Digital piracy surges as streaming costs spiral out of control
The article argues that digital piracy is surging again because streaming has drifted away from the simple value proposition that once made piracy feel unnecessary. It opens with the surprising revival of the iPod as a symbol of consumer frustration with modern subscription culture: content can vanish from catalogs due to disputes, politics, or geography, and recommendation systems are seen as steering users toward what benefits platforms rather than what users actually want.
It then draws a historical parallel to Napster and early file sharing, describing piracy as a recurring response to market failures when legal access becomes too expensive, fragmented, or inconvenient. The piece includes Israeli examples such as the piracy streaming site Sdarot, which grew to a large user base before being shut down after legal action, and Gozelan, which was blocked by ISPs after a court order. It presents the legal view that only rightsholders can authorize copying or public availability, with statutory damages that can be significant even before proving actual harm.
The article says Netflix initially reduced piracy by putting a huge amount of content in one place at a low price and by releasing seasons for binge viewing, but claims the streaming wars reversed that effect. With many competing services, exclusive catalogs, recurring price increases, and frequent content moves between platforms, consumers face a return to the old cable bundle problem in a new form.
It cites MUSO monitoring data to argue the scale is now enormous, pointing to hundreds of billions of visits to piracy sites and describing the current wave as powered by modern apps that mimic the look and feel of legitimate services, making piracy easier and more convenient than classic downloading. It highlights Stremio as an example of a user experience that resembles mainstream streaming while offering everything in one place.
Finally, it ties the resurgence to the broader idea of platform decline in quality over time, using Cory Doctorow’s concept of enshittification to describe how services start user friendly, then optimize for profit and lock in users, which in turn fuels a new backlash and renewed piracy.
