Following on from examples like the Netflix price increases and account sharing crackdowns and Xbox Game Pass price increases announced today, as well as the crackdowns on overseas accounts for multiple sites, have you gone back to piracy for movies, tv or games? Or to buying content instead? Or something else?
Has The Rise in Subscriptions Cost Sent You (Back) to Piracy?
spackbace on 02/10/2025 - 12:00
Last edited 02/10/2025 - 12:21
Last edited 02/10/2025 - 12:21
Poll Options
- 48I don't pirate, I pay for any subscriptions I want
- 518I pirate some, pay for some
- 185I only pirate
- 18I only use free options (Youtube with ads, Spotify with ads etc)
- 31I just wanted to vote
Comments
A sporting event I was interested in was behind yet another sub so I borrowed a login for the day just to test it out. A bit clunky but I am seriously reviewing the tech options.
iptv for live sports, the sheer number of channels its a bit daunting but worth it for the $50 odd a year
Is iptv a piracy thing though? Are you subscribing to a piracy service?
You wouldn't suggest breaching the terms of service of a free tv broadcast by ignoring it's geoblock, I would hope!
@tenpercent: The ones I have seen have been sometimes the live stream of a channel and sometimes like the free to air streaming channels.
Most EPG were not populated but there is apparently another service you can subscribe to for a nominal fee to fix that.
Found it a bit hit n miss for finding a cheap one with no lag….still for a pineapple no pirate can complain
Ive evolved from C64 double tape deck, to ftp 0 day warez, PS1 modding, to napster, to piratebay, to todays stremio & iptv..to name a few…very hard to break the cycle.
I pity how trashed your life must be living as a hardened criminal, sleeping with one eye open, never certain you won't be ripped from your home and hung by the neck until dead.
I know its a hard life, but someone needs to wear the one eyed patch passed down from generation to generation
Disk masher and Xcopy professional. Fast hack em @c64
Yep, everything is too costly just to watch 1 or 2 shows on each sub….
Hey friend! I couldn’t help but notice you’re about to purchase digital content. Before you click “buy,” let’s have a quick chat.
If they're willing to sell you a DRM-free copy of their work, they genuinely deserve your support. You’re not just paying for a license you’re investing directly in their craft.
But iTunes, Prime Video & the rest. Those “purchases” aren’t really yours. They’re more like long-term rentals; companies can yank your access whenever they please, change the rules overnight, or even vanish without a trace.
And let’s be honest: DRM isn’t protecting anyone’s art. It only punishes paying customers. Meanwhile, pirates sail right past those restrictions, enjoying the very same files you paid for without a single click of authorization.
Back in the day, Clippy never tracked your habits, never forced a subscription, and never locked you out of software you’d already paid for. He just wanted to help. That’s the kind of ownership and respect you should expect when you hand over your hard-earned doubloons.
So next time you see a DRM-free option, grab it. Your wallet and the artists you love will thank you.
~Clippy
Never left, infact i went all in with an Unraid server, over 100TB of storage.
If I don't own what I pay, I don't pay what I don't own.
For good movies, I still pay cinema tickets.
For good Bands. I still pay concert tickets and merch @ausdday
The music model has changed for this, thats why concerts are so expensive now, to make up for the lack of music purchase revenue.
In family groups for Spotify and YouTube premium. Pay for Amazon Prime due to value. Will probably drop Spotify tbh.
However ever since discovering RD / Stremio it is so convenient having everything in one location! I also like that it makes us watch TV less as we're not constantly having the next show or film advertised.On another note, if buying isn't owning then piracy isn't stealing.
can i ask why you subscribe you both spotify and Premium? ill never understand this as Youtube music is essentially spoitfy if anything it has a bigger library but is not as user friendly
I had Spotify before YT. When the renewal came up it was just auto pilot TBH, you're absolutely right though hence why I'll likely drop it.
You wouldn’t download a bear
If i could i would.
I'd download a beer.
I'd download both a bear and a beer if I could.
Stopped paying Netflix after my Türkiye family got shut down. I might have kept it for just myself at those prices but they stopped it entirely
Same. No more Netflix for me.
Stopped paying Netflix after my Türkiye family got shut down. I might have kept it for just myself at those prices but they stopped it entirely
those where the 'good times' legit got a year of Youtube Premium for like $23
Same here. Ironically it was in the end cheaper by a few dollars than Aus sub. They won’t get anything now.
It was the nudge I needed to sort out how to watch with no ads. Went from getting $84 a year for a family plan to $0. Really shot themselves in the foot.
And I was an advocate for YouTube premium! I would tell people “I don’t even watch that much, but the quality of life of not having to watch an advert before seeing how to reset a dishwasher is worth $7 a month.”
So they lost that too.
