It's a bad race to the bottom. If everyone and everything in on Spotify, then everyone is happy (so long as Spotify is a benevolent dictator). However, the value to consumers rapidly declines the second something they want is not on the platform.

Netflix is already seriously less useful than it was a few years ago now that more and more copyright holders are pulling their content and starting their own streaming services...

I’ve been working my way through Ebert’s Great Movies of late and was surprised to discover you can’t find some films online, legally or otherwise. E.g., this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pledge_(film)

(There’s two DVD rips listed by the indexer I use but neither of them is the complete film, and no streaming service has it.)

It's on Netflix:

https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/60004419

I found it using this:

https://www.justwatch.com/uk/search?q=The%20Pledge&content_t...

I’m a Netflix, Prime, and iTunes user so those were the first places I looked. Maybe it’s a region thing but it’s not actually viewable on Netflix, at least not in the US.

(This appears to be a recent change by Netflix where they list movies that can’t actually be viewed. Another example of a movie listed by Netflix but not viewable there is the documentary “The Wrecking Crew” - https://www.netflix.com/title/70105364)

This movie really doesn’t seem to be legally streamable. I found a supposed Bluray rip of it via TPB, and an HN reader emailed me links to a couple very poor quality DVD rips on various sketchy web sites, and there’s some even worse quality CD sized rips on Usenet. The physical media is no longer for sale, and I’m not sure it was ever released to BR, the torrent I found (and still transferring) notwithstanding.

A silly example of a movie like that I've looked for off and on in a digital/streaming form for a long time is my favorite Marx Brothers movie, "A Night in Casablanca."

(I know, I know, it's one of their least 'significant' movies -- but IMO it's their most fun and watchable one).

Amazon has it and Tubi claims to. If you watch it and happened to have obs running... https://obsproject.com

oh theres places to get all the shows streamed for free, and getting even the pirating the most obscure music is easier than ever

piracy is currently the most convenient way to consume content now that all the streaming services/labels want to fragment their libraries

I don't think we're quite there yet. Assuming a title is on a streaming service that I have a subscription to, piracy is definitely not more convenient.

I guess for someone starting from scratch, "what streaming service(s) should I should I subscribe to?" might be a difficult and paralyzing question to the point that the answer might be, "who knows, screw it, I'll just pirate everything".

> Assuming a title is on a streaming service that I have a subscription to, piracy is definitely not more convenient.

I'm not sure. A friend watches shows on a pirate streaming site, even though they are available for free (but add supported, not that this matters with addblock) on a legal streaming site. It's just easier to always first check the site that always has the desired content available for that particular target audience than some try and error or even an additional google search.

But context matters. If you pay for a subscription, wanting to get the most "value" out of that makes sense psychologically (just like the other mindset... "already payed for that, who cares where i watch"). Also if you already got the necessary subscriptions and google always directly leads you to the latest weekly episode, starting there doesn't make a difference. One that's not the case (e.g. you can only watch ever other show an the high sea)... well, having to repeat the search on more than one site would certainly be more effort.

Yeah, that's fair, I suppose. A friend of mine has a site he goes to for streaming stuff that isn't available legally on a streaming service. It seems useful to watch things that you can't watch anywhere else, but the quality is just so-so compared to Netflix etc. Reliability also isn't great; he sometimes also has to fiddle with which mirror the player has selected to avoid stuttering and buffering pauses. The overall experience is definitely worse, so I wouldn't go there first if a title was available on a legal service.

Oh but it is, if not more so because there are no dark patterns, no screeching autoplay trailers within seconds of opening the app, no 2 second pauses until the next episode, just a very user friendly streaming interface that gets straight to the point. But I won't divulge the name here.

Well that's not very... convenient.

They have different pain points. I subscribe to a couple streaming services, but torrents let me find content more conveniently than searching several separate catalogues, and Plex's paid version provides a better consumption experience than any of the paid services.

> Assuming a title is on a streaming service that I have a subscription to, piracy is definitely not more convenient.

good thing there are piracy streaming sites with all the content then :p

They know this but they will still milk as much as they can while they can.

not currently for me

all the properly licensed streaming services are about as and a little more convenient than 2004's piracy-scene was for me

the licensed music scene is top notch for me between soundcloud, shazam and spotify

just need to let youtube know that youtube music is never going to happen, and let the other guys know not to mess their things up

for music I only pay for spotify

and if spotify messes up in the availability, I rip the same song from youtube in HD and put it in my spotify library