Subscriptions, Piracy, and DRM

Before NetFlix was the big streaming service, the only on-demand television you could really get was cable. You had to pay for a bunch of different services and packages to get what you want. Then when NetFlix began streaming, you could get anything you want in one convenient place. Then, after a while, all of a sudden you had Hulu, Peacock, ParamountPlus, DisneyPlus, and so on. Essentially a digital version of cable. Let's look at Uber. We had Taxis before. Uber allowed anyone to do it, controlled from an app, at a competitive price. The prices were only sustained by investor money. Taxis then began to fade out as Lyft and Uber replaced them. Now, we have a worse alternative to Taxis, where the driver is just some guy not beholden to a company with a minimal background or psychological check, at a price really not much better than a taxi now. Tech has a tendency to do this, to create a 'new' product that destroys a pre-existing industry, funded by investor hype, and then jacking up prices once the hype fades, leaving consumers with a worse position than before.

Netflix has done the same. It destroyed cable television, and now we have to pay for all sorts of different streaming services to get the shows we actually want, like before. It seemed promising at first, and then when cable was a lost cause, the streaming services diversified and increased rates.

As a result, many people have turned to the seven seas. As Gabe Newell once said, piracy is a service issue, not a pricing issue. If people have an easier time getting a pirated good than a legal good, they will go for pirated goods. Naturally, pricing is one of the aspects of service and accessibility. So some people, rather than having to subscribe to ten services, have to navigate region-locked content, or have their favorite shows taken off of a streaming service, instead choose to just pirate it. It's cheaper, it's more easily accessible, and it's never going to be taken from you. The issue isn't solely pricing, but just the hassle to view shows or movies people want to watch.

Now then, this brings us to DRM. Many games, movies, softwares, etc. have DRM policy, where your access to a product can be revoked without notice or appeal, even if you have paid for a perpetual license. This is why so many people pirate as well, to avoid these types of senseless revocations.

So then, what do we do? Should we pirate? No. Piracy is illegal. Yes there are arguments for piracy, but then argue them in a court or council to get the rule changed, don't just disregard the rule. Instead, seek DRM-Free alternatives. For example, GOG is a great alternative to Steam. Or, buy physical DVDs or CDs of movies and music. Get open-source alternatives to common software like LibreOffice, or buy old product keys for software that doesn't have DRM included in the Terms and Conditions. Things like that to actually retain rights to the things you buy, without having to break the law.