Fire TV: Amazon to block piracy apps in the future

> Fire TV players are repeatedly offered on the internet with piracy apps that are supposed to enable free access to IPTV or VoD content.

They’re so close to getting it. So close. They almost understand that this is a response to a completely unusable, expensive and user shitty experience.

Build something that integrates all streaming providers and many people will already stop pirating. But even then, people are still expected to pay rent to n different streaming companies. It just doesn’t work. They’re being too greedy.

That's basically what an AppleTV box does. However, you still have to pay (and search) a large number of services to find what you want, and there's no guarantee that it will be ad-free no matter how much you pay. The way these people think, the more you're willing to pay to avoid ads, the more your eyeballs are worth.

As Gabe Newell put it, piracy isn't a legal problem or a revenue problem, it's a customer-service problem. Serve the customer, or someone else will.

>Build something that integrates all streaming providers and many people will already stop pirating. But even then, people are still expected to pay rent to n different streaming companies. It just doesn’t work. They’re being too greedy.

They're not being "too greedy". No single streaming company makes you pay multiple subscriptions. Just the one. But you like the shows, and lots of companies want to make shows, so you end up liking shows from multiple companies. You're the one that wants multiple subscriptions, you just dislike the cost/inconvenience. Economically speaking, there's no solution here that can satisfy you... the cost to negotiate with all of them and consolidate on a single platform would be extraordinarily expensive, because that's what convenience often is: exorbitantly expensive. There's no game theory strategy here where you get everything you want, where all the production companies get everything they want, and it all happens at modest prices.

Personally, I can't even pretend to imagine what goes through the heads of people who want to having "streaming subscriptions". Even you, you want those too, you just want a single everything-in-it subscription that's cheap. It's the same thing that people complain about with video games with the "why do I have to have internet for a single-player game" gripes. In 1985, if I wanted shows, I did have to subscribe to cable... the infrastructure for shows was absurdly expensive, no individual could have it. Now? The big 12-bay NAS filled with hard drives, and I have copies of movies and television (and music and software and games and books) that my great-nth-grandchildren will be able to enjoy for free (16K ultra-giga-mega-gold-bluray re-re-remasters notwithstanding).

It works for music. Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music. They all have pretty much the full catalog that most people are looking for. In the video world however, we have dozens of providers. Why is that? Also, it used to work like that in the early days of Netflix. But then everyone and their dog wanted their own streaming portal (for video) and here we are.

Not greedy, but delusionally thinking they can still expect the same pre-napster rev levels

I use IPTV on an AppleTV box. Works great.

Yeah it’s pricy to run the services, but it’s especially expensive to buy the rights to things. Watching tv and movies will probably remain as expensive while the legal substructure remains the same. That’s why the streamers asymptomatically approach the business model of cable companies. I’m just gonna pirate because fuck all that.

OG HN mainstay Joel Spolsky put it incredibly presciently back when Napster was a thing in 2001. The music studios were all raving about theft, but he pointed out that people weren't filesharing mp3s to save a buck, they were filesharing mp3s because, his words: You can type the name of a song and listen to it right away.

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architect...

TV still doesn't get this for TV shows. Yes, I can type the name of a show. There are two options, one is some streaming service, the other is Prime. So I select Prime. Psych! It offers me the option to go to that streaming service. And subscribe. Which means thinking about the long term, not this show I want to watch.

Or I open the lid of my Mac, type the name of a show, and almost right away I can watch it on my Apple TV.

I wish Apple TV did that. It has a global search feature. My kids push the button on the side of the remote and say what they want to watch. Then they get a screen saying you can rent it for $6.99 or whatever, and I'm thinking "didn't you just watch that the other day, and I didn't have to approve any purchase..." Well of course Netflix doesn't appear in the Apple search results. You can search in their app separately, but it's not integrated into the system. Even if you pay all of the services their $15 a month or whatever, you still can't just watch what you want because something something engagement metrics. It's tiresome.

Not to mention the amount of stuff that's simply unavailable. I remember fondly the original Netflix where they mailed you DVDs. They really had almost everything. I was watching all kinds of weird art movies and such. Now someone will mention some interesting film to me and I can't find it streaming anywhere except pirate sites.

Isn’t that an issue with Netflix? I haven’t looked into the APIs, but I do know that HBO, Hulu and Disney content will show up in the Apple default search results.

Netflix and Amazon (maybe?) always require a separate journey

> you're the one that wants multiple subscriptions, you just dislike the cost/inconvenience. Economically speaking, there's no solution here that can satisfy you...

Yes there is, it's called piracy

> ... the cost to negotiate with all of them and consolidate on a single platform would be extraordinarily expensive, because that's what convenience often is: exorbitantly expensive. There's no game theory strategy here where you get everything you want, where all the production companies get everything they want, and it all happens at modest prices.

The music industry can do that just fine and there's a ton more content and parties to talk to.

> t's the same thing that people complain about with video games with the "why do I have to have internet for a single-player game" gripes.

Why is this an invalid complaint? I don't understand. I buy most of my games on GOG anyways. No DRM crap.

> In 1985, if I wanted shows, I did have to subscribe to cable... the infrastructure for shows was absurdly expensive, no individual could have it. Now? The big 12-bay NAS filled with hard drives, and I have copies of movies and television (and music and software and games and books) that my great-nth-grandchildren will be able to enjoy for free (16K ultra-giga-mega-gold-bluray re-re-remasters notwithstanding

Exactly! It's become accessible to everyone so companies like netflix and Amazon have to compete with piracy whether they like it or not. The sooner they get their heads around licensing content to each other, the sooner people will go back.

It's not even about cost. People pay fortunes for cable channel packs.

You can go like "business doesn't work that way" but yeah if it doesn't then it'll just get bypassed. It's as simple as that.

Music relies on antique policy the likes of which will never happen again. Even then, newer performers (being exempt from said policy) constantly refuse to allow their music on Spotify, it makes the headlines multiple times a year. With music dying, it's all moot anyway.

>Also, it used to work like that in the early days of Netflix

Back when producers thought Netflix was some sort of joke that would soon blow over. Now that they realize that it's the only way forward, they don't want to be on Netflix, they want to *BE* Netflix. And so it can't work anymore.

And you wouldn't want that anyway. Netflix doesn't fund any of their own shows longer than 2 years, and that's for their own. Why the hell would they fund some other producer's show for longer, what with the added overhead of it being NIH? "Netflix with everything" would be the Soviet cornucopia of television.

That's cool and all, but as a consumer I don't care about any of that. I want a single source for all of it, it's not my job to make that happen. They can haggle it out internally for all I care.