Will Netflix be understanding and forgiving if pandemic would cut our income, so we wouldn't be capable of paying for subscription and started pirating their originals?
Perhaps. Amazon Videos and Pornhub Premium are both free in Italy, for example. I don't see anything about Netflix being free there, though.
Getting pity for them when the proverbial fecal matter hits the fan is a big ask IMO.
On Netflix’s side, they sure are in a hard place, I’d wish govs. would foot part of the bill, as it’s directly helping people stay at home.
Unfortunately internet is critical infrastructure, and kicking and screaming "this is bull" doesn't help alleviate traffic.
I'm in Europe, I'm kind of "wtf?" about this, but I get it. I'd rather have lower quality netflix than a broken internet where I can't work from home and have to figure out how I earn my paycheck.
We postpone the hard conversation to get through the crisis. Then after the crisis the hard conversation never happens.
It'd just add to the cognitive load and noise.
But you're right, people also forget to come back and be like "let's talk" - at the same time - given how relatively embarrassing this is for a government (and how economy-critical it is) I'm definite this conversation will be had.
This is not about Corona, this is not about "extraordinary situations", this is about European online infrastructure being garbage and now that it's getting really used for once, everything starts to crumble.
You really cannot make a statement like 'Europe has a poor internet infrastructure', without (i) comparing it to somwhere else and (ii) highlighting the differences in regions.
I mean, I'm pretty confident that everyone in Europe has better internet than everyone in Cuba or Zimbabwe.
Also, it wouldn't surprise me at all if ISPs are also feeling a bit of a strain, and are putting some degree of pressure on streaming platforms to lighten their loads if possible.