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streaming "services" will always find a way to screw you
2026-06-23
I was scrolling through the ol' social feed and hacker news this morning while having my coffee and nicotine, as I do while normally waking up. I saw a post that reminded me why piracy continues to win, and why it is always going to be the best option.
You probably know if you have been reading my blog or watching my streams for awhile that I am an ardent proponent of piracy. I'm pretty open about my loathing of these huge media companies and these streaming "services" that will remove shows and movies without notice, limit the amount of devices you can watch on with your own subscription (this is super relevant here), remove digital "purchases" from your library, and more.
Streaming "services" (I am using this term in quotations, because they're not serving the customer anymore, they are serving themselves) were originally a cheaper and more convenient alternative than paying for a cable or satellite television package. One could watch shows and movies on their own terms from anywhere they had an internet connection, without having to sit through a bunch of commercials, and without having to worry about recording it on the DVR and that kind of thing. These days, however, the story is quite different. The prices are going up, and many families stack streaming "service" subscriptions because the things they want to watch are scattered across different platforms. At this point, many people wouldn't know the difference between their streaming bills and a cable bill. We've come full circle.
The post in question that made me think about all this earlier today and inspired me to write about it was another reason that I am glad I don't do streaming "services", and that I obtain the majority of my media by "sailing the open seas", wink-wink.
In the post I saw, someone was traveling and staying in a hotel. They went to the hotel television and went to sign into their Disney+ (ewww) account. When they attempted to sign in, they received a message saying that they were out of "away from home requests" and that they "can't stream on this device right now". This is consistent with a crackdown that has been going on with Disney since around 2024, causing a good amount of people to cancel their subscriptions (yay!) in protest. Disney isn't the only one doing this either, as Netflix, Max, and others have similar mechanisms in place to stop people from sharing their accounts with their families and for using more than the 'approved' amount of devices with their accounts.
Needless to say, I see a good amount of people online discussing exploring piracy again (welcome back!), and seeing this issue being discussed also made me think about the myriad other ways that streaming "services" are actively driving their customers away. Let's look into some of those examples next.
I've talked about it a bit in the intro to this post and then discussed the thing I saw earlier that made me think about this and want to write about it. Here are some links with stories of this stuff happening. These are just a few examples, the amount of times I have heard about these kinds of things going on are numerous.
Piracy is never going to truly go away, for a very simple reason:
"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."- Gabe Newell
The above quote is from Gabe Newell, the President of Valve. He is absolutely correct. Unfortunately, not enough companies think in this way, and want to extort the customer as much as possible and keep finding ways to lessen the amount of ways you can actually "own" something. For this reason, physical media and piracy are the only consistent ways to make sure you actually own the media you want to keep forever.
Don't get the wrong idea, either: I'm not a proponent of piracy because I want to get things for free. It is because I want to own the media that is important to me. If I love a movie, book, television show, or game today, I want to make sure I can actually own it and be able to enjoy it 30 years from now and share it with other people. If I can't find it the "proper" way, such as purchasing a physical copy of the thing or getting a DRM-free digital copy that I can transfer from device to device and store on external drives, then I will get it the "sailing the seas" way and ensure that I can truly own it.
GOG is a good example of this idea done right. It is a store where you can go and purchase video games and get a DRM-free copy of it. You can transfer this from device to device and play it with zero restrictions. That's the way it should be! Where is the GOG for movies, books, music, TV shows? There is a huge hole to be filled here.
I'm not saying there aren't people out there that pirate stuff because they just want to not pay for it. That is absolutely true. But there are just as many people like me, who would be more than happy to open our wallets for the thing we want to play, read, watch, or listen to, and just be able to own it without paying for some silly subscription, or "buying" a revocable license to watch, play, read, or listen to a file that lives in the cloud and can be taken away at any time. We saw this with Amazon and Sony as discussed above, and those will not be the last time it happens. It will happen again. The question is, will it be a piece of media you care about? Will it be a piece of media you "bought" without reading the fine print and realizing you never truly "bought" anything? You're renting that media until the company decides they don't want to store it on their clouds anymore. That's the unfortunate, cold hard truth.
I will always try to get things I care about the legit way first. I will happily buy the Blu-Ray or the DVD, or the CD, or a digital, DRM-free copy of whatever I'm looking for. However, if these companies keep trying to make real ownership impossible, they shouldn't be surprised when people find other ways to preserve the media they care about. It's that simple.
I see more and more people online talking these days about looking for physical copies of things, self-hosting their digital libraries, and asking for resources on ways to safely sail the seas. People talking about closing their subscription accounts because they're getting tired of this nonsense. They're tired of media being removed from platforms, of more and more ads being shoved down their throats. They're tired of companies jacking the price of these "services" up without adding any benefit to the customer for the trouble.
Take note, media companies, and take a good look in the mirror. People are going to keep sailing the seas in 2026, they're going to keep sailing the seas in 2036, and beyond, unless you wise up. Piracy didn't win because people want to watch your stuff for free. Nope, it's winning because piracy offers something this industry increasingly refuses to provide: ownership.
"If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing." - Cory Doctorow