At first this article reads like your typical anti-piracy screed. It rants about how 10x more people watched GoT illegally (confusing them with lost sales) and ends with how downloading movies can get your credit card stolen.
The middle of the article however, destroys the author’s case.
Time Warner (owning company of HBO) CEO Alan Bewkes stated in 2013 how becoming the most illegally streamed show in history was “better than an Emmy” and that torrenting ultimately led to more paid subscriptions.
“We’ve been dealing with this for 20, 30 years—people sharing subs, running wires down the backs of apartment buildings. Our experience is that it leads to more paying subs. I think you’re right that Game of Thrones is the most pirated show in the world and that’s better than an Emmy.”
The CEO of Time Warner, who knows more about the finances of his own show than ForeverGeek writer Tom Llewellyn, championed piracy and said that it brought them more subscribers rather than nearly destroying the show as the article claims.
Needless to say, Tom forwent a rebuttal in favor of writing how you can get malware from downloading it…
Anti-Piracy Propaganda: 0 Truth: 1
TIL 2.2bn in profit is basically poverty profit, not even worth doing it … and all because of them evil pirates who would have totally payed for Netflix if they couldn’t pirate it.
However, I really loved all the memes and r/freefolk, great stuff that got exponentially better with each season.
Hell, freefolk got best when the show really started shitting the bed.
Went from funny to straight up brutally hilarious.
the bitching was better than the ending, by a large margin.
Sure. Just ask Bobby B!
(RIP BOBBY B)
GODS I WAS STRONG THEN
Tell ‘em about Bessie’s tits, your magnificence!
God, I missed this.
The cup. That was a whole thing that I completely forgot about lol
That’s exactly right!
I wasn’t invested in the show (it’s just not my cup of soap fantasy) but I was really happy how the last two seasons turned out, my life was better for it (I was sorry for the fans but I was way too busy laughing - refreshing freefolk right after the episode aired was so much fun).