Subscriptions can create an illusion of a deal, because in principle, you’re ostensibly able to benefit more for a fixed price. But are you?
Netflix is a good example. You can watch as much as you want for a flat rate, but how many people watch enough to justify the monthly fee? (Putting aside the question of whether watching so much is actually a benefit in the first place.) Companies recognize the distinction between potential use and actual use, and so in practice, many are paying more for less and subsidizing the outliers that consume more. When actual use exceeds predicted use, the company will raise the price of subscription.
Subscriptions make sense for situations where there are regular maintenance costs or where the benefits are received at a steady and proportional rate.
>I don't understand why most people don't just torrent? [...] It's actually more convenient than streaming services.
I think your technical sophistication means you're somewhat out-of-touch with what "most" people do.
Most normal people watch Netflix/HBO/etc on smartphones/tablets, or stream devices like Amazon Fire Stick, Google Chromecast puck, Apple TV cube, or the "smart tv app" built-in with their Samsung or LG tv. All of those "mainstream devices used by most" don't make it easy to access torrenting sites or files. Sure, one could hypothetically sideload a torrenting app on a Google Chromecast but now you're beyond the demographic of "most people" because you have extra complexity of also adding some USB storage to save the torrent or point to a local network share.
The type of situations that makes "torrenting more convenient" are people watching everything on a laptop or have a dedicated HTPC media server hooked up to their tv.
I'm technically savvy and it was not easy to sideload Kodi player onto Amazon Fire Stick to legitimately play DVD ISOs. It required a lot of google searches to finally figure it out. (E.g. after realizing VLC app for Fire Stick doesn't work, and then finally stumbling across a "developer setting", and then getting the SMB network path correct, and so on...) Thinking that most people could just torrent is being unrealistic.
Torrents nowadays have <1% the number of people they had a decade ago. It didn't used to be considered technically sophisticated, just a new version of file sharing that everyone used two decades ago.
I just stream files from my Macbook via AirPlay to my tv. works pretty seamlessly. No media server setups. They don't even have to be on the same wifi network. I think most TVs support several streaming protocols nowadays? I got the cheapest Samsung smart TV.
You are probably right I'm out of touch with technology, but I also think that many people do much more advanced technical stuff like using VPNs - became pretty mainstream.
>I just stream files from my Macbook via AirPlay to my tv.
Ok, explaining your situation with a laptop clarifies where you're coming from. (Which my prior reply anticipated and covered in my 3nd paragraph about torrents being easy for people using laptops.)
In any case, most normal people do not use AirPlay from their laptop, nor cast from a Chromebook, nor cast/mirror a Windows to their tv to play Netflix/HBO/Disney. Instead they just use the mainstream hardware streaming devices or the built-in tv app. Torrents would be much less convenient for the way most non-techie people watch tv (Roku/FireStick/SamsungTVapp/etc). Netflix has stated many times that the majority of their customers' watch time comes from smartphones/tablets/tv and not desktop/laptop web browsers.
Because you’d be denying cast and crew of their royalties?
If people pirated on a mass scale, the losses would add up. Whatever you may think about streaming platforms, don’t punish the people just trying to make a living.
Netflix is a good example. You can watch as much as you want for a flat rate, but how many people watch enough to justify the monthly fee? (Putting aside the question of whether watching so much is actually a benefit in the first place.) Companies recognize the distinction between potential use and actual use, and so in practice, many are paying more for less and subsidizing the outliers that consume more. When actual use exceeds predicted use, the company will raise the price of subscription.
Subscriptions make sense for situations where there are regular maintenance costs or where the benefits are received at a steady and proportional rate.