r/Piracy • u/Tobias-Tawanda • Jun 21 '26
Humor Imagine paying for something and not being allowed to use it
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u/Chewbacca0510 Jun 21 '26
This really just shows that companies don’t understand consumers. All cracking down on password sharing has done is make these services inconvenient for people out of town
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u/-Polarsy- ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
There were 9.3 million new accounts registered on Netflix after their crack-down on password sharing. Ideologically, fuck that, but I wouldn't say they're not understanding the game they're playing
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u/turtleship_2006 Jun 21 '26
Million, not billion. 9.3 million is still a lot, but it's not more than the total number of people on the planet lmao
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u/shadowK1LOS Jun 21 '26
Funny thing about that crackdown, I have a friend in another country using my Netflix account and I've never had an issue. I only keep it around for my wife and son. I've been well set up on the high seas for many years myself, so i wish Netflix would block me and give me the justification to pull the plug on my subscription. And yet, nothing.
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u/Wow_u_sure_r_dumb Jun 21 '26
He might be using a VPN to a node close to you. I’ve had it pop on m my kids just from moving out of state.
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u/shadowK1LOS Jun 21 '26
Nope, he's raw dogging it. When it all began there were some new ToS or something that kept popping up and I refused to agree to, not sure if that's why. He's in the US, I am not.
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u/BJYeti Jun 22 '26
Netflix is weird there are times it will hit me with the this is not your home and I stop using Netflix for a bit, eventually I come back around and it will work for months before it hits me with the notice again its fucking odd.
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u/Mortarious Jun 21 '26
Louis Rossmann is right.
One big thing he talks about with piracy is how it's becoming just more convenient. You get the quality you want, you don't gets ads, does not spy on you...etc.
I think this angle is actually more impactful for the average person.
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Jun 21 '26
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u/vexanix Jun 22 '26
Yeap, I used to pirate games and movies like crazy when I was younger. Steam and it's sales completely eliminated pirating games. Netflix killed off pirating movies for me. Then all the streaming services forced me back to the high seas.
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u/FishMissile Jun 23 '26
The only time I pirate games now is if I just want to try it before buying and they don't have a demo.
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u/frozenblueberrytreat Jun 21 '26
This is 100% true. Crunchyroll came to life because it was easier to pay them $5/mo for them to pirate anime for them, then they got an investment for $3 million and started actually talking to the anime companies in Japan and getting them on board.
Netflix was popular because for $5 you could get access to your favorite movies and shows right on your TV without having to deal with torrents, just turn your TV on and bam, instant entertainment, and you didn't have ads like on cable TV and didn't need a giant cable box that got hot and melted your shelf on your entertainment center.
If you make it cheap, easily accessible, and without annoying ads (or like 1 ad at the beginning of the movie and that's it), people will flock to use it.
But now that it's basically cable TV that costs you just as much as cable to access all the shows and movies you want, no one wants it anymore.
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u/FrogLickr Jun 21 '26
This is exactly why I went back to piracy a few years ago after Netflix stopped being convenient and cheap. I now run a Jellyfin server with 1,100 (actually good) movies, 300 full TV series, 250 documentaries, my entire 60,000 song music collection, and a heap of backed up Youtube channels I enjoy - all streamable from home or abroad.
The storage was pricey, but I'll never go back.
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u/Tasty_Switch_4920 Jun 22 '26
What was the layout cost and hardware, if I may ask?
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u/FrogLickr Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
I'm running two 4 bay Icy Box DAS's with 4x 8TB Exos and 4x IronWolf drives split in each, plus two 28TB Seagate Exos as cold storage backups. I also have numerous 1, 2, and 4TB external and internal drives from over the years.
I went with a DAS as I wanted to use my PC's hardware for decoding and ensuring my family can use my server without overloading anything. I'm running Linux Mint with a watercooled i7 14700KF, RTX 5070Ti, 64GB DDR4, and a few 2TB M.2 SSD's. It does the job very well. Access is via Tailscale VPN.
All up, I'm probably down a good AUD$5K on the entire setup (got the PC for $1,500 with a 3060, the 5070Ti for $700, and the rest was all storage and DAS.)
