Streaming services are winning the war on piracy

The fact Aussies are prepared to pay for multiple subscription video services, not just Netflix, is a big win in the fight against file-sharing.
The convenience of streaming video services like Netflix has convinced plenty of Australians to hand over $10-ish dollars per month to watch what they want on demand.

It looked like the foreign raider might blow home-grown competitors Presto and Stan (co-owned by Fairfax Media) out of the water, but the latest figures reveal that the streaming services are managing to co-exist. Netflix's explosive growth in Australia is easing off but you shouldn't read too much into that – "fastest growing" has always been marketing-speak for "smallest".

While it's encouraging that Presto and Stan are seeing growth, the fact they've got so few customers compared to Netflix means they don't need to find as many new customers to grow faster. Think of it this way; I could run Australia's fastest growing video service by signing up one customer today and a second customer next month. That's explosive 100 per cent month-on-monthly growth, but with two customers it's a joke to imply that I'm hurting Netflix.

Rather than playing sleight of hand with growth rates statistics, it's more interesting to look at how many people are prepared to pay for content at all. Everything on Netflix, Presto and Stan can be had for free elsewhere if you're happy to bend the rules.

Their success supports the argument that, even in Australia, the piracy problem is primarily an issue of pricing and availability – get the model right and people will happily hand over their cash.

Unfortunately no single service is likely to have every show you want to watch and that fragmentation means that playing by the rules starts to get expensive. If you're paying for Netflix, Presto and Stan then you're approaching the monthly cost of an entry-level Foxtel package.

In a piracy-prone country like Australia you'd think we'd have no qualms about paying for one streaming service – most likely Netflix – and then turning to the BitTorrent channel to pick up the few shows we want to watch from the other services.

What's really interesting is that the number of Australian homes which pay for more than one service is growing. It's risen from 1.5 services per household to 1.7 in the last 12 months, according to analyst firm Telsyte's Australian SVOD/OTT Video Market Study 2016 report.

This isn't just good news for Netflix's competitors, it's good news for the content industry in general that a growing number of people are prepared to pay for multiple services rather than use file-sharing to fill the gaps in their viewing schedule.

What's also interesting is that this growth doesn't seem to have come at the cost of Foxtel subscribers – Australians really are prepared to pay more for their content rather than just redistribute their existing entertainment budget...

Still , downloading remains available to an much larger collection of Tv shows , Are you prepared to pay for multiple streaming video services?