I knew how to sail the high seas about 20 years ago but don’t really know how to to these days 🤷♂️
Search for Viren070 streamio guide.
Literally never been easier than now
It is not just price, it is the fracturing of content, basicly you might only watch a handful of shows but to get them u could easily require 4 or 5 services. It is excessively expensive and a pain in the arse. I have dropped all but prime at this point as price rises on top of the reduced content is the straw that broke the dromedaries back.
Havent downloaded a thing since i got real debrid ($55 a year), was on Kodi but just using stremio now as its easier to set up. And yes i know pirating is free but cbfed downloading, transferring, or having plex nas whatever, just click and stream.
Stremio is still pirating 😉
Online piracy is the unauthorized uploading or downloading of a copyrighted sound or video
Im not downloading 🤷 half pirate then whatever. Lol the losers who keep downvoting anytime someone mentions real debrid, ill happily pay less than $5 a month not to trawl through the 7 seas and risk downloading viruses.
When you open up a cat video on Youtube, what are those TCP and UDP packets doing? Are the frames in the Youtube player magically appearing on your screen? If I were to unplug your router, what would happen to the unbuffered video as that Youtube video plays?
When you clear your browser cache, the "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles[some value].default\cache2" folder is 0 bytes. What happens to that folder after you leave a Youtube video running for 10 minutes?
Nobody is downvoting real debrid, they are all using it. They are downvoting because you think it is legally different to downloading a torrent.
It’s like the deals we see here occasionally for $30 MS Office keys and people saying “well, it is better than pirating a key” when it is legally the same, and just self delusion.
@mskeggs: Actually the huge difference is the uploading.
That’s where the criminal part comes into play. Streaming illegal content is a copyright infringement.
Uploading is distribution and when people were getting slammed hard by studios years ago it was because they torrented and uploaded. Then they were like you assisted 20k people to pirate so you owe us millions of dollars.
is watching YouTube using Firefox and uBlock Origin piracy?
Umm… Arrrr…. 🤔
As someone who also does this, I would say it does, as you're bypassing the method of payment.
Suppose you sit there like a good little boy or girl and watch/view the ads. Is not clicking on the ads also piracy then?
Negative. The platform and content creator get paid when the ad is served. Any clicks on top are a bonus.
I do this, and YouTube would definitely say it was piracy ;-)
But they aren’t neutral on the matter.There are some wrinkles in the local version of copyright that probably means it isn’t, because we haven’t got as strict a law around circumvention as the DMCA in the USA, but you would be in breach of the end user terms and YouTube could terminate your account, if that is a concern.
To be fair… If you don't sail the high seas you won't find One Piece. 😅😅😅
Me personally I found the best of both worlds. Technically this is pirating but at the same time you can stream it without having to wait forever for it too download.
I use Real Debrid with Stremio. I pay 16 euros every 6 months for this service which is arround $28 Aud. You basically get acess to all the movies and series from all the services and more. Theirs also plenty of 4k servers and even 4k blueray remux servers too. I'm guessing it does count as pirating? But at the same time you still pay some money for it every 6 months and you get to stream the movies and series. Also it's got protection services in it embedded so your safe. The ISP even if you are not using a vpn they will have not proof of your streaming/pirating via this method.Can multiple users use your account at the same time?
In the same household/ip address yes
Yep. Apparently it has to be the same household or same state? Me personally though one day I forgot to turn off my vpn and used stremio while connected to Greece accidently but thankfully got no email or warning alert. But yeah probs best not to risk it.
You can have many devices connected to it and accounts.
You pay real debrid to do the piracy for you.
Your skin in the game is copyright infringement.
No comment, officer.
Not really for the costs but piracy can also be easier / more convenient
with Plex / Sonarr / Radarr / Prowlarr set up you can subscribe to lists to automatically download trending shows from all platforms. It's terrible trying to get a specific show legally and you end up with 5 streaming apps
its funny becuz this is why priacy took off - sure it was 'free' but the main reason it was popular is you didnt need to go to a music store to buy music or video store to 'rent a movie' - obviously everything is digital now but it wasnt the case in the days of limewire and early days of Pirate Bay
it was more convient and cost nothing then the current 'legal system
Spotify entire business case was it needed to be faster then piracy, more convinent and charge a 'cost' that was worth paying but not too expensive the masses would run back to priacy
based on this forum i think some people are starting to head back the other way -\cant blame anyone for trying to save a few dollars everything is expensive and some of the streaming services are straight up shit
I cancelled my Netflix today as well. I can't say the woke stuff was the reason, as I was unaware of it.
But when there is a call for a mass unsubscribe from Netflix, I'm all for joining in - if not just to send a message that we are sick of the ever increasing subscription costs.
So people, join in. Just unsubscribe from Netflix today. You can always re-subscribe later.
Unsubscribe now, think later.