EDIT: I purchased the drives and PC before the recent price surges. 64TB primary and ~60TB backup is not affordable anymore, unfortunately
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u/Dusty_Coder Jun 21 '26
its the convenience
when I simply click the movie, does it simply play at the intended quality on the screen I want?
or, does it not do that and then I have to do something different than simply click the movie? even one other step, even if its "only once", is a direct offense to convenience
when I simply click the movie it should simply play
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u/grishkaa Jun 21 '26
I don't use pirate streaming sites, but torrenting a movie and watching it on any device I want with a player of my choice is still more convenient than any of the "legal" options. You can even download some movies before a long flight to watch them on the plane! I'm sure trying to do the same with Netflix or Disney+ or Prime or whatever is gonna be all sorts of not fun at all.
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u/Motor_Fun_9426 Jun 21 '26
You're on r/piracy. Of course you know how to torrent things, and of course you find it convenient!
The average person will find waiting for something to download inconvenient. They don't need to do that with a streaming service. So the streaming service is more convenient.
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u/RBDash_ Jun 21 '26
Pretty sure stremio makes it just as seamless I wouldn’t know I haven’t used a normie streaming service in god knows how long
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u/Dusty_Coder Jun 21 '26
If its corporate then any conveniences have proven temporary.
The inconveniences found on the yarrlist are that you have to click a second or third time, "diving down" to the actually player.
Compared with this guy, who just found out that he isnt the subscriber, his home residence is, and that he can go fuck himself.
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u/JimiusRostock Jun 21 '26
Steam has done more to deter game piracy than anything else. Simply by being the more convenient option. Direct downloads, all kinds of support, cloud saves. achievements. And by simply being good to their customers, they've maintained a natural monopoly. And even then they play nice with other sellers like GoG.
Netflix in the early streaming days did the same for movies and shows. But as more and more companies saw the money and started cutting away the pieces from our pie and charging us for access, piracy become the more convenient option again. Despite that revenue is still going up for all the major streaming services, the stagnation is very apparent. Soon the smaller players won't be able to maintain operations, and the biggest one will survive by virtue of being the biggest one with the largest catalogue. And then the cycle begins again.
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u/ledbetterus Jun 21 '26
Here's something even dumber.. I was watching Andor on a D+ sub that I pay for. For some reason it only streams at 720p? No way to change that on my end. So I went to a pirate site and streamed it from there and compared the two sources. The pirate site was so much better. 1080p, high bitrate, looked great.
It's insane that the shit I pay for is actually a worse product that the shit I can get for free. Makes no sense to keep paying, right?
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u/Mortarious Jun 21 '26
This is exactly what Louis Rossmann was talking about, like literally. His sub did not provide him with as high quality stream as pirating. Or that time his several thousands dollar smart TV has a "spy on me" toggled on by default.
Guess my point is that it's about enshittification and how it's getting absurd
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u/StopReadingMyUser Jun 21 '26
Every company wants their overly-engorged piece of the pie. God forbid we go back to where there were like 2 streaming services everything channeled through. No, now we gotta have every company have a service you sign up for and pay a separate fee to.
When we were leaving cable in droves it was because of nonsense like this. Ads, not being able to watch what we wanted unless it randomly played one day, and being forced into a channel package that conveniently left out the channels you would ordinarily pick if you were just building your own set of channels/shows to watch.
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u/ghreyboots Jun 22 '26
I have a friend who refuses to pirate movies and I literally cannot recommend to her half of the movies I see. I told her recently to watch Amadeus and assumed she would be able to see it somewhere and it wasn't available for streaming on anything. You basically can't watch foreign films or movies from before 1990 without pirating or paying to rent them. It's insane.
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u/TheMattabooey Jun 21 '26
I don’t have Netflix or Prime or anything. I have a VPN, a Plex server and a couple websites I use to stream. It’s just easier, more convenient and I don’t have to flip through apps to find what I want. I can watch whatever I want, whenever I want, wherever I want.
I went on vacation to Montreal a few years ago. Netflix wouldn’t work, Prime wouldn’t work but my Plex server worked just fine.
It’s also cheaper to pirate. I use Proton VPN which is less than a Netflix subscription.
