this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Lemmy.World Announcements

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founded 1 year ago
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Hello World!

As we've all known and talked about quite a lot, we previously blocked several piracy-focused communities. These communities, as announced, were:

In our removal announcement, we stated that we will continue to look into this more in detail, and re-allow these communities if and when we deem it safe. It was a solid concern at the time, because we were already receiving takedown requests as well as constant attacks, and didn't want to put our volunteer team at risk. We had zero measures in place, and the tools we had were insufficient to deal with anything at scale.

Well, after back and forth with some very cool people, and starting to have proper measures as well as tooling to protect ourselves, we decided it's time to welcome these communities back again. Long live the IT nerds!

We know it's been a rough ride with everything, and we'd like to thank every one of you who were understanding of us, and stayed with us all the way. Please know that as users, you are what makes this platform what it is, and damned we be if we ever forget it.

With love, and as always, stay safe in the high seas!

Lemmy.world Team

❤️

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (18 children)

This is what I like to see. Not just heels digging in, but explanations as to why, the follow-ups, the investigation of options and follow through. Thanks for the transparency. Piracy has and won’t ever go away. I used to pirate due to lack of money and resources. When I had those I went legit. When legit sources started turning into:

  • monthly subscriptions for everything
  • when legit sources suddenly delete or remove content from their systems (to avoid paying taxes?)
  • when the rates go up for everything (internet access AND streaming services)
  • now ads in your paid services unless you pay more (Amazon)
  • Plex trying to go legit and police where and how people run their private streaming, fucking over license holders who built the financial footing they could stand on in the first place. Cool.

You can’t rely on any shit from these services, except for one shit… enshittification.

I don’t want to sound negative, but as a consumer, it’s been nothing but ads rammed down our throats from everywhere we go and look. They lie, they change rates, they shrinkflate, while their pockets get bigger. Long live piracy.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (12 children)

the problem i have, that nobody has been able to really explain to me, is how the economics of streaming should be made to work.

content is insanely expensive to make. even with all of Netflix’s recent shitty changes, their operating margin is still only about 13%. that isn’t enough cash left over to fund production of every single show they don’t have. and it’s important that they actually be able to fund production, because unlike 10 years ago, most productions no longer rely on first runs on OTA or cable TV to make their money

so it seems to me there are three paths here:

  1. the industry puts everything on a single service and dramatically increases the base price (remember cable? my parents paid twice as much for it in 2005 as i spend today on streaming services)

  2. the industry puts everything on a single service and dramatically scales back production (remember OTA TV?) to fit within the budget afforded by a reasonable subscription price

  3. studios branch off into competing streaming services

i’m not trying to start a fight or defend shitty corporate behavior (no one will ever get me to pay for ads), i just want to know how people think this could work in a way that balances out

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

The solution is not one many people want to hear: reduce production costs.

Content is expensive to make mostly because the people making it keep demanding more pay for less work. While it is understandable that people want this, this is not sustainable for an economy. When the economy fails, prices go up. Demanding employers pay more will immediately raise prices the same amount the wages increase, effectively leaving employees who got a raise in the same place they were before but eith bigger numbers, and severely damaging the economy at the same time.

A show can be produced on a shoestring budget. Yes, the quality is lower than a million dollar movie. However, that doesn't make the show bad. The X-Files was a great show produced on a tiny budget in its first season with phenomenal writing. Yet in the final season, it had a bigger budget but the writing was awful. In fact, most shows these days have awful writing. And the writers of these shows with bad writing are demanding more pay, yet their writing quality does not indicate they deserve increased pay. Certainly if a writer is outputting great work that should be rewarded, but increasing the pay of writers outputting garbage writing can only lead to more expensive garbage.

Then you get to costume, props, and visual effects. First, the damaged economy from before appears in costumes and props material cost. This is unavoidable. In many cases, I would say that good practical effects are cheaper and more convincing than cheap CG. My solution is simply go back to the way films were made in the 70s and 80s. Ditch the bad CG and go for more practical effects.

Last we have actors. Actors do not need more than 100k per film, and thats for the huge actors. Simple to understand, really. So many actors live opulent, overpaid lives, when they could live more simply, more normally, off of much less.

The above aalso applies to directors, producers, streaming company executives and CEOs.

Fix all these and your show production costs plummet. Now you can offer your streaming service at the same cost or cheaper than before while having a larger profit margin.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Idk why you're leading with writer pay, going into actor pay (most don't make squat) and then execs at the big companies involved are tossed in as an afterthought. Probably why you're getting downvoted.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I am getting downvoted because people cant bother to read beyond one sentence.

Also, I dont care about imaginary internet points.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Why would a writer make a good story for someone paying them in dogshit and loose change?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Dude if writers actually made enough money then it wouldn't be such a huge thing that they get sponsored free lunches during the strike. Thats a fucking meal... However the profit produced on some shows is obscene in comparison. Put 300 mil in and get 500 mil out, thats 200 mil profit... You're getting downvoted because you don't understand the economics of the industry while being overconfident that you do.

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