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
- 517I 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
not that ive experienced
Subscriptions are too expensive now and market too fragmented, full on enshitification.
Steam for games is still good. Wait for sale, good price, business hasn't changed since they started. Gabe Newall was right about piracy.
it ended for a while, now if you want to watch something you need to search for what service its on, maybe its not even available in Australia so piracy is enabled, end cue starting servers like jellyfin which are much better than streaming, free and local.
The trick is to pay for piracy 🤣
Only subscription I have is for the gym and insurance. Anyone know how to pirate these?
What do you need the gym for? Less motorised transport and more walking.
There's more to a gym then just replacing walking? Weight training etc.
I pirate all of my media. For games, i will purchase current Gen but older stuff i will modify the hardware and pirate. I have a Retronas setup with currently 17Tb of pirated games hehe
The biggest issues I have on streaming sites is ads and not being able to select the resolution you want. If my internet wont support 4k without buffering, still give me the option so I can select it, pause while I make myself some tea/coffee and get some snacks to get it to load.
If I select 1080p, I should not be getting less. If it buffers, so be it, but I am not watching in 480p for a few seconds.
I hate how with time, we get less control over settings
I've just cut down on subscriptions and found better ways to use my time.
Cut the gym membership and bought a treadmill, rack, and set of weights on FB Marketplace for the cost of a few months of membership.
Cut the Netflix (and other streaming platform) subscriptions and got a library card and now borrow books to read instead (and also watch some stuff on YouTube).
Cut the GamePass subscription and went back to finish all of the titles I bought during various Steam sales, but have never had the chance to play.
The business model of these subscriptions are just to hook you in, get you addicted, and throw low-quality content at you that you don't even want / need. They work by becoming some sort of social pressure (i.e. "everyone has Netflix, so I should as well"). If you have the means and can afford it, then who cares, but if you really find the price not acceptable, it's not like there's a shortage of free things to do - call your mum, go for a hike, borrow a book / movie from the library…etc.
No of course the raise in subscription prices didn't send me to pirate. Because I was already pirating well before prices rose.
I only have Prime subscription, YT for everything else.
I pay for Prime for the free delivery and the slightly better than bad streaming.
I watch some anime on CrunchyRoll with a free account.
YouTube has a lot of free movies now and ads are blocked with UBlocker Origin with Firefox.Want to see what's worth watching and where to watch it legally?
https://www.justwatch.com/
https://www.yidio.com/
https://www.playpilot.com/au/Want to Stream? use VPN + Firefox/LibreWolf and UBlock Origin
FMovies.do
gogoanime.by/Torrenting is only ideal if you want to high quality buffer for a minute or two (you can use qbittorrent to torrent a video sequentially so you can begin to watch it after 5-10% of the download is completed)
1337x.to
eztvx.toIf you don't like Firefox selling your data, LibreWolf is the leading open source firefox alternative:
https://librewolf.net/Why torrent when RD exists? Genuine question. You can eve download the Linux ISO direct from the web interface / Stremio.
because I don't want to pay for Real Debrid and I don't want an account tracking what I'm doing. It's also just an extra step that is just unnecessary, at worst when I stream a torrent, you need to wait a minute or two and that's only if you don't find what you're looking for either as a free option, on prime, or on a stream.
Makes sense - thanks for explaining.
If you don't like Firefox selling your data
Do they really?
TLDR: Firefox back in March updated it's T&Cs from "We will never sell or share your data" to "We own anything you input through our browser".
I'm exaggerating a bit but if you want all the data read up yourself: https://adguard.com/en/blog/mozilla-deletes-promise-to-never…
Thanks. So firefox is basically a keylogger for Mozilla?
I just uninstalled Firefox. It's such a shame they've strayed so far from their core values.
What about Brave browser?
If I was going to trust a Chromium based browser, Brave would be it. Just be mindful that it has a few features enabled by default such as "Safe Browsing". "Safe Browsing" is helpful because it basically screens you from known malware websites with a warning, it shares which websites you are visiting with Google to do this though. There would be a few other little things as well like their BAT tokens which you would need to make sure you have opted out of.
I basically just make sure I don't do anything online that I would be worried about my family knowing because I assume I'm not smart enough to cover every base and that in the future at some point all of our online activity will become shared knowledge.
I buy media, old and rarely new but increasingly obtain for free as I probably wouldnt have justified the cost in buying certain things anyway. but dont really bother with streaming apart from youtube and definitely not pirate streaming services. So many things available for free and legit now too!
I have a trick that has saved me thousands - I don't watch Netflix.
Needs to be an option for just greatly reducing consumption altogether. 95% of modern shows/movies are basically all crap, very few movies and shows are even worth venturing on the seven seas let alone paying money for
YT Premium is about the only entertainment sub as well as music.
It’s all about watching more ads so you get two hours of YouTube a day.
I pay for a couple so it's easier for the kids with parental controls. I pay for RD and use Stremio for anything not on those or if I can't be bothered looking. I should look into the options for parental controls for stremio or at least one that shows ratings so they can self manage.
Good article on enshitification here - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/05/way-past-…
Haven't pirated in over 15 years. I won't go back, even though prices are going up for subscribtions. I'll just give up on streaming and gaming.
Piracy has always existed. Companies have always reported massive profits. I dont think anyone could say honestly that the world would be "better" without piracy.
Doesn't it have ads?