• Grzmot@beehaw.org
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    3 months ago

    Gabe Newell’s quote from 13 years ago will never not be relevant in such discussions:

    In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. For example, 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. Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customers use or by creating uncertainty.

    Spotify, Netflix (in it’s earlier days) have shown that time and time again. People love convenience. We are ultimately lazy animals. I think if you created a streaming service tailored to really old, obscure shit and you gave it a reasonable price, people would buy it.