14 ms·

The one I use (one of the biggest) only takes crypto, either directly or by paying with your card through Moonpay.

by OkayBuddy44 2y ago

itake 2y ago
JW, why pay for these services? Private trackers are still free and have all the content..
- dxbednarczyk 2y ago
  Private trackers (at least, the "good ones") take time and effort to get into and stay in... most people just want convenience.
  - itake 2y ago
    paying per mo is certainly more convenient I guess. but once you are in, there isn't a cost to stay in. Some trackers might boot you if you don't log in once every 3-6 mo.
  - hackerknew 2y ago
    I am curious. If you are willing to pay for the convenience, why not just pay the original service providers? Is it much less expensive?
    - Numerlor 2y ago
      Over here it's a fair bit less expensive because it just has everything. On normal streaming platforms dubbed shows aren't always there and because the market is small a lot of things are just not available anywhere legally
    - christophilus 2y ago
      Not the OP, but when you go down the illegal route, it is much easier to find whatever you want to watch, watch it on any device with no limitations, etc. The fragmentation and limitations of the usual big services is a nuisance.
    - Kirby64 2y ago
      Less expensive yes, but more importantly much more convenient. When 'all' the shows exist on a combination of Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Paramount, Disney+, and Max... you can easily get to $100/mo+ if you were to subscribe to all of them. Then, if you want to watch something from an international viewership, it might not even be available in your region. In addition, you now have to figure out which service offers what program... which for certain not-current shows can be maddening (some seasons on some services, some on others, some not even available). As GabeN has stated: piracy is a service problem, not a pricing problem.
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
      I think the answer is that is not nearly as convenient as original service providers would claim it is. I am in US and we just went through a crazy period of everyone and their mother trying to start their own streaming service. Good portion went under, some consolidated, but the market fragmentation leading to actual content you want to see being spread across multiple services is an annoyance. I will provide a concrete example. My buddy got into anime and was raving about one specific title so I checked Hulu for it, but Hulu, for some unfathomable reason starts that anime at season 4.. If I want to legally Stream season one, I would need to try the Sony owned anime thing, which I refuse to do for reasons not related to streaming wars. I ended up buying a dvd ( cheap and good enough quality for me ). And pirates... have everything and, unless you are looking for newest releases, is of superior quality.
    - celticninja 2y ago
      Yes I believe so. Probably in the region of €150 a year for everything and you can watch in up to 5 devices. Movies, apple TV, netflix, Amazon, Disney, hbo, sports PPV
    - qingcharles 2y ago
      I used to run one of these. People would pay because (a) we had TV shows that literally were not available through any streaming service, (b) people wanted real downloads they could hoard.
- tw04 2y ago
  Because people want to it live? It says they were redistributing IPTV which is essentially cable over the Internet.
  - jiggunjer 2y ago
    No? IPTV is a protocol. You can send on-demand movies etc too.
    - tw04 2y ago
      It is literally the specification to send live tv over IP. The fact some services also support on demand movies is irrelevant to the fact the service in question is for live tv. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol_television https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol_television
      - tacker2000 2y ago
        You send an MPEG transport stream. The contents are arbitrary and can be anything you want, live TV, movies, etc.
        tw04 2y ago
        Which doesn’t change the fact the protocol was literally designed for TV and the service in question was selling television stream access.
      - jiggunjer 2y ago
        I never said it doesn't support live tv. But I was trying to point out that people who pay for the above service are not _necessarily_ interested in the live tv feature. I.e. it's not the reason for some. I'd guess convenience.
- OkayBuddy44 2y ago
  Convenience, I guess. I'm not that deep into the piracy world that I even know of all my alternatives, to be honest. I pay a reasonable subscription fee, download the app on all my devices, and watch whatever I want. The app is compatible with all of my devices, isn't broken, there are no unreasonable limits or restrictions, and no ads. That's a lot more than I can say for the 5 or 6 subscriptions it replaces.
- xnyan 2y ago
  Some paid pirate services actually do offer good value for the money. I’ve used a torrent caching service that has any torrent that lets me cap my gigabit connection for any torrent that has been crawled by them or user-uploaded, in practice this is a lot, and if they don’t have it, they will act as a client and acquire it for you, including seeding it for as long as you’d like. It costs $1-2 USD a month, well worth it for me. Paid pirate IPTV streams can have better speeds, better reliability, and less or no ads. I don’t personally watch live TV so I don’t use these services, but if I did I would definitely pay a small amount for the conveniences above.
  - BLKNSLVR 2y ago
    Real Debrid are having a bit of an enforced change of policy regarding the content that they cache.
    - qingcharles 2y ago
      What are they changing?
      - BLKNSLVR 2y ago
        https://torrentfreak.com/real-debrid-implements-extreme-anti-piracy-filters-to-appease-film-companies-241122/ https://torrentfreak.com/real-debrid-implements-extreme-anti...
        aspenmayer 2y ago
        There are a lot more debrid providers out there, but they are one of the more recognizable names. You can even self-host your own: https://github.com/debridmediamanager/zurg-testing https://github.com/debridmediamanager/zurg-testing Lots more debrid info, services, and tools here: https://github.com/debridmediamanager/awesome-debrid https://github.com/debridmediamanager/awesome-debrid
        BLKNSLVR 2y ago
- ahmedfromtunis 2y ago
  In my country, people can't pay internationally, so their only option (especially for sports coverage) is pirated IPTV networks which are very popular in here and are sold everywhere. I don't watch live television myself so I don't know how good and reliable these services are.
- vel0city 2y ago
  Some content people want to watch is live, which can be challenging to publish and disseminate as a torrent.

