course you're not supposed to know that. 2/2
DavidBrooker
Netflix et al. have a different argument than piracy did, because in piracy's case, it was users who paid for bandwidth to share media. 1/2
DavidBrooker
Streaming bandwidth costs are immense, so sharing passwords can reasonably be called a 'loss' in a way that piracy can't. That said, 2/3
DavidBrooker
their right to ask users not to share passwords is distinct from users' ability to choose to share or not share passwords. 3/3
aslum
Streaming bandwidth is only immensely costly because we've got an effective monopoly from the ISPs.
DavidBrooker
Even in pure electrical costs, forget internet bandwidth and infrastructure, an hour of streaming on Netflix costs Netflix - not the 1/2
DavidBrooker
end user - 30-40 cents (at 6 kWh per hour and relatively cheap electricity). Their infrastructure costs are low because they have huge 2/3
DavidBrooker
bargaining power and don't face the same monopoly power as and end user, but they still consume fifteen percent of GLOBAL internet 3/4
aslum
Yeah, not sure I believe that. Pretty sure Netflix uses Amazon's AWS, which (ignoring reduced costs for massive scale) would result in 1/
aslum
costs closer to $0.02/hour for the bandwidth, and since they're using Amazon's cloud, they aren't paying anything for the electricity.
TargetedAdBot
I make -1 000 000€ loss EVERY WEEK, because I haven't done lottery for months now.
TheobromineAddict
Definitely report that on your taxes.
QcKLU
Feelsbadman. I made $250k today just by not buying a lamborghini
MrZev
Is that adjusted with the odds of you winning?
zenoshogun
Just as much as the above companies are adjusting for chance of actual sales.
MrZev
It's not a chance, it's the max possible. If they charged $1 it probably would have sold. By theft it removes that possibility.
pareidoliaperson
I've lost trillions over the course of my life simply cos I was not born in a filthy rich family.
TheAssassinArtemisEntreri
it's one thing to share your membership with others, it's another to justify stealing from them because they're rich. just own it.
Mach30ThatsFasterThanMostPlanesCanGo
I buy games & music but steal movies. It's more about convenience. If I could go to a studio's website and pay them $10 to download a (1/2)
Mach30ThatsFasterThanMostPlanesCanGo
movie, I would do it. But I can't. If they made it easy, I would pay. But they don't, so I hop on Pirate Bay instead. (2/2)
theheadlessone
Very much where I am. I don't *care* if you pirate stuff, it seems like a virtually low cost- even if I think, fair is fair, if you like (c)
theheadlessone
product you should pay for it where you can. But I pirate shit all the time. I'm not a hero for it, but I won't lose any sleep over it
SilverHarvest
The thing is that it isn't like Xbox Exclusives vs PS Exclusives. It is we have one title specific to a X amount per month. 99% else is >
SilverHarvest
> common to every other platform. It is essentially why should I pay 10 bucks for say the office on Peacock, Scrubs on CBS and so on.
BoblbLawsLawBlg
Because different people make the shows. Company A makes the office and company B makes Scrubs. Imgur seems to think Hollywood is 1 company
RayMC
But those are hardware platforms, not software platforms. A better comparison might be Epic Game Store and Steam. Although this is still (1)
RayMC
a terrible comparisons because those are platforms for 3rd party owners of content. On streaming services, its largely 1st party titles (2)
RayMC
& an ever decreasing number of 3rd party tiles. They still exist (Netflix & Amazon license many films they don’t own), but shrinking. (3/3)
BlastFX
Yeah, but that's exactly why they suck. I want a one-stop shop for everything.
LupusLilium
This is what bothers me about the whole thing, Netflix had a sweet deal setup already. Get your product out to millions at a good fee. If
LupusLilium
major networks decided to invest with/partner with Netflix, then I would have understood paying roughly $30/mo to view shows from all the
LupusLilium
big TV producers. They still get their weekly release on TV, ad support from their channels, and a much larger audience. But instead they're
LupusLilium
willing to recripple that entertainment industry that had been broken by cable.
Bejita463
That's actually why I hated the Xbox One. I never found a single thing on it I was interested in I couldn't get on my PC.
ClydeTheBelovedBandit
Its always been pc + Nintendo as the winning combo (exclusives wise) but ps5 got lots going for it... Still WAY too expensive.
Xenarion
But if they don't have exclusives, that's a good thing, no?
Bejita463
I would rather just play games on my PC, yes. It just annoyed me that I got a console, only to realize that there was no need/use for it.
Xenarion
Ah, well, that's another issue. That's why you shouldn't buy a console on day 1 unless you're really sure there will be more games you want.
