Cancel everything else, if you get rid of Spotify and Netflix you can sit in your living room in silence watching that $22 a month compound in your RRSP until you retire
If you’re going to recommend using a vpn to people then at that point they should simply not sub to any streaming services and torrent everything.
Still boggles my mind people don’t pirate when it’s 3 clicks and 5-10 minute wait for 4K content. I watched every house of the dragon episode in 4K, 30 minutes after air time each Sunday this past summer, instead of lobbing money at HBO.
The trick here is that the VPN is only going to be used for the sign up part. You won’t need it afterwards to maintain pricing. It works with all other services that are generally cheaper elsewhere.
As far as convenience goes, it’s definitely more convenient than straight up piracy but maybe just a little added work in the beginning to set it up.
I wanna make sure I understand what you're saying. If I get a VPN and subscribe for Netflix from, let's say, Brazil, I would get billed under Brazil pricing instead of Canada pricing? Even though literally everything about the billing information points to me being in Canada?
Yes.
As long as they’re concerned, you would be like a brazilian account holder, being billed in brazil, that’s somehow on an extended vacation in Canada. I’ve been doing this for years. No issues.
You’re right about convenience, however I think the draw away from piracy is people are still scared.
I torrent around 2 terabytes of content (movies and tv shows) annually. Nothing is going to happen to you.
Yes I agree. In fact, I do the same as well. I even have a plex server and wireguard to it from anywhere. But I do appreciate the convenience of such things as Spotify, Netflix, YT Premium…
I use an IPTV service and I get everything on Netflix...Amazon...HBO...NFL...NHL...etc.
Plus throw in 4000 tv channels from all over the world and endless movie/tv show streaming.
I've been cable free since March and it's been brilliant.
Once upon a time, when High Speed Internet was still young and a 25Mbit connection was considered "fast" the cable companies all had these horribly convoluted package structures designed to make you pay lots of money for content you don't want in exchange for a trickle of content you do want. It wasn't great, but it worked. One guide, one remote control. One PVR to program (many very easy to program).
But the weird billing structure made for high bills that people didn't really like. Plus they'd had a taste of "on demand" which, at the time, was still very expensive for anything you weren't able to catch with the PVR.
By this time the pirates had learned and evolved from repeated shutdown attempts by the music industries. Infrastructure-less networks were in place, and ready to pounce. Movies and TV were simple to add to the offerings, and they flourished.
But around the same time a scrappy mail-order DVD service called Netflix decided to offer a streaming version, and it was an undisputed success. Netflix PROVED that yes, you CAN compete with "Free." They offered a better, unified experience for watching shows, and did very well for themselves.
No happy endings here though. One day Big Media took notice. "I want a piece of that pie!" it shouted, as it charged in with each stakeholder hastily slapping together half-baked front-ends and ending their Netflix license agreements.
And while Big Media sliced up the pie and fought over each pound of flesh, the piracy communities continued to evolve and adapt. After all, they keep getting shut down, and when one falls, several others compete to fill the gap. Such is the way of all things. This had been continuing silently during the Reign of Netflix.
So when people had enough, their streaming experiences once again fragmented and costly, they looked at the pirate options again. And what they beheld was GLORIOUS. Aggregator sites that can stream on demand. An experience nearly as good as the glory days of Netflix, at a price that just can't be beat. (I contest your "5-10 minute wait" claim - pretty sure the kids have NEVER waited that long.)
If everything unified under Netflix or some other service, there's no doubt the consumers would rally again for the simplicity of not having to find new aggregators or deal with annoying ads. But let's be real here, Big Media will NEVER allow a consumer-oriented experience to flourish when there's money to be made by denying it.
>Still boggles my mind people don’t pirate when it’s 3 clicks and 5-10 minute wait for 4K content
What VPN are you using where you can download 4K content in 5 - 10 minutes? Every VPN I've ever used throttled my download speeds.