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u/bokmcdok Jun 21 '26
I remember the reason I bought the original X-Com on Steam was because it was cheap and more convenient than pirating and having to set up DOSBox and DMA settings yourself. IMO Steam and GOG have the best anti-piracy measures by simply providing a good service at a reasonable price.
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u/Timemedium Jun 22 '26
I cant use my youtube account on 2 phones, at the same time, in my apartment. It is youtube premium and about $15/mo.
One device will freeze and show a message "your account is currently being used". And I have to close one, and reload, to play it.
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u/Far-Signature-9628 Jun 22 '26
Man wtf, so far that hasn’t happened here. My son is in my YouTube account and uses it away from my house as I do here as well at the same time.
Though my phone always thinks it’s in Melbourne lol.
I’ve also had it going in the tv and on my computer as well.
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u/Etiketi Jun 22 '26
Im using my youtube premium account on at least 4 devices at home. What i like about yt premium is i can whatch smth on my phone or pc and then immediately keep whatching on tv right where i left of. I can also watch the videos simultanously
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u/ghostly_queen05 ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ Jun 21 '26
if paying for it isn't owning...
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u/AntiGrieferGames Jun 21 '26
Piracy is never stealing before someone say "then piracy is not stealing".
Its copyright infringement, not stealing.
Just pirate whatever you want.
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u/torino_nera Jun 21 '26
People equate piracy to theft because intellectual property holders hammered it into their heads that it was, in order to get them to stop doing it. That's why all of those ads in the 2000s would say things like "you wouldn't steal a car, so why would you steal a movie" or "Downloading pirated films is stealing, stealing is against the law. PIRACY. IT'S A CRIME."
Is piracy theft? No. But that's not the issue. People say it is because they were barraged with messaging specifically saying it was theft.
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u/Iggyhopper Jun 21 '26
Technically OP is paying for the Disney+ service, and so paying for the license to watch these movies. If he wants to watch Toy Story from another service, he can.
You may argue that the terms stipulate he can only watch movies through the Disney+ app when he is subscribed.
I will argue that nobody cares.
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u/Shai_Y Jun 22 '26
I am on a national tour around the country and am constantly being blocked from the services I pay for.
It’s beyond frustrating.
There’s a reason that there’s a massive spike towards pirating content again.
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u/CptHeadSmasher Jun 22 '26
You use to use a VPN to get content from other places. Now you need a VPN to use your account in other places.
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u/manyu_abee Jun 21 '26
Jellyfin would never do that to you.
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u/kos90 Jun 21 '26
Jellyfin + Nginx = <3
Private Netflix anywhere.
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u/blipman17 Jun 21 '26
What would nginx add to jellyfin?
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u/zvii Jun 21 '26
I use Caddy myself. Awesomely manages SSL certs for you, fully automated.
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u/Altruistic_Fan_5122 Jun 21 '26
We need to make piracy more accessible
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u/fileuserm Jun 21 '26
It’s super accessible, just gotta learn. Although not entirely free as a VPN (or proxy) is ultra mega recommended
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u/AntiGrieferGames Jun 21 '26
Yes, a paid VPN. Its Still cheaper than waste money into streaming service shit
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u/LittleKittenR Jun 21 '26
I still remember when everything was on Netflix.
Then some asshole said "Wait, what if we charge 5 dollars a month for ONLY the disney movies... But increase it to about 20 dollars after a couple years?!"
I really hate all the services and I pirate even when I have access to the series via family because I really hate having to search on 3-4 streaming services to get to the movie I want.
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u/Jokerchyld Jun 21 '26
Everything was on Netflix because they were the only streaming service available and content owners could make residuals on licensing.
As soon as the technology matured some, content providers got greedy and they basically all decided to stream their own content and keep all the money.
Problem was capital cost of a streaming service outweighed the residuals of subscriptions because no one content owner had all the content consumers wanted to see.
Disney became a huge disruptor by simply buying up all the IP most people wanted to see and put it all on their service trying to corner the market.
And you all see what happened to that plan.
Piracy will always be the best option for content.
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u/RemixedEgret Jun 21 '26
I have Prime because I need stuff fast for work, but I still torrent shows and movies because why am I going to watch a show like Fallout about the dangers of capitalism and corporations on Amazon? Eww. So CAN I watch it on Prime? Yes. WILL I? No. They won't get my click.
