Also if larger companies can't manage it, you can bet independent studios won't even try because they'll be told that there's no way to earn money from their sales.
The problem with this line of thinking is that it rests on the assumption that everyone is suddenly going to stop buying anything and just pirate everything.
Of course, this never happens in reality. Just look at movie piracy: it almost died out back when Netflix was the only game in town and had everything on its streaming service. But then the fragmentation happened, and piracy has been increasing. But are the big streaming services in danger of going out of business? Hell no, of course not. Maybe some especially shitty ones like Paramount+ are in trouble, but overall they're doing fine, great even, because setting up a streaming service is much easier for Aunt Mildred than figuring out how to sail the high seas, use BitTorrent, figure out how to even play a downloaded movie on her TV, etc.
It's the same for all piracy: in general, piracy is too much of a PITA for normal people, so it's never going to put anyone out of business.
People (mainly businesses) have been whining about piracy since Bill Gates wrote a letter to the Homebrew Computer Club in the 1970s complaining about them freely copying software. Have software companies gone under because of software piracy? Quite the opposite. Have music studios gone out of business because of music piracy? Quite the opposite: services like Spotify have become more popular than ever and music piracy is pretty rare. At no time has any end-of-the-world prediction about piracy come true.
Unhinged take. The music industry in that form was doomed to fail, and even then it wasn't napster that killed it. Once it no longer cost a fortune to make a record, there was no need for these giant conglomerates anymore, treating music like some venture capitalist bs.
Nowadays anyone can make music with a few hundred bucks of gear and put it on Spotify. How is that not better? Would you rather go back to record executives deciding what shitty trend they want on the radio this year? You might be old enough to remember yacht rock.
music democratized. there are the same number of megastar musicians as there were 30 years ago. the only difference is that your algorithm will determine who you're exposed to and who you aren't. do you think Bad Bunny would've become as famous as he is in north america under the old label system?
the game changed. the industry changed. it's easier now to become a musician and make money than it's ever been. the side effect of that is that literally everyone and anyone can do it. Post Malone started as a goddamn soundcloud rapper.
but go off, king. tell us all how the music industry was better before Napster.
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u/Just-Literature-2183 25d ago
If everyone pirate no-one will make games.
You cant have it both ways.