The one I use (one of the biggest) only takes crypto, either directly or by paying with your card through Moonpay.

itake 2y ago

JW, why pay for these services? Private trackers are still free and have all the content..

dxbednarczyk 2y ago
Private trackers (at least, the "good ones") take time and effort to get into and stay in... most people just want convenience.
- itake 2y ago
  paying per mo is certainly more convenient I guess. but once you are in, there isn't a cost to stay in. Some trackers might boot you if you don't log in once every 3-6 mo.
- hackerknew 2y ago
  I am curious. If you are willing to pay for the convenience, why not just pay the original service providers? Is it much less expensive?
  - Numerlor 2y ago
    Over here it's a fair bit less expensive because it just has everything. On normal streaming platforms dubbed shows aren't always there and because the market is small a lot of things are just not available anywhere legally
  - christophilus 2y ago
    Not the OP, but when you go down the illegal route, it is much easier to find whatever you want to watch, watch it on any device with no limitations, etc. The fragmentation and limitations of the usual big services is a nuisance.
  - Kirby64 2y ago
    Less expensive yes, but more importantly much more convenient. When 'all' the shows exist on a combination of Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Paramount, Disney+, and Max... you can easily get to $100/mo+ if you were to subscribe to all of them. Then, if you want to watch something from an international viewership, it might not even be available in your region. In addition, you now have to figure out which service offers what program... which for certain not-current shows can be maddening (some seasons on some services, some on others, some not even available). As GabeN has stated: piracy is a service problem, not a pricing problem.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
    I think the answer is that is not nearly as convenient as original service providers would claim it is. I am in US and we just went through a crazy period of everyone and their mother trying to start their own streaming service. Good portion went under, some consolidated, but the market fragmentation leading to actual content you want to see being spread across multiple services is an annoyance. I will provide a concrete example. My buddy got into anime and was raving about one specific title so I checked Hulu for it, but Hulu, for some unfathomable reason starts that anime at season 4.. If I want to legally Stream season one, I would need to try the Sony owned anime thing, which I refuse to do for reasons not related to streaming wars. I ended up buying a dvd ( cheap and good enough quality for me ). And pirates... have everything and, unless you are looking for newest releases, is of superior quality.
  - celticninja 2y ago
    Yes I believe so. Probably in the region of €150 a year for everything and you can watch in up to 5 devices. Movies, apple TV, netflix, Amazon, Disney, hbo, sports PPV
  - qingcharles 2y ago
    I used to run one of these. People would pay because (a) we had TV shows that literally were not available through any streaming service, (b) people wanted real downloads they could hoard.
tw04 2y ago
Because people want to it live? It says they were redistributing IPTV which is essentially cable over the Internet.
- jiggunjer 2y ago
  No? IPTV is a protocol. You can send on-demand movies etc too.
  - tw04 2y ago
    It is literally the specification to send live tv over IP. The fact some services also support on demand movies is irrelevant to the fact the service in question is for live tv. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol_television https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol_television
    - tacker2000 2y ago
      You send an MPEG transport stream. The contents are arbitrary and can be anything you want, live TV, movies, etc.
      - tw04 2y ago
        Which doesn’t change the fact the protocol was literally designed for TV and the service in question was selling television stream access.
    - jiggunjer 2y ago
      I never said it doesn't support live tv. But I was trying to point out that people who pay for the above service are not _necessarily_ interested in the live tv feature. I.e. it's not the reason for some. I'd guess convenience.
OkayBuddy44 2y ago
Convenience, I guess. I'm not that deep into the piracy world that I even know of all my alternatives, to be honest. I pay a reasonable subscription fee, download the app on all my devices, and watch whatever I want. The app is compatible with all of my devices, isn't broken, there are no unreasonable limits or restrictions, and no ads. That's a lot more than I can say for the 5 or 6 subscriptions it replaces.
xnyan 2y ago
Some paid pirate services actually do offer good value for the money. I’ve used a torrent caching service that has any torrent that lets me cap my gigabit connection for any torrent that has been crawled by them or user-uploaded, in practice this is a lot, and if they don’t have it, they will act as a client and acquire it for you, including seeding it for as long as you’d like. It costs $1-2 USD a month, well worth it for me. Paid pirate IPTV streams can have better speeds, better reliability, and less or no ads. I don’t personally watch live TV so I don’t use these services, but if I did I would definitely pay a small amount for the conveniences above.
- BLKNSLVR 2y ago
  Real Debrid are having a bit of an enforced change of policy regarding the content that they cache.
  - qingcharles 2y ago
    What are they changing?
    - BLKNSLVR 2y ago
      https://torrentfreak.com/real-debrid-implements-extreme-anti-piracy-filters-to-appease-film-companies-241122/ https://torrentfreak.com/real-debrid-implements-extreme-anti...
      - aspenmayer 2y ago
        There are a lot more debrid providers out there, but they are one of the more recognizable names. You can even self-host your own: https://github.com/debridmediamanager/zurg-testing https://github.com/debridmediamanager/zurg-testing Lots more debrid info, services, and tools here: https://github.com/debridmediamanager/awesome-debrid https://github.com/debridmediamanager/awesome-debrid
        BLKNSLVR 2y ago
ahmedfromtunis 2y ago
In my country, people can't pay internationally, so their only option (especially for sports coverage) is pirated IPTV networks which are very popular in here and are sold everywhere. I don't watch live television myself so I don't know how good and reliable these services are.
vel0city 2y ago
Some content people want to watch is live, which can be challenging to publish and disseminate as a torrent.