cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/35892866
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Republished here, as AI content is in the Public Domain. References are available in the original article.
Frustrated by rising subscription costs and fragmented content availability, viewers worldwide are returning to piracy at unprecedented levels, reversing years of progress made by affordable streaming services. Recent data from London-based monitoring firm MUSO shows piracy visits skyrocketed from 130 billion in 2020 to 216 billion by 2024, with the industry facing projected losses exceeding $113 billion.
Subscription Fatigue Drives Digital Exodus
The streaming landscape has transformed from Netflix’s early promise of “everything in one place” into what critics call “Cable 2.0”—a fractured ecosystem requiring multiple subscriptions. According to The Guardian, the average European household now spends close to €700 annually on three or more video-on-demand subscriptions. With Netflix’s standard plan reaching $15.49 monthly and competitors following suit, consumers are increasingly viewing piracy as a rational alternative.
“Piracy is not a pricing issue, it’s a service issue,” Valve co-founder Gabe Newell observed in 2011—a prediction that appears prophetic as streaming platforms struggle with content fragmentation and rising prices. In Sweden, birthplace of both Spotify and The Pirate Bay, 25% of people surveyed admitted to pirating content in 2024, predominantly driven by those aged 15 to 24.
Content Wars Create Consumer Casualties
The fragmentation crisis has worsened as studios create exclusive content silos. Viewers face scenarios where favorite shows vanish from one platform only to appear on another, or require separate purchases despite existing subscriptions. Even purchased content can become unavailable due to licensing disputes, prompting consumer lawsuits against platforms like Amazon Prime Video.
MUSO data reveals that unlicensed streaming now accounts for 96% of all TV and film piracy, representing a fundamental shift in how content theft occurs. Modern pirates leverage sophisticated tools including AI-driven search engines and encrypted networks that adapt faster than anti-piracy measures can respond.
Industry Scrambles for Solutions
Streaming executives are experimenting with bundled offerings and cracking down on password sharing, but these measures often backfire by further alienating users. According to Antenna research, one-quarter of U.S. streamers are “chronic churners,” frequently canceling subscriptions due to cost and frustration.
The resurgence marks a stark reversal from the mid-2010s when convenient, affordable streaming services nearly eliminated piracy. As one industry analyst noted, studios have created “artificial scarcity in a digital world that promised abundance”, suggesting that without addressing core affordability and access issues, the piracy revival may continue reshaping entertainment consumption patterns.
“We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.”
When what you’re selling isn’t appealing, then people won’t buy it. It’s not super complicated.
I don’t think I’ve pirated a game since I started working and actually spending on Steam. Except Borderlands 3, because fuck Epic Games Store, their dumb fucking exclusivity deals, and their shitty launcher - they won’t EVER see a penny from me.
I bought it on Steam a year later when it came out, on sale, with DLCs.
Realistically, if there was a service that had everything on it that was past the cinema/pay per view stage, and was a reasonable price (say £35 a month, the price of two current streaming services), then I would probably be on that instead of Jellyfin.
And I mean everything back to the dawn of time. Anything you want, TV series, movies, the lot. Original versions, directors cuts, etc. George fucking Lucas, I’m looking at you here.
But there isn’t. There never will be. Because they’re all in a race to grab as much money as they can, before literal heat death engulfs the whole planet.
This was close enough to what the og Netflix was and unsurprisingly it was incredibly popular.
They could make a Steam style store for movies to buy individual movies that then stay on your account. Deep deep discounts on some oldie movies intermittently. People would eat that shit up and buy whole movie libraries to keep. Way more movies than they could watch (like people do with a Steam library).
I’ve got my server more stable now so it works a lot more reliably for Jellyfin. Before now, my wife would wholeheartedly agree with this and insist on paying for Netflix
Maybe she doesn’t know it, but how she reacts to this situation is my main test of her suitability as my partner. Nothing is more attractive to me than a woman who can just chill for 15 minutes without complaint while I exportfs -a and restart nfsd.
I recently upgraded my Jellyfin server from GTX 970 to GTX 1660 because I wanted to have HEVC 10bit support for transcoding on the fly (40 Mbps uplink is not ideal), it cost me $60 and I sold my old one for $20 to a buddy with GTX 600ish.