New research published in the Journal of Cultural Economics documents how the COVID-19 pandemic created a surge in “new pirates”. Contrary to simple narratives, increased online piracy during the pandemic isn’t always associated with less legal consumption. In fact, the relationship between piracy and legal markets is far from straightforward.
No. COVID didn’t lead to this. Their insane greed lead to this. We were more than happy to pay a fair price to own a product, but no… they wanted more, and more, and more, and, eventually, we had enough. The fact that it happened during a pandemic is irrelevant, because it didn’t lead to this. Their greed lead to this.
Choose your path of happiness:
- owning nothing
- sharing
People trapped at home downloaded more stuff, news at 11.
The reason people pirate more is because it’s easier than the alternative. Subscription culture can get fucked.
Not just that, but around the same time we saw significant service fragmentation and price hikes.
