this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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Unpopular Opinion

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It is illegal and immoral. It steals the rightful intellectual property of directors and developers who are only trying to make a living. If you want to be a thief so badly, then rob a federal bank.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Is it wrong to take food from a grocery store that would otherwise be thrown away? The grocery store isn't losing anything except potential future revenue.

[–] aelwero 2 points 1 year ago

This is the basic premise for a lot more people than will claim it or understand it...

Let's take a bin full of potatoes. Everyone's gonna pick the best potato. They'll dig around, examine, inspect, and pick the good ones. The shitty scruffy looking ones get left sitting there, and don't nobody who runs a shop wanna just wait until all the potatoes get chosen. They bring out new ones constantly to keep the bin full and have options available so people can pick the best ones.

Maybe once in a great while someone's buying potatoes for their pigs, and they look for crappy ones. Maybe once in a great while someone needs 200 potatoes and they don't wanna sit there being Picky Ricky for four fucking hours. Maybe once in a great while those crappy potatoes actually get chosen... but how often? Not very...

Netflix is that bin of potatoes. Is it wrong to pirate movies that are available on Netflix instead of paying Netflix? Well, it kinda depends on the fucking potato, don't it? You'll pay the $30/mo or whatever it is for a game of thrones, because you're getting what you pay for, and pirating that is definitely depriving Netflix of some value in its investment, but if you pirate billy bobs country bunker hour special from 1993, you're not taking jack shit from Netflix, it's an old wrinkly ass potato that's been sitting in the bin for a long ass time while people spent their money on better potatoes, fun it'll never make a goddamn penny for netflix. It's only value is adding quantity to the bin.

When it gets old enough that they'll throw it away, the deprivation of value has been reduced to being trivial. Your point is valid imho

[–] Tedesche 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Food that is being thrown away can’t produce future revenue. A film that is actively streaming on a paid site can. Your analogy doesn’t work.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Wdym? The store is still selling food. If you don't take the stuff being thrown away, you'd need to buy food from them.

The exact sets of bits are producing as much revenue as the thrown away food. But many people wouldn't buy if they didn't pirate, whereas people still need to eat.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Food that is being thrown away can’t produce future revenue.

Not with that attitude.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

As @[email protected] said, if you don't get to take home free dumpster food, presumably you would have to buy fresher food.

And it isn't hypothetical, large grocery stores are IMMINENTLY worried about this and will call the police on people going through their dumpsters, or they will pour toxic chemicals on the food to render it inedible, or any number of fucked up ways to ensure waste.