Streaming video piracy is on the rise again, apparently in response to rising subscription costs for such services, according to a new study. like Netflix and Disney+…
Consumers are experiencing a surge in subscriptions
Streaming video subscriptions have seen significant growth over the past nine months, with more to come in the future. Prices for some packages have risen sharply, while in other cases companies have advertised at the cheapest levels, forcing consumers to upgrade to more expensive packages to continue enjoying them without advertising.
Last December Disney increased the price of the standard Disney+ tier from $7.99 to $11.99 while introducing a new $7.99 tier branded Disney+ Basic that displays ads.
In terms of ad load, ads on Disney+ will be 15, 30, or 45 seconds long. You can expect up to four minutes of advertising per hour. However, Disney+ Basic does not support offline viewing because ads load while content is playing.
In June, Netflix began to quietly phase out its basic ad-free plan after previously hiding it from new subscribers.
The previously discontinued Ad-Free Basic Plan was priced at $9.99. This means that customers who want an ad-free experience will now have to pay at least an additional $10.50 instead of $4.
Amazon Prime Video is the latest company to join, offering subscribers an ad choice or payment additional $3 per month.
Amazon Prime Video users will see ads in shows and movies starting early next year unless they subscribe to an ad-free tier […] Amazon will roll out an ad-free subscription tier for an additional $2.99 per month in the US.
Best comment from Joe Fixit
For me it's not just an increase in costs because I'm just changing services and watching all their content rather than staying subscribed. The reason I would pirate it is because of the shady garbage they put out with things like “ad-free” levels. Take Paramount Plus, for example. The app already seems like complete garbage for a lot of reasons, but the company thinks “no ads” means “we'll just show them our ads” and they shove trailers for their own shows down your throat. It even shows ads when you pause the video, and some shows show one of their stupid ads right in the middle of the show. Amazon does this to some extent with commercials, but you can at least skip them there. I'm not going to give Paramount any more money when they do this. I'll just copy the series I want to watch from their service and watch them without irritation.
Of course they will all blame the pirates, but they have been deaf for years and just keep spouting the same nonsense in pursuit of endless growth for their shareholders. The end result will be that most of these streaming services will crash and burn, and the studios will go back to licensing content to the remaining ones.
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But even before these latest increases, subscription costs have been steadily rising, and this is exactly what the trend appears to have led to an increase in piracy.
In response to this, piracy is increasing in video streaming industry
Video piracy is the highest among TV shows, reversing previous declines in illegal downloading and streaming, according to a new report.
The report was released by the European Union, but it is unlikely to be a phenomenon limited to Europe.
Data shows that the number of accesses to pirated content per Internet user per month for all types of content started at around 11.5 2017, reached a low of around 5 at the beginning of 2021 and increased to 7 at the end of 2022 […]
The recent increase is mainly due to the rise in TV piracy, which accounted for 48% of total piracy in 2022 (television, films, music, software and publications) […]
There is some replacement of pirated content with legal content. Models have shown that there is an inverse relationship between the consumption of legal content and piracy across all sectors […]
Low per capita income, high income inequality and high youth unemployment are associated with increased consumption of pirated content.
Photo: Chirayu Trivedi/Unsplash