Define woke.
the woke crap they churn out and the extreme ideologies they support and preach.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
Marc Randolph is a co-founder of Netflix. His grandfather was Edward Bernays, who literally wrote the book on propaganda, being the author of the 1928 book Propaganda. Bernays, often described as the "father of public relations," was a nephew of Sigmund Freud and used psychological principles to shape public opinion, effectively pioneering modern propaganda techniques.
Do you cancel Murdoch?
A shame, seems that Plex is doing their Netflix arc. Eventually they'll start charging family and friends $1.99/month to remote stream from servers. That'll be the day I switch to Emby or Jellyfin.
Who’s gonna explain to an old limewire connoisseur how modern day pirating is done?
For education purposes…Google “Reddit RealDebrid” and go from there. PM if you get stuck, posts about it disappear on here.
Most of those networks are still going. Soulseek is unbelievable for music, even very rare stuff is found.
More and more wealth is being concentrated into fewer hands.
Billionaires and trillionaires engage in all kinds of non-risky financial strategies that produce wealth out of nowhere, sucking money out of the economy into their bloated accounts.
Meanwhile, multi-millionaires continue to suck wealth out of the Australian economy via their multiple investment portfolios that just grow and grow and grow in value while also producing a steady (and increasing) income stream.
Meanwhile, real incomes of ordinary people on median wages or thereabouts are not growing anywhere near as fast as the prices of property and goods.
In 2022*, a large survey found the richest 1% of the population captured 38% of all new wealth since the 1990s, whereas the bottom 50% captured just 2%.
And a recent survey found that the wealth of billionaires and trillionaires increased 3 times faster in 2024 than it did in the previous year.
Collectively, these billionaires raked in $5.7 billion per day in 2024, and the top 10 of them gained approximately $100 million a day in 2024.
Meanwhile, if you were on a median salary in Australia, you might have seen your income increase by $2k-$5k this year while property prices went up $50k-$300k over the same period. And they're about to go up even more with the 5% scheme.
In such a world, it is fair to pirate all you want. Say "screw you" to the governments and corporations that allow inequality to grow. Having said that, I do pay for Netflix and Amazon Prime because I think they're worth it.
Well said
Haaarrrgghhh
I only go to piracy sites to get directions on how to get away from them..
I subscribe to Netflix and Britbox. I also have Prime and Apple TV as part of other subscriptions…….but I find myself downloading shows released in US and UK that are not yet available in Australia for legit streaming on these 4 plarforms.
"I wish I gave more money to Apple, Netflix, Disney etc. for media rather than pirated it or used ad blockers"
Said no one on their death bed, ever.
For me the lack of content on my existing subscriptions has sent me back to piracy.
I was on a subscription until everything split into their own little worlds
Then I bought DVDs and BluRay but now they don't make them for half the things anymore.
I tried it the nice ways but I got plans on actually being able to buy a house that was built in the last 50 years and a car from this century, so it's DVDs and the high seas
I enjoy my Crunchyroll subscription. For ~$120 a year I get to watch as much as I want, so I think that's good value.
But not everything I want to see is on there. I also need subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon, Paramount, and Hulu as well. It's annoying as there's always that one show that requires a separate subscription.
A channel 7 employee told me two weeks ago that 7plus viewership is up due to cost of living.
Personally I switched back to pirating when amazon started including ads in their shows. I'm not paying a subscription fee to view ads.
Cancelled my Xbox GPU sub this morning.
The question on my mind and it should be on everyones is actually how much money the copyright owner receives from each viewing?
I once found the answer for cinemas in Australia, and guess what, it was cents!
So the real crime is restrictive trade practices by the copyright owners?Maybe add a poll option for those 'intending to switch'.
I still have a few family plan subscriptions but intend to get rid of them all due to poor experience and rising prices (spotify, netflix). I just haven't got around to learning how to safely enjoy the 'free alternatives' but it is my intention to fully decouple from big tech and take ownership of my own digital experience.
It was bit of saving when Netflix users used password sharing. Other countries have much more content on streaming services, prime video has movies for free while has to pay to view in Australia.
Straw that broke the camel's back for me was when Amazon stuck ads in Prime video unless I paid more. That pushed me to Stremio and I haven't looked back.
Bring back physical media - Blueray, cds etc.
The cost didn't help, especially if you don't want ads. But it was more the pain of having content spread across an ever increasing number of services, combined with having to deal with the rubbish apps these multi billion dollar corps pump out.
I do still pay for games though. I tend to wait for sales and mostly play indie games these days, which usually works out to be a pretty good deal.
Streaming was all well and good when it was just Netflix and was a good, all round place for people to get their viewing content from. Since it's become incredibly fragmented, it's just as bad as having to pay a Foxtel sub and just not worth it. Combine that with the fact that you still get screwed, quality wise, if you don't watch the content on these services the way they want you to.