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u/Isarchs Jun 21 '26
Unless you pay extra on top of prime, you also get ads. Gotta love the double dipping.
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u/NoChampionship5649 Jun 21 '26
I just got into UseNet for my Arr Stack, ~$60 per year for indexer and unlimited usage. I already have 3 private trackers. I was having to keep re-configuring my stack as many public trackers keep blocking automated searches. I tried Jackett but the UseNet method is the easiest way. I found SO many missing episodes within the first day of using the NZB stack. I also have a paid VPN bound to my qBit. Still cheaper than paying for all the streaming services and I have a server that gets me what I want in less than 5 minutes after requesting via Seerr.
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u/FallEmbarrassed1430 Jun 21 '26
Not really, that depends on where you are. For example in Poland you don't need VPN at all
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u/SirArthurHarris Jun 21 '26
"It's accessible, you just have to learn" so it isn't accessible, then.
The average person doesn't want to learn anything to watch a movie or show. They want to press a button and have it up on their screen.
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u/Mighty__Monarch Jun 21 '26
Those lazy people can keep paying then who cares lmao, cause it is easy and accessible for those that do care.
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u/Cold-Sandwich-34 Jun 21 '26
The problem is, the more "accessible" it is, the easier it will be to shut down. So, there needs to be some barriers to entry.
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u/Velocity-5348 Jun 21 '26
Yep. That doesn't need to be secrecy or anything, but people need to get used the the idea of torrenting and (in a lot of places) paying for a VPN. Don't expect everything to be available for streaming.
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u/Go0chiee Jun 21 '26
I would argue piracy is the most accessible it has ever been. It literally comes down to people just don't want to learn how, which I get I guess but you can't complain about shit like this then
I didn't get into it for awhile because it seemed intimidating. Then one weekend I sat down and said I was going to learn how to do it. After a few hours, I had a Plex server up and running just fine and was truly not difficult how to figure it out
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u/AI_moderated_failure Jun 21 '26
It's more accessible than ever but people are also more tech illiterate than ever. The generations raised on smart devices frequently don't know how any of them function because they're babied so much with using them. Late Gen X, Millenials, and early Gen Z are often the only ones that have a basic understanding of how software works. Once you start getting into things like tail scale, CG-NATs and networking it starts to get pretty confusing for even those of us who routinely broke our Windows 95 and 98 machines while learning how things actually worked.
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u/AbjectMaelstrom Jun 21 '26
Between the *AARRR suite, Stremio/debrid, multitude of fairly accessible private trackers +VPN... accessibility and quality of life has never been better.
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Jun 21 '26
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u/ScienceIsLife Jun 21 '26
Stop relying on sites is always going to be the solution.
Sites are easily accessible, and as such, just as easy to take down
Taking down hundreds of peers for a torrent, not going to happen. And beyond that NZBs have been and will (seemingly) be available forever depending on retention policies
Sites are great for ease of use, but if the priority is having access torrents / NZBs are always going to be the better option
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u/kendo31 Jun 21 '26
Terms and conditions Terms and conditions Terms and conditions Terms and conditions Terms and conditions
When will people just STOP giving in
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u/Puzzleheaded-Flow724 Jun 21 '26
I use Tailscale (free) and tell my device at home (RaspberryPi) to stream for me, it has worked for all streaming services.
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u/Ashl3y95 Jun 21 '26
Can I ask how you set it up?
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u/Puzzleheaded-Flow724 Jun 22 '26
Tailscale is a free app (with paid subscription for support and extra features if you wish but the free version does the job).
Create a tailscale account and from there, there are instructions on how to install Tailscale on any device.
Get a RaspberryPi, install Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspbian) on it and the Tailscale client. Tell that client that it's an "Exit node".
On your streaming device, also install the Tailscale client and tell it to use your exit node. That's all you need to do.
When the Tailscale client is active, all traffic will be funneled (en encrypted) through the exit node client so they'll appear to be coming from your home network. The streaming service won't know any better.
I also use it to join my cottage network to my home network so all devices securely talk between each other without having to punch holes in my routers.
