alt Hacker NewsAssuming that "piracy is a service problem, not a pricing problem" is still the prevailing wisdom, what is Spain / La Liga doing wrong that sports piracy is so prevalent as to warrant this? It seems like a no-brainer to expand stream availability and charge appropriately for it vs. scheduling daily kneecaps of other economic activity.
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This seems like they are aiming to increase profit margins instead of increasing the supply and decreasing the price. Considering that increasing the supply is trivial in digital products, maybe they are competing in a saturated market?
Spaniards attitudes can be quite different from the American ones, Americans just pay for everything for convenience, in Spain you probably need to match the price of the IPTV to steal their customers.
Apparently IPTV costs 20 to 60 Euros per year, the legal option is over 100 euros per month.
To match the IPTV they need 20x price reduction. This would mean that they need sign in 20x more Spaniards to break even with the current situation. Are there 20x more Spaniards pirating the LaLiga than paying? Even in Spain I don’t think so.
Football in Spain is usually sold by what used to be cable tv (now a mix of cable + Netflix-like streaming). Usually to get access to matches you need the most expensive package, which includes a bajillion services and might even be tied to a cell/internet provider. Footbal is their "killer feature" that enables 200 euro subscriptions.
They also sell "business access", so pubs can show the match, since going to the bar for a beer is the go-to choice for those who can't afford to watch at home.
> "piracy is a service problem, not a pricing problem"
I never buy into this. If copyright law doesn't exist, pirate sites will eventually always provide better service than the official channels.
One example is scanlation manga. Chinese scanlation sites have reached the theoretical ceiling of service: just serve images fast with a little nonintrusive ad. No login required. No way the official Japanese apps can provide significant better service than that.
LaLiga has the same kind of attitude and culture as the RIAA. Interpret their words and actions accordingly.
Monopoly: It is not just "LaLiga" who stands to lose money, it is Telefonica/Movistar which is the only owner of most of sports right in Spain, and they know they can set the price they want because
+ Most people are not savy enough to pirate/are unwilling to do it for fear.
+ The more fear they instil, the keener those people are to pay.
+ Most bars where it is available will rise prices to sustain their loss. It starts at 300Eu/(month screen) (notice the product in the denominator), and having.
+ Woe to you if you own a bar and the police get you pirating. Woe indeed, the fine will be unimaginable...
Monopoly does this to the markets. Movistar (Telefonica) is the de-facto owner of high-stakes sports in Spain. This means Football (Spanish league, Champions League), Tennis (all the Masters and Grand Slams), Basketball, you name it.
They are also the main telco in Spain, so they own the service and the channel.
Piracy isn't a service problem. Many people just want to consume media for free. It's true they poor service can exacerbate piracy, but even a good service isn't enough to dissuade pirates. Games that are completely convenient to download on Steam are still pirated.
Some people are pushed to pirate on account of bad service, sure. But plenty of others are more than willing to tolerate worse service to receive a product for free.
Is it not a pricing problem? Spotify is relatively cheap and has all the music. For the same video coverage I need 5+ streaming services that all increase prices significantly faster than inflation. This is just private equity over squeezing?
It’s very easy to watch pirated streams, it’s insanely complicated to reliably watch the official streams.
They don't stream on YouTube.
> Assuming that "piracy is a service problem, not a pricing problem" is still the prevailing wisdom
I don't have experience with broadcast media (in Spain, especially) but I a little experience on the software side: I could not believe the lengths some people would go to in order to avoid paying even $5-10 for useful software. Hours of work, sketchy cracks, downloading things from websites likely to compromise their system. Some of them would become irate when the software was updated and broke their cracks, spending time complaining loudly on forums and social media or even trying to threaten developers. The strangest part is when they start posting from social media where you can see things like their $3,000 gaming PC build, but if they see a chance to avoid paying $10-20 for something they will take it.
It becomes culturally embedded in some bubbles: If it's possible to find a way to avoid paying and there are no consequences for trying, some people will go for it.
I don't even buy the "it's a service problem" argument either. I have a friend who loves to watch sports games but refused to pay for any services. He will spend 30 minutes jumping from one website to the next enduring crazy amounts of ads, pop-ups, and attempts to get him to install things on his computer until finally getting to a blocky stream that drops out every few minutes. He can easily afford to pay, but getting things without paying is basically a little game he likes to play.