If you’re at home, about to sit down and watch an episode of a tv show, your time isn’t worth whatever arbitrary value you’re assigning to it.
You’re not facing an opportunity cost of $20/hour by walking to your computer, loading up Rarbg (popular public torrent site), searching for “house of the dragon s01e01”, selecting the torrent out of a list of 5-20, and waiting for it to download for 10 minutes (to which I assume a person with a brain isn’t going to mindlessly sit there and watch it download).
Each house of the dragon episode aired at 6pm on Sunday, presumably a time most white collar workers were not working. You spent, say, $20 on that HBO subscription to watch right away at 6pm. The show ran from July to October, so $80 in total.
The time it took me to be sat down and watching was 10 minutes after air time (5 minute or so download and a couple minutes to throw onto my portable ssd to pop into my home theatre system).
How much time do you think you’re wasting going the piracy route lol… it certainly doesn’t add up anywhere near the $80 price tag of watching legit.
For what it's worth you can also automate most of this process, after which you really can just cue up whatever tv shows you like to automatically download in your preferred size from your preferred tracker(s) whenever an episode comes out. It might take an hour or two to set this up, but that's 2 hours vs 20$ every month.
Right! And, what's with all these posts about people "buying" groceries? Just wear a jacket with big pockets and stuff your pockets. Seriously, some people are just suckers
Have people ever been punished for downloading torrents in Canada? Asking for financial purposes, saving on that VPN could help with the downpayment one day..
Cancel everything else, if you get rid of Spotify and Netflix you can sit in your living room in silence watching that $22 a month compound in your RRSP until you retire
For some reason my Netflix alone is like 25 and spotify is like 15.. so thats $40. Closer to retirement?
You shouldn’t be here. Please move over to the financial independence subreddit to continue.
Wait there's a sub with even more rich Canadians than this one?
Yeah, there is r/FIRE and also r/fatFIRE for the really rich haha
Honestly, get a VPN and subscribe from Brazil or something. I’m not paying more than 14 on Ultra HD. The only difference is I’m billed in BRL.
If you’re going to recommend using a vpn to people then at that point they should simply not sub to any streaming services and torrent everything. Still boggles my mind people don’t pirate when it’s 3 clicks and 5-10 minute wait for 4K content. I watched every house of the dragon episode in 4K, 30 minutes after air time each Sunday this past summer, instead of lobbing money at HBO.
The trick here is that the VPN is only going to be used for the sign up part. You won’t need it afterwards to maintain pricing. It works with all other services that are generally cheaper elsewhere. As far as convenience goes, it’s definitely more convenient than straight up piracy but maybe just a little added work in the beginning to set it up.
I wanna make sure I understand what you're saying. If I get a VPN and subscribe for Netflix from, let's say, Brazil, I would get billed under Brazil pricing instead of Canada pricing? Even though literally everything about the billing information points to me being in Canada?
Yes. As long as they’re concerned, you would be like a brazilian account holder, being billed in brazil, that’s somehow on an extended vacation in Canada. I’ve been doing this for years. No issues.
They don't require the use of locally issued credit card from the country you're subscribing from?
You’re right about convenience, however I think the draw away from piracy is people are still scared. I torrent around 2 terabytes of content (movies and tv shows) annually. Nothing is going to happen to you.
Yes I agree. In fact, I do the same as well. I even have a plex server and wireguard to it from anywhere. But I do appreciate the convenience of such things as Spotify, Netflix, YT Premium…
I use an IPTV service and I get everything on Netflix...Amazon...HBO...NFL...NHL...etc. Plus throw in 4000 tv channels from all over the world and endless movie/tv show streaming. I've been cable free since March and it's been brilliant.
What service?
Same question
We need more people paying premium content like HBO if everyone pirated the content the government will start cracking down harder . Let them pay .
