this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
460 points (100.0% liked)

Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

1445 readers
10 users here now

⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.

Rules • Full Version

1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy

2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote

3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs

4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others



Loot, Pillage, & Plunder

📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):


💰 Please help cover server costs.

Ko-Fi Liberapay
Ko-fi Liberapay

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Metal_Zealot@lemmy.ml 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh, no harm done then, lets keep allowing every online resource to implement shitty money grabbing tactics

[–] lud@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It sucks, sure. But it's been free for a really long time, and it costs money to run a service.

You can't really expect that a service will serve an increasing amount of people free stuff forever.

At least making people visit the site will encourage them to upload and help keep the service up.

Btw, it's not expensive and if you think it is. Just use some other service.

[–] Metal_Zealot@lemmy.ml 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)

THEN ASK PEOPLE TO DONATE, how tone-deaf can you be about your own community?? What the fuck do they think Wikipedia is doing?
I've found pirates & FOSS enthusiasts are FAR more likely to donate into something they use regularly and appreciate, this is a blatant slap in the face to those people.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They did do donations but maybe it wasn't enough 🤷 https://blog.opensubtitles.com/opensubtitles/thank-you-for-donations

It wouldn't surprise me if "VIP" was originally a tier given for donations which had some benefits.

Edit: that's indeed the case https://blog.opensubtitles.com/opensubtitles/free-vip-membership-for-first-20-users

[–] AbeilleVegane 1 points 1 year ago

Do they have a transparent budget on how the donations are used? Anyone can claim the donations weren't enough to survive.

[–] Metal_Zealot@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This unfortunately helps sets a precedent for what the internet is going to look like in the future. Even the most basic things will be behind a paywall.
You cant even read a fucking news article from New York Times, who made 173.91 million dollars last year

[–] lud@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

News has never historically been free, only recently through the web and founded by ads.

[–] Metal_Zealot@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

True. I amended my comment to better convey my anger

[–] lud@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How much money do you think they would have made if they gave away all their content for free.

News is pretty expensive.

[–] Metal_Zealot@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You mean the world renowned, universally known news agency in America owned by billionaires?

[–] lud@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

I am not familiar with who owns who in the USA. I do know that news wouldn't get made if no one wanted to pay for it.

[–] Spazsquatch@lemmy.studio 1 points 1 year ago

True, but just look at how much better it has gotten in the last couple decades. Putting the news behind the paywall runs the risk of ending the battle for impressions and might force nuance into well researched stories.

[–] kbal@fedia.io 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But it’s been free for a really long time

Of course it has. You need to offer the world a useful service for some length of time before you have dominated the market to such an extent that you can cut the quality and jack up the prices without there being any meaningful competition to worry about.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You talk like they are owned by some huge corporation and this was their plan from the beginning.

[–] kbal@fedia.io 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

So who exactly does own OpenSubtitles Group Limited, and what are their motivations? If you're claiming to know, I assume you must be some kind of insider? Because they don't seem to be all that open about it. Otherwise we can only judge by their actions.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

I don't know who they are but it's quite evident that they at least we're a very small group in the beginning.

I also haven't seen any evidence that there is an evil corpo controlling them or something.

Occam's razor