Apple Struggling to Keep Up With Increasing Piracy of Apple TV+ Content

[Small White Car]

Rise of piracy: I want to watch stuff at home at my convenience
Rise of streaming services: now I can watch conveniently at home, at my leisure and at reasonable prices. Piracy went waaaay down.
Fragmentation of streaming services: now I need subscriptions to like a dozen different streaming services to watch content at home at my convenience. Stopped at Netflix, a shared Hulu sub and Amazon Prime since we have the latter anyway. Anything that’s not there either doesn’t get watched, or pirated.

TLDR, piracy is on the rise again because there’s too many damn streaming services all wanting their pound of flesh.

Give me a break. I'm so sick of this stupid argument.

You can subscribe to a half-dozen of these services before it costs more than cable TV used to. And to top it off none of them have time-based contracts like in the old days. You can pop in and out of them anytime you like. Subscribe to 3 at a time and rotate through them and pocket the cash you're saving over cable TV.

In short, the industry gave us exactly what we all wanted and yet people still complain about being "forced" to pirate because they just can't deal with this incredible utopia.

I'm so over with listening to people who think having amazing choices is a terrible thing.

 

[eatrains]

Pirates are really pathetic people.

 

[saudor]

I was a Napster user and then a Limewire user, as soon as the iTunes Music Store opened I stopped using them and started legally purchasing all of my music.

Seriously. Student plans are $4.99 a month and that gets you access to everything. Super convenient even for the most budget conscious. It's way better then pirating and risking malware/popups/junk

Video on the other hand, it's so fragmented it's not even funny

 

[yaxomoxay]

Give me a break. I'm so sick of this stupid argument.

You can subscribe to a half-dozen of these services before it costs more than cable TV used to. And to top it off none of them have time-based contracts like in the old days. You can pop in and out of them anytime you like. Subscribe to 3 at a time and rotate through them and pocket the cash you're saving over cable TV.

In short, the industry gave us exactly what we all wanted and yet people still complain about being "forced" to pirate because they just can't deal with this incredible utopia.

I'm so over with listening to people who think having amazing choices is a terrible thing.

Agreed, and more than that: now there is lots of great, amazing content. What the heck do they want, lots of good content from one or two providers?

 

[Orange Bat]

Sorry, but this is BS. You don't need all those services at the same time. The beauty of streaming services is that you can cycle them, binge watch them, and then cancel. If you want to see everything at once, as soon as it comes out, well, that means you're willing to pay the price for it, so don't blame the provider.

Right now I have Netflix, Peacock, and Apple TV (*). Peacock will soon be canceled and replaced by HBO, which will be replaced in a couple of months by CBS.

(*) I got Apple One.

I keep Netflix and Prime Video all the time, but I’ve stayed with HBOMax for a while now. HBO’s strategy of releasing first run movies on streaming has kept me signed up. Netflix and Prime always have something I want to watch, and Prime Video is included with Prime. I‘m trying to buy less and less from Amazon, so I might cancel my Prime membership next year, but Netflix is a perpetual keeper for me at this point. Apple TV+ is something I sign up for a month then cancel. I have Comcast cable to watch sports and Peacock is included.

 

[yaxomoxay]

TLDR, piracy is on the rise again because there’s too many damn streaming services all wanting their pound of flesh.

And you should be happy about it, as long as agreements are not locked in for X amount of time. We have multiple producers and providers creating very different content and all of them have to step up the game specifically because they want their pound of flesh. So now you have shows like Evil on CBS, or Ted Lasso on ATV+, or Squid Game (or Midnight Mass) on Netflix.

 

[Orange Bat]

Pirates are really pathetic people.

EXCEPT for their eye patches and tri-corner hats. ARRGHH ME MATIES!

 

[AbSoluTc]

Sorry, but this is BS. You don't need all those services at the same time. The beauty of streaming services is that you can cycle them, binge watch them, and then cancel. If you want to see everything at once, as soon as it comes out, well, that means you're willing to pay the price for it, so don't blame the provider.

Right now I have Netflix, Peacock, and Apple TV (*). Peacock will soon be canceled and replaced by HBO, which will be replaced in a couple of months by CBS.

(*) I got Apple One.

