I'm sorry, but acting like torrenting is a superior user experience to Netflix is not credible. Sure pirating has its advantages, but it's no panacaea. For one thing, who wants to wait hours to download something before they can watch it? The disk space requirements are huge, and the quality and availability issues are problematic. Netflix may not have everything streaming, but they have a pretty good selection at your fingertips, and with DVD coverage you can fill in the gaps of most stuff that you really want to watch.
The problem is the "industry" is not monolithic, and if you think about Netflix cannibalizing $200/month cable subscriptions (for all premium channels) into $10/month streaming, you can see where some of the players are gonna drag their feet. It'd be great if big content could come together a create an amazing service for everyone, but they don't have the chops or the incentive.
Torrenting is an entirely superior experience to Netflix for all of us that don't live in the US. All I see on netflix.com is "Sorry, Netflix is not available in your country... yet" and an invitation to provide my e-mail address so they can tell me when it is. Meanwhile, thepiratebay.org is entirely available in my country right now. I fully get that this is not Netflix's fault, and agree that they're a great company doing all they can about the matter, but the fact remains that Netflix simply doesn't work for me or the vast majority of people I know.
Also... disk space requirements? Really? Hard drive space costs nearly nothing these days, I can't imagine that's a big problem.
> who wants to wait hours to download something before they can watch it
I don't know how fast your internet is, but I can get an hour-long TV show in 720p in <10 minutes from torrents, and I'm paying $45/month for internet (in America).
> The disk space requirements are huge
Are they? 2 TB hard drives are now $70 a pop, and who says you have to save everything like a pack rat anyway?
> quality and availability issues are problematic
They've never been for me. There have always been plenty of seeds, and there has always been a high quality version that has been easy to find (usually because it has the most seeds & snatches). If anything, the quality is MUCH higher when torrenting than it is when streaming (legally or illegally).
> I don't know how fast your internet is, but I can get an hour-long TV show in 720p in <10 minutes from torrents, and I'm paying $45/month for internet (in America).
For a 2 megabit encoding that would effective DL speeds of 12 megabit, which is impressive. I've never gotten that consistently in the US. I pay $70/month from Comcast and if I start torrenting it doesn't sustain that, I'm not sure if it's throttled or what, or maybe the connection is saturated because I'm in an apartment in mountain view no doubt full of geeks.
> Are they? 2 TB hard drives are now $70 a pop, and who says you have to save everything like a pack rat anyway?
Normals don't buy HDs. The point is this shit can still fill up your HD really quick, which is just a hassle for non-geeks. That is why streaming is such a win for most people.
> They've never been for me. There have always been plenty of seeds, and there has always been a high quality version that has been easy to find (usually because it has the most seeds & snatches).
If you're not searching for the most popular or recent stuff then the quality degrades though. You need to have a variety of torrent trackers in your pocket. You have to have an intuitive filter to avoid the bullshit, and still sometimes you will get shitty encodings or something that's fucked up some way.
Seriously this is a geek hobby. Not necessarily computer geek, it's accessible enough for anyone to geek out on, but it's not a superior user experience to Netflix. The fact that you like the end result better doesn't make this any less true.
>There have always been plenty of seeds, and there has always been a high quality version that has been easy to find
This isn't the case for me. I watch mostly "foreign" films (i.e. films in a language I don't speak or understand). If the subtitles aren't included it can be a nightmare to find some (I won't watch dubbed movies). Sometimes you can't find any subtitles at all (I once had a movie sitting on my HD for over a year waiting for subtitles to show up for it), often when you do find them they're out of sync [1] or awful translations written by people who don't speak one (or both!) languages very well. Often whole chunks of the movie will be left out or have one word explanations.
So for me, the quality is not remotely better via torrents, that's just literally the only option for what I want to watch.
[1] Apparently different formats actually run at different speeds, causing the subtitles to drift if they were made for a different format. I didn't want to know about this and if the media industry had provided me some way of consuming this content I wouldn't have had to learn about it.
You're an edge case, so I don't think your situation is particularly instructive when considering the industry as a whole.
But in case you didn't already know, you can obtain subtitles separately, from sites like Open Subtitles and Subscene, then sync them to your video. I use Subtitle Editor[0]. Although it's Linux only, I'm sure there's similar software for other OS's as well.
I appreciate that I'm an edge case, but I'm not the only person who behaves this way.
As far as your other info, thanks for your help. I do, however, already know all this. Believe me.
Syncing to your video is a very hit and miss process. It's not a matter of just pointing the app at the two files and let it sort them out. What if the original version included more of the credits? It can be a huge pain. VLC makes it easier by letting me increase/decrease subtitle delay as it starts to drift out of sync.
I disagree. First of all, all the torrents of recent shows are very, very fast. Much faster than any streaming service in fact. Getting well over a meg per second is a common case.
For old episodes you do hold a point, although waiting a few hours or even half a day is generally still more convenient than not getting the episodes at all or waiting through countless FBI warnings.
Now then again, there is Netflix. Its not too bad. Its only available in the US, too.
For example, if i want to follow game of thrones, i can wait a year or two until its available in my country. For some other shows, they'll just never be shown in my country.
Or I can pirate it and reduce the wait from a year to 10 minutes.
I'd gladly pay up to $100 a month for quality, ads free streaming to anything recent and I think i would be over paying it. But the offer just isnt even there, free, $1, $100, $1000, $10000 it doesn't matter, there is no true offer available.
What we have here are some streaming content provided by the cable/dsl operators or tv channels which comprises tv shows that are ~5 to 10 years old and movies that are 30 to 5 years old, and a slim catalog of them too, generally the crappiest.
So I pirate the stuff. I feel a little bad about it, but it's that or nothing, and I won't be ok with nothing.
I shall also mention that I would want to be able to stream the stuff on any device/system or optionally save it for offline view, although id settle with streaming only as well.
> I disagree. First of all, all the torrents of recent shows are very, very fast. Much faster than any streaming service in fact. Getting well over a meg per second is a common case.
You can't beat the streaming latency though. You click play and 5 seconds later you are watching. As long as you have the minimum internet connection quality then streaming wins on UX.
Disk space is incredibly cheap. Are you seriously discouting quality on downloading vs. streaming? Quality is the entire reason behind local media. ISP's simply don't provide consistent service for all customers. Streaming is not an option for vast media consuming throngs.
Torrenting isn't a superior user experience, it's a giant pain in the ass. Sharing files with friends, however, is the piracy experience for most people. Pretending torrent users end the file sharing line, is ridiculous.
The problem is the "industry" is not monolithic, and if you think about Netflix cannibalizing $200/month cable subscriptions (for all premium channels) into $10/month streaming, you can see where some of the players are gonna drag their feet. It'd be great if big content could come together a create an amazing service for everyone, but they don't have the chops or the incentive.