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>>ksec+(OP)
Bold prediction: if ads on paid streaming services become the norm, there will be a renaissance of piracy because it will once again offer the superior user experience.

>>jupp0r+T5
How accessible is piracy for the average person? I’ve had people in my circle of friends and acquaintances ask me how to pirate media safely. They are broadly aware that music and movies can be pirated, but they typically just visit some sketchy website that plays the content in the browser or they do not attempt to pirate anything because they are afraid of getting caught and/or sued.

Downloading a torrent client and VPN is seen as confusingly complicated for many of them. Once I help them get past that, I also have to train them to search safely and parse the file names of what they are trying to find. More than just informing them that a movie is not a 25 MB exe file, but that there is a convention around encoding/file type, bit rate, and how episodes/tracks are named.

It is understandable, but I think there is a huge mental barrier for most non-savvy computer users. I think that unless there is some friendly and non-sketchy all in one service to facilitate piracy there will not be some widespread upswell in piracy among the general public.

>>BuyMyB+Wd
>friendly and non-sketchy all in one service to facilitate piracy

I've heard that paid Plexshares are more or less this. You pay to access a private streaming server that has all the content you could ever want. No VPNs, no torrent clients, no parsing formats, no viruses, no running an HDMI cable from a PC to your TV. It's as easy as any other paid streaming service, without exclusive content restrictions.