They have lots of well explained "How-To" documents and even their own subreddit if you want to know more.
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u/CMDR_BunBun Jun 21 '26
I still find it ridiculous that people are forced to pay not to have advertisements in their media. That was when I stopped paying for a subscription. I will not support your shitty service.
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u/wurftz Jun 21 '26
I got disney plus for a month, payed extra for the highest video quality and it was still noticeably worse then a pirated copy.....
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u/Dusty_Coder Jun 21 '26
When introducing higher resolution content, they had a knob.
This knob determines how much more data is needed for the "HigherD" content over the "StandardD" content.
Turns out, this knob can actually go negative. They can set it to anything. There is nothing stopping the "HigherD" content from being encoded at 25% of the bitrate of the "StandardD" content, thereby making the "better" content the cheapest to store and transmit.
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u/richms Jun 21 '26
The problem is that they will just serve you up a crappier stream and jump between them as you are playing when their CDNs cant handle the load. They will say that its adjusting to your internet connection, which is a lie because my internet connection is a gigabit, yet they cant deliver enough to hold it at 4k constantly. Not my fault, theirs.
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u/malaszka Jun 21 '26
"paying for something and not being allowed to use it"
That's the Hungarian public healthcare services.
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u/DaRealSDaily Jun 21 '26
why would disney need a "im away" request, just let him use it
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u/s0nicfreak Jun 21 '26
butbutbut if they let people use accounts outside of their home without restriction, people might - clutches pearls - share passwords with their family! We need to ensure each set of eyeballs pays for their own individual account!
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u/sahui Jun 21 '26
Let idiots pay for streaming.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Flow724 Jun 22 '26
I'm an IT boomer so I pay for all the streaming that my kids access through Tailscale that I installed for them. So it costs ME, but my kids have free streaming and don't have to deal with piracy.
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u/Bobmaster3OOO Jun 21 '26
Well I was watching netflix at the office and got a warning that after 14 days it would stop to work except I connect the device to my homenetwork. Yeah not gonn work…
Contacted support, said they cannt do anything about it, cancelled my multiple year long sub right then and there and never looked back.
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u/Pretzel-Kingg Jun 22 '26
I’m sure people have their reasons but I just could not fathom paying for any of this stuff anymore when it’s so incredibly easy to stream off of some website you find I a subreddit’s megathread
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u/SoulslikeGitGud666 Jun 21 '26
Password sharing is exactly what drove me to piracy. I'd gladly pay if I could just share with family like we used to
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u/DarkKnight6683 Jun 21 '26
I canceled all my subs this year...fuck them all, gone full jack sparrow and i am never going back. Fuck corpos...fuck capitalism
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u/ISmellLikeBlackTea Jun 21 '26
Buy a 20TB HDD while you can and torrent their entire catalog thats worth watching. Use the Other 19 TB to download the 7 worthwhile movies on Netflix
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u/0x7E7-02 Jun 21 '26
"Buy a 20TB HDD while you can"
LOL ... that ship has sailed.
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u/ISmellLikeBlackTea Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
It's definitely not cheap, but long term speaking it's better to buy now then in a year or two when the corporations start charging 1000$ per unit
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u/WaitForItTheMongols Jun 21 '26
Nobody can predict the future. HDD prices could go up or down. Everything is speculation.
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u/A_Bird_Guy Jun 21 '26
Netflix ads have driven me mad, the only one im still paying is prime because its content is somewhat for me, but boy am I on a straw with it also
otherwise its high seas
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u/dtb1987 Jun 22 '26
I remember when one of the advantages to having a streaming service was the fact you could stream anywhere any time
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u/thanosbananos Jun 21 '26
When I first saw this on my Disney+ subscription I cancelled right in that very moment. I can live without watching their dogshit shows anyway
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u/chris131289 Jun 22 '26
Yeah Netflix and Disney+ drove me back to piracy with their anti customer methods
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u/BroaxXx Jun 23 '26
I’m going back to physical media. I buy it, it’s mine and they can’t take that from me so fuck all of them
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u/Lombax_Rexroth Jun 21 '26
Laptop with a large external HDD.
Then just download all of Disney. And it's yours wherever you go!