For example, I don't actually have my smart TV connected to the internet (avoids enshittification updates pushed to it etc), I have a PC running Linux that I would use to watch all my content on my TV on. Try and use any streaming service on a web browser (I personally have been a long time Firefox user) on Linux and they shaft you with low bitrate, 720p video, even though you could be paying for 4K. The only bloody way I know that you can actually get what you pay for and watch on a PC is to be running Windows, using exclusively Microsoft Edge or the respective service's app from the Windows Store.
If they're going to try and screw me that way, they don't get my money.
It's not even the price rises that i think are driving people back to the high seas.
It's the fact that if you want to watch a TV series you need to go get Binge to watch it. Oh you want to watch another series. Ok Netflix. Oh another one, that'll be Apple. Now you have 5 subscriptions and we're worse off than before.
I cancellef Netflx after their recent hike. Just too expensive now.
I just rotate through other streaming providers. As for netflix i may resubscribe for the occassional month or so, but overall Netflix is going to get a lot less revenue from me over the longer period thanks to its current short term greed.
where is the pay to pirate option
Streaming used to be awesome — one or two subscription, tons of content. But now, with every media company launching their own service, it's fragmented and expensive. You need multiple subscriptions just to watch a few shows, and even then, stuff disappears or isn’t available. It’s no wonder more people are turning to piracy — not because they want to, but because it’s simpler and cheaper.
Adding to the rising cost with introduction of ads really ruins the experience. Only subscription I have left is YT Premium in terms of streaming.
Game wise haven't pirated as much.
My reading of the Copyright Act 1968 suggests that piracy occurs with the commercial dealing of copyrighted material.
Lots of talk about substantial profit and commercial scale around the 130's. Up to five years imprisonment with $150,000* (think it's a bit higher, can't remember exactly).
A few defences are available.
Whereas dealing with copyrighted material for personal use appears to primarily constitute copyright infringement which is a civil dispute. Ultimately, the copyright holder would be suing for damages. This might be a little bit or it could be quite a substantial amount for several titles.
Also note, whether it be for personal or commercial use, I think it goes without saying that any illegal material would attract criminal attention.
FYI Copyright over an original work is automatically created in Aust as soon as created and expressed in material form whether it has the special little c on it or not. Copyright usually expires 70 years after the author's death.
Other forms of IP are required to be registered for protection.
Only thing I pay for is Youtube, Apple Music, and Prime for the deliveries.
Tried Youtube Music and that app is GARBAGE so went back to Apple Music.
Everything else I get with Stremio + Torbox, it's great 98% of the time for like 2% of what it would cost me to subscribe to all the platforms.
My brother in Christ, I pay to pirate!!! (RealDebrid)
But I do keep some subscriptions, because, despite the OUTRAGEOUS increase in the Game Pass Ultimate price, it is still worth it to me
But I only have:
Apple Music (Turkey - Student) at around $0.5/mo
Game Pass Ultimate - at around $8/mo from stacks of discounts a while ago
RealDebrid at around $6/moCancelled all the streaming services ages ago, only watch youtube with Adblock/Revanced/SmartTube (on TV)
Recently cancelled amazon prime as well.
Also cancelled Audible (which I only use when I can get 3 months for 0.99 whenever that happens).I too wish to become a Turkish student, is it still possible?
I mainly enjoy YouTube creator channels to be honest, outdoorsy stuff, so have gone right off Netflix stuff if anything I watch older shows like Twin Peaks for example
Just bought a 16tb hard drive, nzbget, sonarr, radarr, jellyfin all the way
Nope, I literally own hundreds of thousands of media files saved on my 512TB of space server, I've bought all of them
i don’t pirate… just paying for reasonably priced items when a need arise (outright or subscribe). I block every ad wherever possible because it’s no longer advertising but a bat $hit crazy campaign for brainwashing people
There was a period of time when I was happy to pay an affordable monthly fee to access Netflix, Disney, Tidal and YTP. These companies were paid for their service.
The companies got greedy and changed their payment platforms, offering less service than I am accustomed to.
When one or two parties of a contract is unhappy that is grounds for divorce, grounds for sailing the high seas. If I can be bothered, as new content these days is lackluster recycled pretentious brainrot not worth wasting time on.
Paying those companies is over. Unless they improve their value for money offering, this customer is lost to them for good.
100%. Disney+ was like 120-130$ a year, which is give or take 10 a month. I didnt mind that because i thought yeah thats cheap enough and I kinda use it weekly. Eventually it went up to 180$ and i use it only when specific shows come out. That on top of netflix, binge and all that, ive just resorted to piracy. Stremio and real debrid is where its at.
i just use HDO box on my tv
I have gone back to downloading cars