Not at all. You share with an assortment of randoms that you're downloading a particular file (that they're also downloading) at a particular time. That's all. You don't tell them when you watched it, how many times, whether and when you paused it, or whether you fast forwarded the naughty bits or went back to re-watch them. It's far less intrusive.

And most importantly, those few randoms don't have a flood of other data being scraped from your phone, social media, credit card transactions etc. to cross-correlate your viewing with. They don't see that you paused the movie when the main character put on some Nikes and went online shopping for a pair of Nikes for yourself. They don't see that you have friends over. They don't see what brand of microwave popcorn you watch with your movies. They don't care.

Anyone who wants to know who is downloading a particular file can become one of the randoms

And the rest (more important) part of his point still stands.

He didn't mention p2p, did he? I can go years without touching p2p, while still pirating everything I want to watch.

You're still advertising to anyone and everyone with admin access who cares to parse their log files every server hop you make to get it.

On the other hand, all of

> when we pause video, for how long, which bits we rewind back to, when we consume the content during the time, where (GPS-wise), how often we play them

is entirely hidden. What model gives that up, but keeps the identity of the video you're watching private?

I don't believe he mentioned p2p anywhere in his comment.

I agree about streaming services.

Use a reputable VPN.