Very true. If you have a show you want to watch that doesn't dump everything all at once, which MANY providers are now doing, you have to keep it. There is no beauty in having to pay for 10 different subs. None. Hence why people pirate.

Rise of piracy: I want to watch stuff at home at my convenience
Rise of streaming services: now I can watch conveniently at home, at my leisure and at reasonable prices. Piracy went waaaay down.
Fragmentation of streaming services: now I need subscriptions to like a dozen different streaming services to watch content at home at my convenience. Stopped at Netflix, a shared Hulu sub and Amazon Prime since we have the latter anyway. Anything that’s not there either doesn’t get watched, or pirated.

TLDR, piracy is on the rise again because there’s too many damn streaming services all wanting their pound of flesh.

This 100%.

 

[ThisBougieLife]

I haven't felt the need to pirate. Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ are the ones I'm keeping around. I temporarily subscribed to HBO to watch Girls, and if there's ever anything on AppleTV+ I want to watch, I'll temporarily subscribe to it. (Also Prime is probably the worst one. Half of their stuff requires an additional purchase to watch and the stuff that doesn't is loaded with commercials. And that's with a subscription).

 

[jdsingle]

Hmmm - this is how I feel about not being able to watch my home team's NFL games because of the region specific restrictions they put out. Doesn't do me much good to be a fan of a team I cannot watch live until they record it and post it for viewing later. It really shouldn't be that hard for me to hand money over.

 

[yaxomoxay]

Very true. If you have a show you want to watch that doesn't dump everything all at once, which MANY providers are now doing, you have to keep it. There is no beauty in having to pay for 10 different subs. None. Hence why people pirate.

Even if the content isn't released all at once, do you really need to watch it in real time? Most shows are weekly, 10 episodes. That's like waiting a month and a half or two months while you enjoy other shows somewhere else.

 

[jdsingle]

Rise of piracy: I want to watch stuff at home at my convenience
Rise of streaming services: now I can watch conveniently at home, at my leisure and at reasonable prices. Piracy went waaaay down.
Fragmentation of streaming services: now I need subscriptions to like a dozen different streaming services to watch content at home at my convenience. Stopped at Netflix, a shared Hulu sub and Amazon Prime since we have the latter anyway. Anything that’s not there either doesn’t get watched, or pirated.

TLDR, piracy is on the rise again because there’s too many damn streaming services all wanting their pound of flesh.

Well stated. Off the cuff I count at least 6 streaming services we have going because I do not have the ability to get these easily without buying on Apple TV and then deal with no auto play after every episode in a season.

 

[Maven1975]

Welcome to the real world. Not to say it’s ok, but all networks/radio have suffered from this. Radio completely collapsed due to clear channels idea of consolidation. Pretty sure that’s why we have such an expensive situation in TV media because they are grasping at straws trying to protect what’s left.

 

[fenderbass146]

You think they would have learned from the music industry. Piracy was way down thanks to Netflix, but now everyone and their cousin wants their own streaming service and people can't afford multiple...back to pirating we all go.

 

[yaxomoxay]

You think they would have learned from the music industry. Piracy was way down thanks to Netflix, but now everyone and their cousin wants their own streaming service and people can't afford multiple...back to pirating we all go.

No, it's because people are spoiled and want stuff for free, and immediately. And they also expect good content.
You can watch all the shows you want for less than $20/month.

 

[reallynotnick]

I mean is there any show or provider that has "kept up" with piracy? Pretty sure you can pirate anything easily that is widely enjoyed, I mean you'll probably have some difficulty with obscure/poorly rated stuff, but other than that this isn't really a war they can win.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

You can watch all the shows you want for less than $20/month.

Maybe you can, but some people would need more subscriptions than that to see all the shows they enjoy.

Though I agree, they should pay for them. Piracy is wrong and it is basically shoplifting.

 

[827538]

There's only a few streaming services I find as being worth watching.
Disney+ for its huge back catalogue, great for my daughter and wife. Netflix has gotten a bit stale in my opinion with only a few good things watching per a year coming out.

Beyond that it's easier to pirate than sign up to and cancel streaming service #628153.

 

[Rjoynt]

Completely correct. I'd like to see all the largest streaming services come up with "super unified" payment system to simplify payments.

