• pjhenry1216@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Corporations: hey guys, let’s unionize so the government doesn’t exploit us.

    Employees: hey, can we als…

    Corporations: NO.

  • mlg@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    every pirate related theme song getting increasingly louder in the background

  • stonedemoman@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    streamers are currently being forced to reckon with their profitability — or lack thereof.

    Netflix’s 2023 2nd quarter revenue: 8.1 billion dollars BTW

    • underisk@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Brace yourself for a tidal wave of corporate apologists rushing to point out that “revenue isn’t profit!,!”

          • Billiam@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            What’s that? You want to share your four-screens-at-a-time account with three other people outside your house?

            Fuck you, pay us more.

      • uphillbothways@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Profit is the portion of revenue that is stolen from workers and given to shareholders. Profit is bad. Revenue is good.

        • underisk@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Unless you use that revenue to do stock buybacks, then it’s not considered profit but you still get to steal it from the workers. That way you can cry about unprofitability while all your shareholders and c suites crank up the exploitation of workers and consumers chasing “profitability” until the business collapses.

          • uphillbothways@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Which is crazy, right? If a stock sale allows an investment in a business, a stock buyback should be a paying off of that debt, freeing more revenue in the future to be used explicitly to pay workers who generate that revenue. How the fuck that is justified in instead enriching the value of other investments still held by other investors shows the selective use of the analogy by corporate interests and that the whole house of cards is just bullshit.

        • ripcord@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          For the most part, it’s not given to the shareholders, either. Dividends are pretty rare these days (which is when stocks largely went from being an ownership investment to - mostly - a form of gambling)

          • norbert@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Because fuck Netflix, nobody believes for a minute they’re not profitable and couldn’t afford to pay writers and actors.

          • stonedemoman@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I didn’t realize people can’t do a 10 second google search on their own. 🙄

            Net income isn’t the whole story anyways, especially when this article points out that one of their costs is lobbying for a cause that isn’t necessary. They’re raking in billions of dollars every year.

            • kirklennon@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              I didn’t realize people can’t do a 10 second google search on their own.

              You specifically chose to quote a sentence about profit and then provide a number that is not profit. What was the point of commenting at all if the number you provided had no relevance?

              • stonedemoman@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                My quote:

                streamers are currently being forced to reckon with their profitability — or lack thereof.

                profitability

                Your misinformed quote:

                You specifically chose to quote a sentence about profit

                profit

                There’s a very important difference there that I think you’re not built to understand.

                • ripcord@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  I’m not a shill as far as I know. What if I agree with them that it would have made more sense to mention profit #? Do I instantly become a “shill” too? If so, where can I get my check?

      • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        …but it’s not. And I really think people either don’t understand that or they are intentionally misrepresenting the situation.

        Being level-headed and fact-driven isn’t “corporate apologist”, it’s how you maintain integrity and don’t derail your own movement by being dishonest about shit that doesn’t even matter.

        It’s like when Trump lies about his golf games. No one cares about his golf games but it makes you realize that if he’s willing to blatantly and badly lie about something so trivial, he’s probably also lying about absolutely everything else about him that might even remotely appear negative.

        • underisk@lemmy.ml
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          Plenty of people understand it, and some of them understand that profit is so malleable that it’s not really a useful measure of a company’s financial health. What really matters is how much they make over their essential production operational expenses. They can tailor their non essential expenses to seem as profitable or unprofitable as they want and use stock valuation tricks like buybacks to make money for shareholders regardless.

          What does it matter if the company is profitable or unprofitable on paper when certain people can make lots of money off it either way? Twitter was “unprofitable” it’s entire life but somehow I bet the executives still got their bonuses, I doubt the shareholders were dissatisfied with their stock valuations or the buybacks, and it sure didn’t stop them from acquiring other companies.

          • stonedemoman@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Thank you for putting this more eloquently than I could. I must admit, I was losing my cool with people being irrational about this.

            I don’t know if people are ignoring expense scaling and stock buybacks or purposely choosing to hide it.

