We went full piracy in like 2002, stayed that way until about 2017, and now in 2026 have reverted to full piracy again. Time to remind them what killed cable.
When The Pirate Bay launched in 2003, I went full piracy then and never looked back.
From an outsider’s perspective, it’s like watching a wild roller-coaster ride from the sidelines. Never understood all the Netflix hype when they first launched their streaming service. Tried it once in the early 2010s and was beyond disappointed; the vast majority of of content I wanted to watch was not on there (and still isn’t).
These days I use Stremio paired with Torrentio and a Debrid service. Instant streams to anything I could ever want to watch, and it’s all there in one place. IDK why people would pay for multiple streaming services when you can just have one.
My conspiracy theory is that Netflix existed as it did for so long to try and kill piracy so they could spring the current corpo hellscape on us; they just pulled the trigger to early.
My dad swore off piracy as soon as netflix was good enough because the price was so low and EVERYTHING was on there (and it was legal). By the time he wanted to get back into it, TPB and his other go-tos were dead, so he still just pays the subscription.
Ive tried to educate him but hes still stuck in corpo hell
Streaming killed cable though? Streaming was so good and reasonably priced I had no good reason to pirate. Now the streaming services are more jam packed with ads and as expensive as cable was, so it’s back to the high seas for me matey.
Ads killed cable. I still remember having cable briefly in the 80s, we recorded everything on our VCR (anything good) and the best part was those tapes had no commercials.
Granted the cable only had 99 channels max as the two digit red display only had two numbers, but it was glorious.
Ads suck hard, but avoiding them was just one of the plethora of advantages of early streaming. Early Netflix had what felt like infinite content, on demand, for a fraction of the price of cable. That’s why the majority of cord cutters ditched cable; price. Avoiding ads was definitely a factor but it was hardly the main one for most of us.
The modern streaming industry has embraced ads in a way that feels somehow grimier than cable because the ads are targeted and we all know it’s greed that’s put them there.
We went full piracy in like 2002, stayed that way until about 2017, and now in 2026 have reverted to full piracy again. Time to remind them what killed cable.
When The Pirate Bay launched in 2003, I went full piracy then and never looked back.
From an outsider’s perspective, it’s like watching a wild roller-coaster ride from the sidelines. Never understood all the Netflix hype when they first launched their streaming service. Tried it once in the early 2010s and was beyond disappointed; the vast majority of of content I wanted to watch was not on there (and still isn’t).
These days I use Stremio paired with Torrentio and a Debrid service. Instant streams to anything I could ever want to watch, and it’s all there in one place. IDK why people would pay for multiple streaming services when you can just have one.
My conspiracy theory is that Netflix existed as it did for so long to try and kill piracy so they could spring the current corpo hellscape on us; they just pulled the trigger to early.
My dad swore off piracy as soon as netflix was good enough because the price was so low and EVERYTHING was on there (and it was legal). By the time he wanted to get back into it, TPB and his other go-tos were dead, so he still just pays the subscription.
Ive tried to educate him but hes still stuck in corpo hell
What you mean TPB dead? It’s totally still viable.
I’m literally downloading something on it now. 😅
Well, it was converted to an FBI front last time I checked, haven’t bothered to re-check in the last 6 or so years.
Its the only torrent site I use even to this day.
Streaming killed cable though? Streaming was so good and reasonably priced I had no good reason to pirate. Now the streaming services are more jam packed with ads and as expensive as cable was, so it’s back to the high seas for me matey.
Ads killed cable. I still remember having cable briefly in the 80s, we recorded everything on our VCR (anything good) and the best part was those tapes had no commercials.
Granted the cable only had 99 channels max as the two digit red display only had two numbers, but it was glorious.
Ads suck hard, but avoiding them was just one of the plethora of advantages of early streaming. Early Netflix had what felt like infinite content, on demand, for a fraction of the price of cable. That’s why the majority of cord cutters ditched cable; price. Avoiding ads was definitely a factor but it was hardly the main one for most of us.
The modern streaming industry has embraced ads in a way that feels somehow grimier than cable because the ads are targeted and we all know it’s greed that’s put them there.