It’s not even surprising anymore platforms do this & act all Pikachu face why piracy is spiking
Netflix & all these streaming platforms have completely lost touch & they will lose more customers in the long run
To quote Gabe Newell on Piracy
“We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.”
very much a convenience factor – Apple broke the MP3 sharing scene with the simplicity (at the time) of iTunes – video streaming started out simple but now it’s turned into cable TV, trying to find out which service is streaming a particular show, if it’s region-locked, or gated behind a premium upgrade, or just been dropped completely, or two services are still arguing over who gets the rights, or find out all the seasons are on one service except one season is on another service …
Was iTunes popular outside of the US? Everyone I know hated they intrusive software and DRM that prevented you from playing the songs elsewhere. Don’t think I know a single person who actually purchased music there.
I did, back in… 2005-6? Somewhere around there. I’m from the US, so the first part of your comment applies to me, but at the time iTunes let you put music from the CDs you owned into your collection, and made it very easy to load music onto an iPod. I was 16, with some of my first disposable income from my first job. Couldn’t get music easily from anything but CDs or iTunes (Or Kazaa/Limewire, but that’s a different story) at the time so it just made sense. Around the time I realized I was locked into the platform by my purchases I stopped buying there and started streaming or buying CDs again.
Also from US, and one key word in your comment has got to be the major reason I didn’t understand people liking it.
iPod.
I had a Sony Walkman MP3 player, not an iPod.
So for me, it took just one song bought and a whole lot of hassle trying to figure out how to get it on my MP3 player to decide iTunes sucks, rip the song off YouTube, run it through an MP3 converter, and have what I wanted… then wonder why other people thought bashing their monitors trying to get a song on their MP3 player from that stupid impossible convoluted “service” was easier.
I’ll call myself lucky in hindsight for having the “wrong” device!
Not from US. iTunes wasn’t even considered/known as an option here, let alone having people using it.
(Not US). I was burnt by Sony’s Mini disc DRM BS, so when iTunes came along I recognised the slimy DRM and steered well clear so much so I have never owned an apple device much less bought music from them.
I purchased one song on iTunes, couldn’t find a file for the song on my phone to put on my MP3 player for the life of me, and promptly decided iTunes sucks.
Never understood why people liked it back in the day.