this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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I used to have a moral objection to piracy, I thought that if a piece of media is good enough that I enjoy it then the people that made it deserve to be paid for their work.
I'm increasingly of the opinion that even if I do pay for something there is no guarantee that the people that worked on it will get their fair share and paying for media is increasingly a worse user experience than piracy.
I feel similarly but one of those choices is guaranteed not to help the people you'd like to see helped
I'm not so sure that's true. What if normalizing and removing friction from piracy gets to the point where the streaming services have to react by providing better services and better payouts?
That's easy to say, but what can they actually do that provides a better service than piracy at this point? They can't compete on price, number of shows, or quality of shows with piracy by a long shot. They can potentially provide a better ease of experience with quick downloads and casting, but they already have that and I don't know that it can get any better.
As a general rule, I'd assume more piracy means less money into an industry, and less money in means fewer and less risky products that appeal to the lowest common denominator.
There's lots they can do...
I already said, they can't compete on price. Cheaper prices will always be more than free. Same with interoperability, if you have the actual file you can run on anything. Group watching already exists.
More equal promotion of shows/movies and pay distribution don't actually help make the experience better for the consumer, that's more relying on the consumer behaving ethically and that they believe piracy is wrong. It only helps for the people who think it was only sometimes wrong, which I don't think is a huge group (although they are certainly the most vocal supporters of piracy)
Nor are you likely to get what you paid for
Or to keep it
On that note, the only relatively convenient exception I know of is Bandcamp Fridays. They're specific days where Bandcamp doesn't take any share of purchases.
I wish this were a more common practice, and I wish I could allocate my Netflix/HBO/prime/etc. subscription dollars to support specific titles. Instead, shows get cancelled because people didn't stream it enough on day 1. I want a s2 of Tales From the Loop, but it's still in limbo with no way for fans to show support.
I felt like I was the only one that liked Tales From The Loop.
It absolutely depends. I'm an indie game developer. I've worked at various studios as an employee, contractor, and as an owner. Depending on the setup if you pay for a game I worked on I could potentially get a bonus, I could see that money directly as profits, or I could see nothing at all. Sometimes just continued survival of the studio in working at is reason enough for me to encourage people to buy the game but sometimes I've not liked where I've worked and encouraged people to pirate from a studio that rips off its employees.
So really, the best bet is to ask. The best way to support a game developer is to ask how to send the money directly and buy the game on itch.io if available.
In fairness, games are still something I'm willing to pay for and books. I think probably because Kindle and Steam are better user experiences than pirating those.
Yeah those 2 are exactly the ones I pay for too. Games in particular (I buy most books but not all).
But video content, nope :P