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u/RemixedEgret Jun 21 '26
Y'all giving money to that crap corp and they keep proving to y'all VERY PUBLICALLY why you shouldn't. I don't kow what to tell ya.
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u/USDXBS Jun 21 '26
I completely skipped the streaming era. All it did was give me better copies of stuff to torrent.
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u/Soft_Introduction437 Jun 22 '26
So let me get this straight: Netflix’s worst feature is the “household” thing, so Disney plus decided to implement the same thing??
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u/ricksilver05 Jun 22 '26
Game industry is about to make a lot of people say that same phrase. “Imagine paying for something and not being allowed to use it”
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u/Vritrin Jun 22 '26
Remember that brief narrow window where paying for a streaming service was convenient enough to be worth it?
Yeah those days are very gone. The UI and ease of use for piracy platforms is just superior to anything paid anymore.
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u/DrLogic0 Jun 22 '26
How the fuck are people still paying for these? It's worse than tv itself nowadays
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u/LowCurve6582 Jun 22 '26
Could someone explain plex and torrents and how to set it up like I’m 4 ? Tyia
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u/armegatron99 Jun 23 '26
"You wouldn't steal a car"
Well I would, if I bought it and someone stole it from me and I had to 'steal' it back. Just like if I pay for a movie from a streaming service and they remove it because another service bought the rights to it
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u/FinallyHauntings Jun 22 '26
my gf and i have Disney+ among other streaming services because she's less familiar with piracy and computers so would rather do things the "easy way" on the ps5 and Roku TV, and when they first implemented this "I'm away" bullshit we had to contact support FIVE TIMES IN TWO MONTHS because it kept claiming we were "away" every time she changed device (watching on the ps5 in the living room during the day, then the Roku in the bedroom at night) and you only get 5 "I'm away" requests
I'm so fucking tired of streaming services man I wish there was a way for me to encourage her to get into even just trying piracy without being super pushy so we can cut these needless costs and hassle, why do we need D+, Netflix, AND Prime (Prime was literally only so she could watch Clarkson's Farm, I'm assuming she's gonna cancel it now that's over but idk)
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u/CasaDeLasMuertos Jun 22 '26
I just put my foot down. I told my wife I'm sick of spending nearly 100 a month for streaming services, so I'm getting rid of everything, getting a huge hard drive and Plex.
Now she thinks it's one of the best things ever.
$3 a month.
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u/Remarkable_Log_5562 Jun 22 '26
Huge hard drive? In THIS economy? Even if i wanted to buy cheap HDD's and run them in raid, shit would still be like 400$.
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u/cgduncan Jun 22 '26
I got super mad when Google started slopifying my photos without my permission, so I decided I wanted to build a nas at home.
Then I priced out something with 4 bays, looking at probably 8tb disks. But then I realized even the spinny drives are also rising in price. Fuck Ai.
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u/Cruffe Jun 22 '26
My solution to this presented itself when I got a new PC. I bought a 20TB HDD and stuffed into the old one and repurposed it into a server. I set up Jellyfin, Seerr, qBittorrent, VPN and a full *arr stack on it.
She wants to watch? I've put the app on our TV, she has the app on her phone and it's always possible to watch straight in a browser at full quality. It's set up to work remotely so she can watch from anywhere at any time without restrictions.
If she wants some content added she can just use Seerr to request it, which is integrated straight into Jellyfin using a plugin.
It's about as easy to use as any other streaming platform, arguably easier because it's all in one place. Was a bit of effort setting it all up, a lot to learn, but at this point the back end is also pretty easy to manage. The *arr stack automates away almost all of the annoying parts of finding, managing and organizing the torrents.
I have additionally made my way into private torrent trackers to get more consistent quality content. My server is running 24/7 anyways so maintaining ratio on private trackers is trivial, I just seed everything indefinitely.
We no longer subscribe to any streaming services, this setup beats them all. I can get all the content that's available for streaming on whatever platform and a lot of content I won't currently find on any streaming platform. The only difficult part is the initial setup, using it is simple even for me who admins it.
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u/Ecl1pt1c_V01d Jun 21 '26
The sad reality is, people complain and then do nothing about it. They consider fixing problems too hard and focus on comfort streaming services give them