According to an interesting observation reported by TorrentFreak, Netflix might be doing more than just serving Americans their daily doses of videos and movies – Netflix might actually be killing off piracy. They’ve noticed that as the number of Netflix subscribers almost doubled in number from last year, the number of BitTorrent users in the US has slightly decreased. Now it’s hard to come to a definite conclusion about whether there is any correlation between the two sets of figures (BitTorrent can be used to download other files as well i.e. books, games, music etc) but it looks like Netflix could be on the right path to combating piracy.
Users certainly don’t mind paying for content if they can access it quickly and easily. Previously, before there were video on demand services, BitTorrent was the only way for users to gain access to movies quickly and easily – it sure beat travelling out of the house to a store, lining up and getting a DVD. But a service like Netflix gets you your movies – delivered straight to your PC or TV – in HD. You even skip the part where you burn the movies to DVDs to put in your DVD player. And let’s not forget, with such low monthly fees, it’s hard to find a reason not to use such a service when it’s available.
Granted, it’s not going to stop movie piracy anytime soon or eradicate it for that matter, but if companies like Netflix can offer such services at affordable prices, it’s going to be a great help in the ongoing war. Now we just need to see such services rolled out to the rest of the world. What are your thoughts? Are there any BitTorrent-to-Netflix (or any similar service) converts out there?
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