Could streaming services like Netflix put an end to Bittorent piracy any time soon?
Just a few months ago i got Netflix and im quite enjoying it so far. Mostly due to having Star Trek series at the press of the button. Im a huge Star Trek fan and id go as far as saying that if i had to pick only one show to watch till the end of time, Star Trek would be it. :)
But thats besides the point. What i noticed after some time is that i almost completely stopped using Bittorent to pirate shows or movies.
Im someone that goes to the cinema quite regularly and dont really wait for the movies to drop on Bittorent nor do i watch the crappy handheld camera footage.
I can simply attribute my change in behavior to convenience. That is the most important word when it comes to any and all services. Its extremely important even in the case of STEEM, something that most people here dont realize.
I found it much easier to simply turn on my TV and click "Netflix" then browse piratebay, looking for top seeds (now that piratebay isnt working well), hoping that i dont catch malware, wait for the download, download the subtitles, hope they dont suck, upload to USB and plug into the TV.
The cost: $12 a month.
12$ is basically nothing for most people to pay for the convenience it offers.
So i was thinking about how this affected the traffic of Bittorent. I first assumed that the traffic would go down significantly but the truth is somewhat different.
Due to streaming service fragmentation and platform exclusive content piracy is increasing.
What this basically means is that due to people having to pay dozens of streaming services to watch their favorite show people simply.... dont.
Amazon, HULU, HBO, Netflix, Disney... etc.
Theres just too damn many streaming services! Are you really going to pay 100$ a month to watch every show you like?
Netflix is ofc number 1 when it comes to these streaming services accounting for about 15% of total download traffic worldwide while Bittorrent ranks at number 5 with 4% of download traffic.
I found that quite interesting. Even though the convenience is there, the fragmentation and content exclusivity is hurting every platform. It seems that the more competitive they are with each other, the more the content streaming industry as a whole loses even though it seems to be a growing industry.
BITTORENT:
Not until i started looking at the craziness that is TRON did i really give Bittorent more of a thought.
As you guys can remember Justin purchased Bittorent and launched BTT.
I was curious to see what the potential for that token was so i did some research.
What i found was that BTT token utility was godawful. It essentially relied on illegal activity, copyright infringement and content theft.
It rewarded it and essentially encouraged it.
I tried hard to find recent stats to see what % of Bittorent traffic was illegal activity that was infringing on copyright.
Unfortunately i could not find anything more recent then a study done in 2010 by the University of Ballarat in Australia:
The total sample consisted of 1,000 torrent files—a random selection from the most active seeded files on the trackers they used. Each file was manually checked to see whether it was being legally distributed. Only three cases—0.3 percent of the files—were determined to be definitely not infringing, while 890 files were confirmed to be illegal.
Only 0.3% were found to be legal!
How is BTT a smart investment, again?
The study was done in 2010, to be fair, when Bittorent usage was higher then now but id still assume that more then 99% of torrents today are simply content theft.
CONCLUSION:
So how could bittorent be pushed back into fringes where it undoubtedly belongs?
The only way that could happen is if we see partnerships between the streaming services or one streaming service dominate the market.
Until then i think it will be hard to diminish the influence of torrenting. BTT will ofc, still remain a garbage investment that funds illegal activity but with the massive traffic Bittorent receives BTT will remain relevant in the crypto space among unscrupulous investors looking for a quick buck.
Verry good bitorren friends
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I have to admit that i still torrent stuff from time-to-time and normally it is because of exactly what you described above and it is only going to become worse.
I talk to people frequently about how i stopped stealing video games because of lowering of prices for digital downloads and I stopped stealing films and tv shows because netflix had most of it.
However, the fragmentation of the streaming industry results in well, exactly what you said: One place has "Friends", the next place has "The Boys" and all of them have different movie selection. Once Disney removes their content, now we have to deal with another subsection.... and all the while torrent sites have all of them. I think we will see a resurgence of piracy soon as this fragmentation starts to take off.
I never really thought about it in that capacity but i think it is true. Once there are too many services, the industry starts to look greedy again and the once $12 (it's only $7 in Asia) becomes 25, 40, 60 dollars and what not, it loses its appeal for sure.
It does seem they will eat each other up and ruin a good thing for everyone. It will be interesting to observe how this will develop and if something better pops up. Maybe a cross platform service?
It would be a shame to see this fall apart which would lead to the Film/tv industry taking a hit.
Or maybe that could rejuvenate the cinema going experience..
How ever you put it, even though i will still pirate from time to time, i still find the bittorent influence bad for everyone involved. Even the consumer.
I think that as long as the individual services are kept low cost, that many people wont even notice that combined, it is costing them a relatively large amount of money. Also, I wouldn't say that torrents or the use of them anyway, is terribly widespread. The way that computer technology is going these days, attempting to show a vast majority of my friends how to select the only button on the page that isn't going to open a bunch of pop up windows and redirects on an already dodgy as shit looking site like 1337x, is pretty unlikely to be followed.
Most people these days know shockingly little about technology other than stuff that is going to instantly work on their smartphone or tablet. No offense to anyone with an I-Pad.
Found this the day after your post... Random 9gag
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i wanted to use laziness but convenience is nicer :D i kinda criticized myself for watching all kind of strange stuff just because it was there. maybe i could find something better to watch but look this utopian alien time travel superhero series are watching me and want to be clicked...
you said it all, so nothing really smart to add :)