AmHumanNotLizardMan
Microsoft doesn't care if you're on windows or xbox, as long as it's still their ecosystem.
Bejita463
I doubt that they put the effort into creating a console only to not care whether people get it or not. :P
AmHumanNotLizardMan
They care about getting PlayStation people. But they sell their game on their platform, if it's on Xbox or Windows, so why would they care?
stolencanofrusto
They actually dont even make a profit off of console sales, they make all their money on game sales. Sauce in next reply.
PerfectManhattanUp
To be fair, there is lost revenue when people stream stuff without paying. There's a cost to the bandwidth and the hosting.
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Youhavinagiraffe
If you borrow something from someone then it HAS been paid for. I'm not stealing a car because I borrow a friend's instead of buying my own
ModernTenshi04
The difference is that you tend to give the book or car back.
Youhavinagiraffe
But you don't have to. Gifts are also not "stealing potential revenue"
ModernTenshi04
Gifts are also usually one to one and require transfer of ownership. Once you give the car away you no longer have access to it yourself.
only90skidswillgetthis
That's extra cost, not lost revenue.
HoldingAccount
No one of the people who pirate it wouldn't have paid for it? I bet the gains from people who pay to share are less than losses from piracy.
only90skidswillgetthis
I didn't say that. I am replying to a comment that describes the bandwidth costs as lost revenue when it is an expense
AnimalRescueGuy
I was fine paying for Netflix until they kept cancelling shows I watched, saying they were too expensive to make, and then raising rates.
JohnnyDewDew
And the stuff they keep going is sooo bad. Even their good stuff all looks exactly the same, like it was done quick in cheap equipment.
SpecialContainmentProcedures
Well, that's only half their fault. A lot of companies are pulling their shows to start their own streaming services.
CrassiusCurio
I miss Marco Polo
MissChickle
Marco Polo ?
JustTryingToLiveLife
Thats why i love HBOMax and Disney+, they own all their content
sambaah05
HBO Max doesn't own all their content. Stuff comes and goes because they have movies from other distribution companies.
LeftRightThere
That’s why I buy old Blu-rays and put them on my own server. I can watch the disc or stream it anywhere when I want.
DavidBrooker
I self-host as much as I can and have no complaints.
fluffmeister
How would one look into doing this? Simple Google search and walk through or is there a bit more knowledge required?
LeftRightThere
Internal Blu-ray reader in my PC ($70), Synology nas for my media server ($200+HDDs), MakeMKV to rip from disc + Handbrake to convert (free)
tokenhooker
Got out when they cut The Office.
sambaah05
They didn't cut it. Warner Brothers pulled it to move to their own platform.
bazzaretta
That has nothing to do with the subject.
privatepublic
Are you trying to remind me of Mindhunter and Designated Survivor?
CheckFlop
Dark Crystal
rareunicornmeat
IT WAS SO GOOD AND THEN THEY DON'T GIVE ME A SECOND SEASON TO 'Wrap up' !!!
notmuchthoughtoreffort
RIP age of resistance
espi0920
This was the reason I downgraded to their cheapest package. My wife and I never want to watch on separate screens, so why pay more?
raeflower360
After they cancelled sense8 and paid millions to keep Friends, I would have cancelled my account if I was the one paying lol
nangke
And then they lost Friends anyway
raeflower360
The only real thing lost was the money they wasted trying to keep it ??♀️
AnimalRescueGuy
Sense8 was exactly one of the shows in my head when I commented. Amazing show. Took forever to get going but when it did... wow.
raeflower360
I mentioned it because cost was sited what with the different world locations and then they paid a disgusting amount for an unfunny show
Mimsey
Some of that was the networks. The Marvel shows got canceled because Disney was about to launch Disney+ and stop licensing Marvel titles.
Niddhoger
Then flooding the site with their new, self-produced, shows... that are utter fucking garbage I can't watch a single episode while drunk 1/2
Niddhoger
Then you find that one AMAZING show, get totally invested, and it's cancelled at the second season. Fucking Netflix... 2/2
FatCatTax
Their whole "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks" method is obviously not the way to go.
Niddhoger
Well it would be if they actually stopped to develop the few shows that do stick.
potshot
But that's exactly how it's supposed to work. Enough people cancel subscriptions, and streaming services need to fix what they offer, or(1)
potshot
die out. At the same time, if enough people stop subscribing but still want the service, they may tank the service. That's business.(2)
DavidBrooker
Netflix has basically said that they don't see the value in shows going for more than a couple seasons. Though they don't share their 1/2
DavidBrooker
viewership, they've suggested that new shows drive membership; new seasons don't. 2/2
TheRickest
That's because of quality. A new title has hope, a s2 of a bad show does not. If s1 had quality their new seasons would retain.
