Katarzyna Petru
It was meant to be simple: you pay one subscription and watch what you want. No ads, no waiting, no gymnastics with accesses. That was the promise that a decade ago drew the whole world into the streaming revolution. Meanwhile, in 2025, we wake up in a reality where this revolution has begun to resemble the junk renaissance of cable TV. More expensive, tighter, less convenient. So it's no surprise that digital piracy is making a comeback not as a whim, but as a defensive reaction from users.
A few years ago, it seemed that piracy would cease to interest even the most avid torrent users. Why sift through forums searching for links to the latest episode of “Breaking Bad” when Netflix offered the same in HD quality for a few dozen zlotys a month? Comfort killed the pirate romance. And suddenly… everything turned upside down.
The pirate flag is fluttering again
The data leaves no doubt. According to MUSO, a company monitoring the global trade in illegal content, in 2020 the number of visits to pirate sites dropped to a record low of about 130 billion. However, by 2024, the figure exploded to 216 billion. This is not an error in the statistics. It is a great comeback. Importantly, piracy itself has changed. No one is downloading folders like “WEbrip_RARBG_FINAL” anymore. In 2023, 96 percent of pirate consumption of films and series came from illegal streaming – mainly IPTV. Zero waiting, zero downloading, zero fuss.
In the USA, one in three users admits to piracy while simultaneously holding legal subscriptions. That says it all. In Europe, the average internet user visits pirate sites about 10 times a month. In Poland, “only” eight – but on a national scale, this translates to 129 million visits per month. Users want to watch. It’s just that legal platforms are beginning to kick them out the door.
How the industry killed the golden age of streaming
Streaming has become a victim of its own success. When Netflix proved that simple, cheap, and global access works, corporations smelt an opportunity. Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount – everyone wanted "their own Netflix." The problem was that users don't need five platforms. They need one. Convenient. As a result, a fragmented landscape emerged, in which:
You can only watch "Stranger Things" on Netflix,
"The Mandalorian" – only on Disney+,
"The Sopranos" – exclusively on Max,
and "Severance" – on Apple TV+.
Everything separate. Everything for a separate fee. A full set of subscriptions today costs more than the old cable service, which streaming was supposed to replace. Instead of order – chaos. Instead of convenience – jumping between apps. Instead of quality – mass production.
Prices, ads, restrictions. The coffin has many nails
The price rollercoaster has only worsened the situation.
67 zł for Netflix Premium has become the norm if you want to watch in 4K, instead of fighting with pixelated soup.
Services have begun to introduce ads, even in paid plans.
Lowering the bitrate has made pirate rips from Blu-ray look better than legal streams.
On top of that, there's the battle against "account sharing", a functionality that has been part of the unwritten agreement with users for years. Netflix was the first to act, Disney+ followed, and the rest are just waiting to do the same. When you are paying more and more for a worse product, the choice becomes obvious.
You own nothing – and you don’t know when it will disappear
In recent years, platforms have started to remove… their own productions.
Disney+ removed the series “Willow” a few months after its premiere.
HBO Max deleted “Westworld,” one of the icons of so-called peak TV.
These titles did not go to competitors. They simply ceased to exist in the legal market. Users pay for access that can vanish into thin air overnight. It’s no wonder that the movement of “data hoarders” is growing – people archiving content for fear that it will otherwise be lost forever. Ironically, piracy plays the role of… a cultural archive here.
Streaming Death Spiral
The streaming market has reached a point where the current model cannot sustain itself financially. Consolidations are accelerating:
Netflix is acquiring Warner Bros. and HBO,
Disney+ is merging with Hulu,
Paramount is seeking rescue,
telecoms are building “all-in-one” packages.
In short: we are going back to cable. Only this time it will be more expensive, more complicated, and less stable.
And no, this is not a manifesto for piracy. Ordinary users want to pay for content – the golden decade of streaming is proof of that. But when the legal path becomes a maze of fees, ads, and disappearing productions, it is natural that some viewers will start looking for a more convenient route. Not always legal. Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve, summarised it back in 2011:
“Piracy is almost always a result of a service problem, not a pricing problem.”
In 2025, this sounds more current than ever.
Source: NEXTgazeta
