The platform owners can and will tighten the noose gradually. End users and hackers have much less power than they like to imagine, especially the latter segment.
That's a desired outcome.
I can easily get a 4k h265 video packed in mkv to play on my Linux laptop. I haven't tested lately but a while back Netflix would serve 720p max.
Spotify has been very cool, going as far as delivering a .deb package and Ubuntu repo for their client. However, Rogan podcast doesn't work on Linux because it includes video. Will it before they go exclusive? Maybe, maybe not. I can easily youtube-dl the latest podcast and watch it on Linux.
That's not correct, accessing their content at all still requires running malware like Widevine on your computer even on Linux.
Spotify, Netflix, etc., are possible today because the copyright owners created streaming licenses that recognize that ephemeral access to content is a different use case than downloading. (Streaming licenses are cheap compared to download licenses; my old employer streamed millions of hours of music from the Big 3 labels for a total annual cost of less than $2500.)
People stopped torrenting because Netflix and company made it extremely easy and more affordable to consume a wide range of media. Affordable enough that the hassle of torrenting was no longer worth it. If that changes, you'll see a resurgance.
Assuming there's something to go back to. General purpose computing has been limited by the rise of mobile. These devices are both limited by battery and CPU and more constrained in their abilities by tightly controlled operating systems.
And yet surprisingly many young people don't have anything better. Most still have laptops but it's also not a great hardware platform for torrenting.
Internet connections have been moving away from wires to more convenient but less spacious radio. And even wired connections are often degraded by carrier grade NATs.
Now, the very tools for gathering content are under assault. We need to act because a free and open Internet is not one of the laws of physics and corporations are capable opponents.
It's so, so easy to get access to a million pieces of media through the accounts your parents or siblings already have. Further those services provide specific family plans to make it even easier again.
As gaben said, "Piracy is almost always a service problem".
Today for $9/mo (or nearly free with Amazon) you can listen to almost any song....
The lowering of costs, and easy access is what is driving lower use of p2p not RIAA lawsuits and more restrictions
I kinda use a hybrid - I discover new music on free tier of subscription services, and once I identify songs that I love, I buy them from iTunes DRM-free. I'm just afraid that option won't remain there forever.
I have absolutely no need to own a piece of music.
I'd start here about Spotify not paying artists enough. But honestly, the music industry - as a whole - has been screwing over artists for decades, at least, so it is pretty much same thing in a different dress. If I'm going to support musicians more directly, I'll head over to Bandcamp while still giving the artist listens on spotify if they have music there.
If any big exclusive content music services pop up we'll be right back on the pirate bay for everything again
I think that'll be the return of either torrenting, or the casual pooling of subscription services between people.
