I think people would stop pirating things if they had enough money to legitimately buy them.

I just read a short while ago that Disney+ plans on actually enforcing its prohibition of sharing a password with someone else in the near future. This disclosure then led to a way in which you could still get away with sharing a password, and that was to bring your device over to the original WiFi that houses the account, stream something for a few seconds, and then you should be good to go for another 30 days as the device gets registered with the service. And then people started weighing in about torrenting and pirating, and how people will just go back to doing that so that they can just watch the things they like for free.

This got me thinking about pirating music, movies, television, comic books...and you name it. The first service I remember that allowed people to pirate things easily was Napster. I remember using it for the first time and thinking... "wow, I get all of these things for free?" Eh... it was all stolen, yes. But you didn't feel like you were stealing because you had the anonymity of the internet, so it's not like you walked into Sam Goody or Musicland and just walked out with a CD. But...essentially...it was really kinda like that.

I have a friend who still pirates, but he also struggles to pay his bills, and he doesn't have health insurance from his employer. He's the same age as me. I haven't pirated anything in decades. I basically pay for everything, but here's the thing: I had the money to pay for everything. That simple truth gave me an idea that I want to share. I think that the rise of pirating decades ago should have woken people up to the fact that people weren't making enough money, i.e., that wages were too low. It should have been "the smoking gun." There's lots of talk about this now in 2024. But there wasn't talk about this in the late 90's, and there should have been. All those years ago, people were struggling. That's why they were pirating things by and large. These people wanted better lives, access to things that brought them joy (like music), access to television shows and movies that they couldn't afford to see. I remember reading somewhere that the guy who created Napster did it so that he could have access to music that he didn't have the money to pay for. I don't think you can spell it out any better than that.

In 2024, I see article after article and news report after news report about how the American Dream is dead. The new generation of people are depressed because home ownership isn't realistic and costs are too high. Wages haven't kept up with prices, and on and on and on. The truth of all of this is that it isn't a 2024 phenomenon. For a really long time, many people haven't been making enough money to get by, and I think that the clearest indicator of this is in the rise of pirating videos, songs, books, and other such things. People actually would pay for those things if they could. I don't know why economists never looked at pirating and said, "You know...what we have here is not a theft problem. It's a wage problem. I bet pirating would go way down if people just got paid a living wage." But all you ever heard was "piracy is bad" and "you're stealing from artists" and other such things. What if instead of "piracy is illegal" running ahead of a video you're about to watch you (instead) got a message like "Not paying a living wage to your employees creates crime"? How do you think that would have reframed the discussion around piracy?

I feel like the United States solves things by reacting to them. If there's a fire you pour water on it to put out the fire. If you are overweight then you take a semiglutide or you go on a diet. Our system never looks at the causes of things. Oh there's a fire? Anyone see if there's an electrical problem that needs fixing? Oh we have an obesity problem? Anyone look to see if people actually have access to low calorie nutritious food and access to exercise? Oh there's a piracy problem? Anyone want to look and see if people are not making enough money at their jobs? Oh there's a fascist candidate running for president? Anyone want to look and see if the people who support him might also be authoritarian and fascist? It's like we are stuck in this never ending cycle of "treat the symptom" but don't "treat the disease." I'm not sure why we do this. Anyway, thanks for stopping by. If you have any comments to add, please do so.

I'm skipping Monday, but I'll be back on Wednesday with an IWSG post. See you then.