Netflix: Piracy is Difficult to Compete Against and Growing Rapidly - eviltoast
  • fosstulate@iusearchlinux.fyi
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    91
    ·
    11 months ago

    Press releases like this are corporate signaling to US Congress that they would like some lawfare and are willing to pay for it.

    Pirate streaming growth itself doesn’t ‘threaten legal services’ as TF suggests. Any threat that arises is created by industry’s market response. It comes back to margins. Netflix could decide overnight to invest in a long-term ‘hearts and minds’ approach that includes a quality platform user experience free of hostile design, non-discrimination amongst devices, relaxed household access rules, attentive customer service, commitment to finishing programming properly, improved stream quality, etc. Becoming the Valve of streaming represents an expenditure increase, though. You’re now a lower margin business with a very sticky and content customer base. That’s not a story industry wants to tell its investors, knowing they will respond with ‘you should be petitioning for bills that enable more market captivity’.

    They do the right thing only as a last resort, because the right thing is expensive.