Am I the only one who found TFA very challenging to read? There was an enormous amount of visual clutter and very little explanation of what was attempted, as well as no discussion of the results. I would have liked more explanation and fewer graphs.
Interesting concept though! I'm glad people are trying tests like this, regardless of whether this specific one is a perfect test or not.
Taking the cash from a bank deprives others of the money. Duplicating a video doesn’t deprive another person of anything.
Piracy is simple: when you make your product more convenient than piracy, people use it. Steam is popular for a reason - no crap, enormous game selection.. it’s just better than pirating. Netflix used to be the same - great selection, no ads.. now look: terrible selection and price is too high.
Setting aside the fact that you didn't actually answer my question: the objective answer is not "no". That's just a frame and some assumptions you'd like everyone to hold in order to justify yourself.
I can’t speak for everyone else’s take on it, but I do feel like I addressed your question.
A significant portion of piracy is opportunistic as far as I’m aware, in that people say “well, since it’s free I’ll grab it”. The opportunity cost is effectively zero.
What I’m getting at is that if you have 100 people who pirate the film, perhaps only 5 of those might have been willing to pay to see it, if only there was a convenient opportunity to do so. No money was lost through the other 95 - their decision was between ‘pirate’ and ‘don’t watch it’.
Of the remaining 5, yes, it’s lost revenue, but that’s because there likely wasn’t a convenient service with no ads at a price where people think they’re getting value. It’s all about convenience at the end of the day - if it’s more convenient to pirate it then your service is going to suffer. You have be more convenient.
The production crew is getting peanuts anyway. If one out of 100 people donates them some money, they come out ahead.
Also maybe it's their job to come up with a business model that everyone doesn't hate. If they'd just syndicate to all streaming platforms, piracy wouldn't be a problem for them.
And they're taking a risk that the movie turns out bad. It does seem like newer movies have become mediocre because they don't want to take risks anymore.
>Duplicating a video doesn’t deprive another person of anything
This was the claim. I said what I said to point out that if everyone acted on this belief for a feature film, there would be a thousand people who ultimately don't get compensated for their work.
You are right: not everyone is able or willing to pirate. Piracy is only able to exist because of these people who pay for art. That's definitely true, and definitely different than the claim that no one is being deprived of anything.
They are deprived of the payment they asked for in exchange for someone viewing their work.
Also, "the pirate was never going to pay" is a far more imaginary thing here; it's an unproven claim (especially since it's often paired with "pirates would pay if it was cheaper/more convenient to access).
Regardless, it strikes me as a particularly arrogant kind of entitlement for you to violate someone's terms to enjoy their thing while telling them you think it's worthless.
I'm personally happy to pay to watch without adverts. I'm not willing to pay for adverts. If they only sell it with adverts, then I'm never going to pay for it. Whether or not I watch it, they don't lose a dime.
I understand the idea of refusing service you don't like, but there's just no way that disliking a service gives you the right to rewrite terms.
I dunno man. If you're gonna benefit from the hard work of others without compensating them, so be it. It's the pretension that you're doing something other than that, for motives other than pure self-interest, which really bothers me.
I switched to Everything for search a while ago and haven’t looked back. For the start menu I replace it with Open Shell, which seems to find apps much more reliably.
I think it comes from a difference in what people want. Some people want to achieve goals, while others want to be given tools to be creative. There's a whole spectrum in between, plus other motivations as well.
I enjoy being creative to an extent, but I like to solve problems, so I naturally gravitate to something with a long-term goal to achieve like Factorio (I rapidly lose interest after launching a rocket though).
I fully empathise. It feels like my career went from upwards to a horizontal line. I have far less energy for work, for learning, and for the things I'm interested in. It's incredibly demoralising. I dread weekends and look forward to school drop-offs - what kind of life is that?
I don't care about my career so much, but the weekend and school dropoff thing resonates hard.
Work is the only part of my life where I feel any sort of competency. Anything else I'm just a ship on a stormy sea being battered around. I can change the sails and move the rudder, but the sea takes me where it wants me to go anyway.
The joke was "welcome to your vacation" when people got back from paternity leave for their new kid. I don't think I ever left that vacation.
It's also normal, and okay, to feel down about being tired and feeling like you can't do everything at once. Because that's how it is — you can't do everything at once. You have to choose, and a lot of the time the depression comes from the conflict of having to give up things you want to do.
And what can also help is talking to your partner or to a friend who's also a parent. And realizing it's normal to look forward to the weekend being over so you can sit down and work on the thing you're good at and know how to do... unlike dealing with our kids, who are always creating problems we don't know how to solve.
Luckily I have an amazing wife. We don't hide anything from each other, and she's always been there for me (just as I have for her). I have good support.
That said, you say "it's normal to look forward to the weekend being over so you can sit down and work on the thing you're good at and know how to do" - this isn't what I'm getting at. I look forward to the weekend being over so that I can spend time away from my kids. I trudge through work for the week while trying to regain mental energy to tackle the after-school pickups and the next weekend. I'm just always running at a mental energy deficit. I enjoy my work, but I just have no energy to apply myself - the kids suck it out of me.
> It feels like my career went from upwards to a horizontal line. I have far less energy for work, for learning, and for the things I'm interested in. It's incredibly demoralising
How do you separate how much having kids affects this, and how much of it is just being 30+ and not taking care of own health?
I have a few childless friends who say the same thing word for word.
I had a week where the kids were with Grandma and Grandpa. I got more done on a Wednesday after work than I did in the previous few weeks including weekends.
I don't think everyone needs kids and I don't subscribe to the 'moral high ground' of having kids, BUT I have zero sympathy for childless peers that think their life is too busy.
Also as a parent, I still don't understand. I have two kids and regret it. They suck all the time and energy from my life. I give my all to be a great parent to them, and I would never let them know that I regret having kids, but if I could wind the clock back I almost certainly would. I feel like I'm throwing the most valuable years of my life in a wood chipper.
Interesting concept though! I'm glad people are trying tests like this, regardless of whether this specific one is a perfect test or not.
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