Wtf? Why do people buy Netflix? Or Amazon TV? I am at a friends place and I think I searched for at least 30 different Films or Series already and not a single one was on either of those and on Amazon you'll often have to pay extra for a movie. I knew piracy was the correct choice. Wtf... And people pay for this shit...

You miss the point a bit: While I do find streaming service should not be separated in those many as we have now, they also have a different purpose. The streaming services have an large collection of things that you are potentially interested in: Crime series, action films, etc., but maybe not a specific title. Additionally, they produce own content from time to time, that people may like.

Additionally paying is easier than pirating nowadays, and Amazon video is not usually the product why people pay for Amazon Prime.

@sbiewald but they are 98% shit when it comes to content. I found like two things on Netflix I'd watch. And piracy is super easy. And I am not limited to what they offer and escape geoblocking and censorship. Why the hell should I pay for that?

@sbiewald also I get the purpose but that is exactly what they DON'T deliver. Almost all originals are absolute garbage and pirate sites offer updates on series WAY more quickly for non originals (like Rick and Morty. In Germany there's still only 3 Seasons while piracy offers it the same day it premiers on adultswim in the US. With German subtitles if you want them!) AND they offer new Series for any genre far more than Netflix could ever dream of having. Even super old stuff.

Torents dude. Best streaming ever.

@lolcube
While i have a Skidrow subscription to always be able to play the latest games without DRM and with all the DLCs too, i never regretted becoming the third leecher of a friend's paid Netflix account.
They really have a pretty diverse collection of non-Hollywood series and movies. While indeed 99.99% of the content is crap (friend's wife would disagree), the remaining 0.01% are still more than i can actually watch.

If you want Hollywood, pirating is the obvious choice. That shit is easy to get for free as torrent, direct download, or stream.
But Netflix really is a convenient source for the random non-blockbusters.
The search could be better, but their recommendation system actually works.

@Oktokolo what? No sorry. Even the non blockbusters as you call them can be SUPER easily found and can even be found better on pirates sites. They have WAAAAAY more than Netflix and everything that's on Netflix too

It is very same as why people are paying for SaaS, when they could do same for free. Exactly same thing and motivations.

@acelan don't get that as well. I'd never do it. Commercially (saas for businesses) it doe's make sense but not for individuals. *do it as in I'd never pay for it, but I would sell it because there are enough idiots that do buy it.

Simple: kids.

I can't be fucked downloading series after series of tv shows when I can just fork out $10 or so a month and they can watch whatever they want.

I still use torrents for tv shows not on Netflix or Disney+ , can't be fucked paying for Amazon, Stan, and what ever else is out there, but beyond that, there's enough content on them to make it worth it for my needs, even if a lot of the shows are shit.

I believe we have to many "exclusive" offerings across to many services, but that's how the greedy bastards work.

I've never been against subscription tv, except for the ridiculous price tag of Foxtel ( Australia's pre-streaming paid tv solution ), $50+/month is fucking ridiculous just to have the ability to watch GoT, so prior to the streaming era, I watched everything from torrents.

Oh fucking poor people...

For me, it changed when money became less of an issue.

As a student, I played/listened/watched pirated content almost exclusively.

At a certain point you value free time more than money. Pirating is easy, but not as easy as "Hey google play Avatar The Last Airbender on Bedroom TV".

And sure, there's a lot of crap on Netflix, but there's also still enough entertaining content to always have a list of 2-3 series I still want to watch at some point.