Yah and their solution will be to just add up the cost of all those services and give you a total price. Only advantage would be its all in one app. The cost would be insane

 

[jjudson]

Rise of piracy: I want to watch stuff at home at my convenience
Rise of streaming services: now I can watch conveniently at home, at my leisure and at reasonable prices. Piracy went waaaay down.
Fragmentation of streaming services: now I need subscriptions to like a dozen different streaming services to watch content at home at my convenience. Stopped at Netflix, a shared Hulu sub and Amazon Prime since we have the latter anyway. Anything that’s not there either doesn’t get watched, or pirated.

TLDR, piracy is on the rise again because there’s too many damn streaming services all wanting their pound of flesh.

I resolved this problem by turning off the tube. Can’t say I’ve missed it now for years. There’s a life out there beyond the wall…

 

[827538]

I don’t pirate anything, but Apple TV+ is a hard sell for me. I signed up a while ago and really didn’t find all that much that I liked. I want to watch Foundation so I’ll probably sign up later this year once bad weather hits, but I doubt I’ll keep it for very long.

What Apple really needs to do is buy Sony Pictures or WB. They seriously need a library of content for the streaming service. It’s admirable to want to make all your own stuff, but most of what is offered is unappealing to many people. And once you’ve watched the proprietary stuff you can cancel until a new season or something new comes around. No wonder pirates are willing to pirate Apple TV+ stuff. It‘s easier to just pirate the one thing you want to watch than sign up for a bunch of stuff you don’t care about.

I agree, Apple TV+ has nothing of interest to me as a guy in his 20's. It all looks so bland, corporate, paint by numbers, better not offend type shows.

 

[pettit03]

Once the iPhone child porn scanner is in place, they can next start searching Macs, iPhones, and iPads for unlicensed video content.

Get a $200 PC, problem solved

 

[Michael Scrip]

Wait... people pay for 5 or 6 different streaming services? Each with hundreds or thousands of programs?

Who has that much time to watch TV anyway?!?!?

 

[macduke]

Rise of piracy: I want to watch stuff at home at my convenience
Rise of streaming services: now I can watch conveniently at home, at my leisure and at reasonable prices. Piracy went waaaay down.
Fragmentation of streaming services: now I need subscriptions to like a dozen different streaming services to watch content at home at my convenience. Stopped at Netflix, a shared Hulu sub and Amazon Prime since we have the latter anyway. Anything that’s not there either doesn’t get watched, or pirated.

TLDR, piracy is on the rise again because there’s too many damn streaming services all wanting their pound of flesh.

This precisely. A lot of the people I know who love watching Ted Lasso just pirated it. They heard it was great and didn't want to sign up for yet another streaming service just for one or two shows. I think if Apple keeps their price lower and keeps adding great content that's the only way they can fight this. I doubt as much Netflix stuff gets pirated because it's like the default service, although that has probably been waning with price increases. Apple needs to get Apple TV to where it's a default choice because it has so much good stuff. That's a lot easier said than done.

From what I've seen, I think piracy is also a lot easier today. There are smart TV apps that I've seen friends use that just grab the movie and stream it down with a decent searchable interface. That really lowers the bar for complexity and makes it accessible to more people. So that could also help explain an increase.

In our household we just had to make a choice to not watch as much TV. I'm against piracy and it's getting to be too expensive. Sometimes if there is a certain show I want to binge I'll just sign up for a month and set a reminder to cancel it. By only subscribing to a few streaming services I think that helps keep us from watching too much TV. Don't get me wrong, there is still more content then I could ever watch. But I'm fairly picky about what takes up my time.

 

[yaxomoxay]

Maybe you can, but some people would need more subscriptions than that to see all the shows they enjoy.

Not true. If they want to see them immediately, then yes. If they just want to watch them, they can just cycle, like this:

Netflix this month ($17): "You" S1,S2,S3. "Haunting of Hill House." "Haunting of Bly Manor". "Midnight Mass". "Riverdale" S1,S2,S3,S4. "Cobra Kai" S1, S2,S3.
AppleTV next month ($5): "Morning Show" S1, S2. "Ted Lasso" S1,S2, "Servant" S1, S2.
etc.