What's old is new again. Descramblers are back
this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2026
40 points (90.0% liked)
Technology
81451 readers
4274 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
As always piracy is a symptom not the problem. People pirate when a) they don't have enough money or b) the experience for paying customers is significantly worse than for pirates, or c) the price of services far exceeds their perceived value. Piracy was down for a while because Netflix and Hulu were relatively cheap (or free), ad free, and the economy was doing OK so most people had a little disposable income.
Now that we're in a recession that's starting to look like it might turn into a depression and Netflix and Hulu (and others) have cranked the prices of their services up and stuffed them full of ads, yeah I'm not in the least surprised to see piracy surging. Every time you turn around there's another email from some service letting you know they're raising prices another couple bucks a month, and a bunch of people cancel their subscriptions and start sailing the high seas.
Or c) the money never makes it to the actual artists so why give the record label money they don't deserve
I stopped pirating when we got a Netflix sub for reasonably cheap.
I started pirating again when I realized we were subbed to six different platforms, paying over $1k a year for the content, and still couldn’t watch what we wanted sometimes. The fact that I had to jump through hoops to find the thing I wanted to watch was also quite infuriating.
This is it. I was sick of trying to figure out which streaming platform had the content I wanted. Now it’s all on Emby.
and D) I'm not going to give money to institutions like cable TV where a percentage of my money ends up with Fox News, or Paramount whose ownership is in bed with Trump, or Amazon and Bezos for obvious reasons. Go on down the line, fuck em all.
"You wouldn't steal a handbag. You wouldn't steal a car. You wouldn't steal a baby. You wouldn't shoot a policeman. And then steal his helmet. You wouldn't go to the toilet in his helmet. And then send it to the policeman's grieving widow. And then steal it again! Downloading films is stealing. If you do it, you will face the consequences."
Man, these anti-piracy ads are getting really mean.
I would like to be everyone too. Where can I get one of these super boxes?
Don't do it; they're a security nightmare: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/11/is-your-android-tv-streaming-box-part-of-a-botnet/
There are safer ways to acquire content to view.
What alternatives do you recommend?
News sites telling on everyone again. Snitches.
Everyone is stealing The Verge.
Why is TV so expensive in USA? People just taking on so many subs?
Have to pay 80 bucks a month to watch three channels for 10 hours a week. Feels bad man.
Sports mostly, I don't think you can get most popular sports streams under 50-60 a month