    • ramblinguy@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      On a tangent, and nothing to do with you, but I don’t like how these streaming companies are being called “streamers”. Streamers are those people streaming on twitch, not a company like Netflix damnit.

    • elscallr@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I even upgraded my pipe to fiber so I can share Plex with my friends and family. Built a machine with 16TBx6 RAID. Cost me a shit ton more than a year of all the streaming services but fuck them.

    • pomodoro_longbreak@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Was talking with a friend over lunch about this. I don’t mind paying for media, but the greed I’m seeing from the streaming services now makes me feel like the more ethical choice is to pirate content and just contribute directly to the arts where I can.

      They’re getting to the point where they think that just because they have the platform and the licenses, they can soak their customers. Only a matter of time before the ad men move in. Anyway, fuck all that

    • spirinolas@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I never left ye lady-dressin’ barnacle. Leekin’ forward to sail with ye to meet those corporate scallogs for some happy fightin, lootin and rapin’

      R

  • hightrix@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The slow march back to cable is unstoppable.

    Pirate everything. Share everything.

    Piracy is an access problem, not a consumer problem.

    • enbee@compuverse.uk
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      1 year ago

      dismantle capitalism. I bet in like 24 years some disruptor is going to come along and buy up rights to the shit thats on peacock Hulu etc now and offer 9 bucks a month to stream it to you. rinse repeat. fuck this corpo nightmare.

      • bob_wiley@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Maybe we just need to move content to the public domain more quickly. Something gets made, they have 5 years to recoup their costs and make their profit, then release it to the public domain so it can be enjoyed and preserved for future generations.

        • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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          1 year ago

          Not going to happen with Disney. They are lobbying to increase it even more than 100 years.

          • bob_wiley@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Maybe they should try coming up with some new ideas… use that imagination they are always talking about.

        • enbee@compuverse.uk
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          1 year ago

          thats a sensible solution actually. doubtful that the studios would ever go along with it, given how reluctant the studios are to pay writers a fair share.

    • Ready! Player 31@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It turns out cable wasn’t some unique product or way of doing things, it’s just the natural form media delivery takes under capitalism. Streaming services are convergently evolving to take that shape too.

    • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I mean that’s not even a little correct.

      Streaming allows you to watch videos on demand, and allows you to choose from a littany of providers, where you were previously limited to whoever laid cable in your neighborhood.

  • notannpc@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If I’ve learned anything about corporate lobbying groups it’s that they only exist to fuck you and ruin any legislation that attempts to protect you from them.

    Eat shit SIA.

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      Corps form “unions” and use money gained by preferential treatment by government to create propaganda shitting on unions.

      Funny that.

      No wait, infuriating. That’s the word.

      • ours@lemmy.film
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        1 year ago

        They cry about the “free market” and then run to the Government to ask for “protection”.

      • DarthBueller@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Wait, what? What corporations form labor unions designed to undermine labor unions? Are you calling a lobbying group a union? Are you using terminology creatively or is there something I hadn’t heard about? EDIT: I guess I never get to find out. :(

        • Asafum@feddit.nl
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          1 year ago

          Sorry for the late reply, I’m not on all the time.

          I was using it creatively which is why I used quotation marks. They act as a collective for their own benefit as a union does.

  • foggy@lemmy.world
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    Get rid of them. Socialize their service. Host all content at media.gov and take costs out of taxes. We could pay artists more, have 0 ads, all for like $15 per paycheck. Those taxes would fund grants for artists and cover platform costs. No ads. No corporations.

    P.S. you already pay taxes on media through various 3 letter institutions and licensing. It’s not different from what we have other than eliminating the things we all dont like.

    Watch the video. Benn Jordan has done a lot of the heavy lifting for us. This lobby exists to stop that from ever happening and nothing more. Fight them to the death.

    • Obinice@lemmy.world
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      How do we socialise these globally important services? Let’s say the Americans socialised all of the services we use heavily every day here in Europe. Netflix, Amazon, Disney, etc etc.

