How is it fine for pirates to pay for a VPN to not pay for a service?
I only use free VPN extensions or apps and I fully aware of the limitation of this. I use shabby ones, which don't protect and probably sell my data. It slow and I can't have only a few location. But I can't get around the idea that people can pay for a service to refuse to pay to a service. Please help me understand.
You're paying for your privacy. Also, a copy of a game or a movie is not a service.
should not be a service*
I mean, if you assume that the only reason people are pirates is because they refuse to pay anyone for a service then I could see why you would have trouble with this point. But that isn't why most people pirate. Most people pirate because they don't want to pay the extortionate prices that media companies demand for their IP. Spending some small yearly fee to avoid paying several much large fees looks like a pretty solid reason for paying for a VPN service.
I would add that the original understanding for cable tv and every service since was you pay a set fee and get some specialized content along with specialized content others would be interested in and the $$ is pooled to allow this. These companies keep subdividing services and subscriptions and thereby charging specifically for the specialized content. They broke our contract when they did this.
Along with the crazy prices, there is the simplicity. No need to figure out what is streaming where. Just open plex/jellyfin and watch.
VPN isn't specifically for pirating, personally I could even torrent without it, no one would give a crap; my situation aside, you can DDL without a VPN and you'd still be in the clear
You can ask the same thing at the internet level. Why are people paying for internet service when they could go to the public library and get free Wi-Fi.
Internet service VPNs are foundational networking. You need them to do anything else.
True pirates only get their Internet from the parking lot of a BK lounge, 😂.
Have it your way! Surely they can also use long John silvers...
How is the idea of paying $20 for 2 years so you can not pay for anything else confusing?
if i pay for a vpn and then just torrent the nights away that's a lot more bang for your buck than subscription to netflix or whatever
also, a copy of a game or a movie is not a service. as was said
A “free” VPN is worse than no VPN. They have to pay for the service somehow, and you’re not paying, so they are making money off you somehow.
I have a VPN that I pay less than 100 a year for. Here's some examples of what I use it for:
My VPN comes out to about $2/month (got a promotional offer). What other service, exactly, can I buy for 2 dollars?
For me it's more of a convenience issue. If there was a legit site with a subscription for a few bucks a month that had every TV show and movie on it that I could watch in high resolution without ads and other bullshit going on then I'd probably just do that. In fact I basically do that with music already with Spotify. Netflix looked like it might have been going that way back the day but then it all went sideways.
But yeah basically I just don't want to have to subscribe to like 8 different services or have to keep switching around to find the show I want so piracy & a couple of bucks a month for a VPN is the better service IMO.
Putting aside morality, from a money-in -> money-out perspective you'll pay much less for a VPN than you would buying your media legit, and it's much safer to have one enabled if you're using public swarms. You're not paying to pirate as much as you're paying to not be harassed by copyright trolls. If you can make it work with a free VPN, more power to you.
VPNs also have other non-piracy uses, so people might already have one purchased anyway - this is another use for it.
VPN usage isn't solely for pirating.
But, the use of one for pirating is just to keep the hassles down. It isn't necessary to pirate in general.
I pay $15/month for a seedbox because I prefer the overall experience compared to Netflix, etc. My parents have given me their login details for the services they subscribe to, and every so often, I check them out, but end up going back to my seedbox + Plex setup. Some of the reasons I prefer my piracy-based setup:
I often set up a queue/playlist of shows, not necessarily all from the same series. As far as I'm aware, the streaming services let you do that.
My shows never pause to ask me if I'm still watching.
I can access an unlimited library of content without switching apps.
Content won't become unavailable if I try to access it from a different country or totally disappear when a contract expires.
Some episodes of some shows have been edited/censored, or removed completely, from whatever streaming service hosts it, but those episodes are available in their original form via torrents.
I also use VPN all the time for privacy - if I wasn't pirating I'd still have it. I've also used it at times to access region locked content.
I personally only pirate things I feel are more "moral" to pirate, or if I don't have a choice - I never pirate any kind of indie content, for instance, but I do pirate movies and tv shows put out by large corporations. In undergrad I pirated almost all of my textbooks because the markups are unethical. I'm not against paying for things, I just want to boycott some specific companies, plus I'm often too broke to afford things or sometimes need a downloaded copy specifically for offline access. When I was working full time I did actually pirate fewer things - only things from the companies I boycott or things I can't access legally where I live - and I will return to that once I finish grad school.
Free VPN == you are the product.
I pay for a VPN and don't use it for piracy.
I pay for Usenet and I use it for piracy.
Money has never really been a consideration as to whether I pirate or not.
If you want to know why I pirate stuff you can thank Mediacom, after becoming nearly homicidal talking to their "tech support" line for 2 years (I was locked in a 2 year contract), I decided to never pay directly for media again.
12 years and counting
It's all about what you value, and supporting the things you love (or rely on, in a more utility sense). I'd value the speed, the lack of data collection that may be used against a user, the speed, the location options, and that same provider being in business for time to come. When I'd need a good VPN, nothing else will do. That seems worth the couple of USD per month to me, whether that VPN is for obscuring traffic I don't want others to know about (whether it'd be because of those facilitating the connection or the other end of the connection).
Nobody offers the service that I can offer myself. Not even close.
VPN's give people access to foreign nations without location blocking, where there is no way to get their content otherwise.
VPN's allow pirates to download torrented media, without advertisements, to be enjoyed offline, which streaming doesn't always do.
VPN's are useful in keeping the ISP's out of your business from snooping on all your websites that you visit, and all the traffic coming and going from your PC.
Ad Blocking is cyber security.
Anyone not using a paid VPN service is insane.
Hope that answers your question.
A VPN isn't a miracle cure-all. You are just transferring all your traffic from your local ISP to another. Usually the new one is by choice, so there is a lot more competition and thus more likely a better service provided.
Just for clearity, its not the VPN that's enables this. /Some/ VPNs allow for this, and you have to do your due diligence or else you could just be handing all your data straight into a honeypot. VPN providers are rife with paid shills and bad actors.
Not picking on you specifically, but I'd hate to see a fresh recruit find some rando VPN from a youtube ad and think they're in international waters when they're really standing on dry land.
I pay 90€ a year for a vpn with high speeds that I actually don't use that often.
However I can download games worth a thousand Euros (and don't play them) with that vpn.
However when torrenting I need a vpn since uploading is prosecuted in my country.
If you want to download illegal stuff you can do that here with direct Downloads. Your chances of being caught are so slim that most people don't need a vpn.
My most usage I have from the vpn is that I chan change ip addresses on the fly. Some Websites or Services don't work for Europe and then I use the vpn. Or some Services block usage for your IP then changing it without restarting the Router is useful.
I don't care about encryption, privacy and shit.