Yup, Gaben was 100% right. I haven't pirated a game or music album in ages. Having games that just work is great. An update came out? It's auto-installed. Don't have to wait for the cracker group to put out a new patched executable. For music, Spotify means I don't need to curate a collection and buy individual songs. Yes, I acknowledge that it means I don't own any of it, but that's fine. I'm still coming out ahead compared to paying for $1 for every individual song.

But movies and TV shows? All the studios fucked it up by all wanting a piece of the pie. It became a horribly fragmented market. I'd need, what, 8+ subscriptions to have access to it all? Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Disney+, Peacock, Paramount+, AppleTV, Amazon Prime Video... Other than sports-centric streaming that I don't care about, what am I missing?

It's utterly ridiculous. My pirating plummeted when Netflix streaming became a thing. It returned when studios revoked the licenses so they could put it on their own platform.