      How will that affect our access to these now internal US National Services? How will it affect our rights and ability to take those services to court - now taking the US State to court instead, when they do something bad?

      How does that increase my rights as a consumer, rather than stifle them?

      You’re forgetting that the USA doesn’t live in a bubble. Other countries exist. This is a global issue.

      • foggy@lemmy.world
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        Well, we would have the content we own. We would pay to lease the content we don’t. If any non US residents want a media.gov account, they can pay for one out of pocket what Americans pay in taxes.

        Problem solved.

        It increases your rights as a consumer because it consolidates the location and entity at/to which you pay for that content. You get all the content in one place as opposed to via 12 different accounts.

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          I can only imagine the delicious conversations about what objectionable art other people are enjoying that ‘their’ tax dollars paid for. Sure, let’s do it.

          And when the GOP holds enough power again we could finally have real US branded State TV! The Trump News Network will live, lol

  • underisk@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Could they, instead, band together to offer a service that’s more user friendly than piracy? I suppose bribery is cheaper and easier.

    • snooggums@kbin.social
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      They did, it was called Netflix.

      Then the Netflix rates went up while everyone pulled and splintered content onto their own services and then started shuffling it around.

    • LimeWire@lemmy.mywire.xyz
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      1 year ago

      It would be such a wonderful thing wouldn’t it? Now where was I again about profits and squeezing the customers?

    • Petter1@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Imagine not being able to force set the resolution and bitrate on your stream, even tho you pay for 4k. (Btw. Same goes for YT) Plex and jellyfin are just superior.

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          What client do you use? I mostly use the iOS client and there they only give you the illusion of a choice: „higher quality“ and „lower quality“ maybe there are still clients which allow force set resolution/bitrate.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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      What you’re asking for is a monopoly. It rarely is cheaper or easier. Sometimes, when heavily regulated, it could be. But history shows most of these are eventually privatized and deregulated and then we know what happens.

      • underisk@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Don’t put words in my mouth. Industries get together and set standards and form partnerships all the fucking time. It’s as much a “monopoly” as this lobbying project is.

    • timkmz@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Spotify also recently raised their proces, but tbf they kinda had to with the inflation. The depressing thing is that creators are rewarded for borting. (See slightly Sociables “the dark side of spotify” vid for indepth)

      • bobman@unilem.org
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        but tbf they kinda had to with the inflation.

        So, they used inflation as an excuse to charge people more money for an already-profitable product?

        Wow.

        • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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          Corporations keep talking about inflation as if the regular users aren’t already being screwed by it. “Here, since you have less disposable money, lets charge even more.”

  • Metatronz@lemmy.world
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    Streaming has ultimately taught me how little I ‘need’ to watch since it trains you to really only seek out a couple things per service. I’ve also become very advertisment sensitive being blessed with tools to avoid that and companies honeymooning people for a while with fewer ads compared to what cable did.

    Obviously, the dipshits are springing their ‘trap’ but I’m not bullish on the strategy of forcing consumers to suddenly tolerate a return of ads everywhere and always on entertainment. I just see folks running away again/further disconnecting from traditional media.

      • ours@lemmy.film
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        1 year ago

        And the tools to emulate the good parts of streaming with a home setup have never been better.

    • CosmoNova@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      The search for something to watch and to evaluate what streaming service I should subscribe for the next 2 months or so has become so tedious and the overall quality so low that I’m simply giving up on them as a whole. The price increase and ads weren’t even necessary to drive me away. They only ensure I will not come back.

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      What’s the famous quote? Something about how a capitalist will sell you the rope from which you plan to hang them? Something like that?

  • Margot Robbie@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It felt inevitable at some point this was going to happen after they got caught off guard by the strikes to make sure that it never happens again, but the fight is not over yet.

    It’s more important than ever then for you guys to support the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike, fight for workers, and fight for unions.

    Otherwise, they’ll just keep squeezing and squeezing, until there is nothing left.