TheRickest
So all they've said is, "we'd rather pump out titles then make quality IPs."
draek1
Sounds like the same bullshit short term corporate strategies that are ruining the world in every other place too
SmellingMistake
New seasons don't drive new membership but could drive membership retainment. Likely hasn't hit a critical point for them to care yet.
crazyspelling
They don't know how to quantify member retention in a way that makes it look like "growth" yet.
greentights
That's the thing that managers care about. At the end of the day, it's all individuals trying to get that next promo or raise
Niddhoger
No, the problem is that they renegotiate salaries after two seasons. If the show was successful, the team wants more $ and Netflix says NO
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BustedTuna
While I mostly disagree with the password sharing being stealing, piracy is most definitely stealing.
DavidBrooker
Ironically, though, in terms of the cost and revenue to the business, password sharing costs them more.
Daarst
vertumnus1
If you steal a thing, the owner no longer has it. Piracy is piracy, stealing is stealing. Don't muddy the waters with false equivalency.
vertumnus1
This is not to say that piracy is 'morally superior' to stealing, it's just a different crime. Go ahead and give moral judgement if you want
BustedTuna
"I didn't want to buy it so it isn't a loss" is a lame excuse because you clearly wanted it enough to steal it.
NaughtButOne
Yes, and there's a very important distinction. I'd love to try X, but I am not willing to pay Y to try X. Movie trailers are useless, and >
NaughtButOne
>no one makes game demos anymore. Your only recourse is pay full price and hope it's worth the money. Can't (easily) refund a movie or game.
RatsLiveOnNoEvilStar
Or wait for it to go cheeper, watch videos of people playing it (twich basically replaces demos).
RatsLiveOnNoEvilStar
As for returns. Why wouldn't returning it to the place you boguht it from not give you a full refund? Play/watch/test in the return window
SteveMND
Perhaps, but there's a huge difference between "interested enough to bother pirating it for free" & "want it enough to actually pay for it."
MrZev
So wait till it goes on sale?
terabyteuk
This is why rentals exist.
RatsLiveOnNoEvilStar
But you still gained the expeience of playing the game without giving the due payment to those that created it
SteveMND
Not saying otherwise. Just saying "because you clearly wanted it enough to steal it" isn't as binary as he's making it out to be.
Ecne
i used to pirate games when i was young, i can tell you i wouldn't buy those games, simply cause i couldn't afford all of them.
MrZev
At the same time, you could also wait years for it to go on sale to an affordable price point.
Ecne
it was 20 years ago, it was bit different then
MrZev
No it wasn't. I was a kid then too.
imgurmage
Great, I'll just download millions of copies of a show/game/album and bankrupt that company with my theft.
BustedTuna
It isn't the downloading that costs them but the loss of a potential sale. You are willfully misunderstanding the argument.
FiftyShadesOfBroccoli
If the loss of a potential sale is theft, everyone who has ever left a car dealership without buying anything is a thief.
BustedTuna
It is amazing to me that, despite living in the digital age, people can't fathom a world in which theft involves copyrighted digital assets.
FiftyShadesOfBroccoli
Equally amazing as the fact that people would still confuse copyright infringement for theft. There are 2 possibilities here: Either you're…
DarkZalgo
Lolno. I've only ever pirated shit that I never had any intention of purchasing. There was never a loss of potential sale.
DarkZalgo
And of course there's also all the content that simply isn't available for sale any more (thanks Nintendo) and the only option to obtain
RayMC
I recently found out about Super Mario Galaxy, and want to play it. I wasn’t as into video games as a kid, but I still have an old Wii. (1)
DarkZalgo
Is piracy.
BustedTuna
"I wanted it enough to break the law but I never would have purchased it" is such a shit excuse. You benefited from work you didn't pay for.
DarkZalgo
And benefiting from work you didn't pay for is in itself illegal or immoral? And besides, my point is no potential sale was lost. No revenue
Zarohn
Does it maximize profit to go after each small time violator of copyright for personal use? I think the reason this is a 'moral issue' 1/
imgurmage
Potential sales are potential sales, not lost revenue.
HoldingAccount
If A and B would buy the service, they'd get 2 fees. If A buys it and shares with B, they get 1 fee. They've lost 1 fee worth of revenue.
HoldingAccount
Yes, that is simplified. But more people would pay for the service if it wasn't able to be shared. Not the amount comps are saying, but less
BustedTuna
Wait, what exactly do you think is lost revenue?
4TWookie
Like actual theft/loss of physical copies? Product returns ect.
imgurmage
A made up term to describe money they think they should have gotten.