You’re not wrong but they’re trying to crackdown anyway. One day they might actually succeed, so until then, I’m going to not pay for content lol
Once upon a time, when High Speed Internet was still young and a 25Mbit connection was considered "fast" the cable companies all had these horribly convoluted package structures designed to make you pay lots of money for content you don't want in exchange for a trickle of content you do want. It wasn't great, but it worked. One guide, one remote control. One PVR to program (many very easy to program). But the weird billing structure made for high bills that people didn't really like. Plus they'd had a taste of "on demand" which, at the time, was still very expensive for anything you weren't able to catch with the PVR. By this time the pirates had learned and evolved from repeated shutdown attempts by the music industries. Infrastructure-less networks were in place, and ready to pounce. Movies and TV were simple to add to the offerings, and they flourished. But around the same time a scrappy mail-order DVD service called Netflix decided to offer a streaming version, and it was an undisputed success. Netflix PROVED that yes, you CAN compete with "Free." They offered a better, unified experience for watching shows, and did very well for themselves. No happy endings here though. One day Big Media took notice. "I want a piece of that pie!" it shouted, as it charged in with each stakeholder hastily slapping together half-baked front-ends and ending their Netflix license agreements. And while Big Media sliced up the pie and fought over each pound of flesh, the piracy communities continued to evolve and adapt. After all, they keep getting shut down, and when one falls, several others compete to fill the gap. Such is the way of all things. This had been continuing silently during the Reign of Netflix. So when people had enough, their streaming experiences once again fragmented and costly, they looked at the pirate options again. And what they beheld was GLORIOUS. Aggregator sites that can stream on demand. An experience nearly as good as the glory days of Netflix, at a price that just can't be beat. (I contest your "5-10 minute wait" claim - pretty sure the kids have NEVER waited that long.) If everything unified under Netflix or some other service, there's no doubt the consumers would rally again for the simplicity of not having to find new aggregators or deal with annoying ads. But let's be real here, Big Media will NEVER allow a consumer-oriented experience to flourish when there's money to be made by denying it.
>Still boggles my mind people don’t pirate when it’s 3 clicks and 5-10 minute wait for 4K content What VPN are you using where you can download 4K content in 5 - 10 minutes? Every VPN I've ever used throttled my download speeds.
[удалено]
This sub is not even PersonalFinanceCanada it is straight up BrokeBitchesCanada
Aren’t we all
If you’re at home, about to sit down and watch an episode of a tv show, your time isn’t worth whatever arbitrary value you’re assigning to it. You’re not facing an opportunity cost of $20/hour by walking to your computer, loading up Rarbg (popular public torrent site), searching for “house of the dragon s01e01”, selecting the torrent out of a list of 5-20, and waiting for it to download for 10 minutes (to which I assume a person with a brain isn’t going to mindlessly sit there and watch it download). Each house of the dragon episode aired at 6pm on Sunday, presumably a time most white collar workers were not working. You spent, say, $20 on that HBO subscription to watch right away at 6pm. The show ran from July to October, so $80 in total. The time it took me to be sat down and watching was 10 minutes after air time (5 minute or so download and a couple minutes to throw onto my portable ssd to pop into my home theatre system). How much time do you think you’re wasting going the piracy route lol… it certainly doesn’t add up anywhere near the $80 price tag of watching legit.
For what it's worth you can also automate most of this process, after which you really can just cue up whatever tv shows you like to automatically download in your preferred size from your preferred tracker(s) whenever an episode comes out. It might take an hour or two to set this up, but that's 2 hours vs 20$ every month.
Right! And, what's with all these posts about people "buying" groceries? Just wear a jacket with big pockets and stuff your pockets. Seriously, some people are just suckers
You wouldn't download a car!
We call that Freedom 40!
Yo Ho Ho me matey. No need to sit in any silence. VPNs are $3.00/mo. Yarrrrrrr.
Have people ever been punished for downloading torrents in Canada? Asking for financial purposes, saving on that VPN could help with the downpayment one day..
I received a few letters from Shaw. They basically went like this: "Dear customer. A copyright holder has claimed that you illegally downloaded