We asked, you told us: Most of you are pirates sailing the high seas in 2022

Digital piracy has been around for about as long as the internet has been a thing, being a super-easy way to obtain unauthorized copies of music, movies, TV shows, and games.

Our own C Scott Brown recently wrote an opinion piece, outlining why digital piracy might be here to stay in the modern age. He also posted a poll asking whether Android Authority readers pirated any content this year. Here’s how you voted in that survey.

Have you pirated any content in 2022?

Results

Are you really surprised to see this result? Out of over 1,400 votes, 83.69% of polled readers said that they had indeed pirated content in 2022.

At least one reader noted in the comments that while they do pay for a few streaming services that provide the most value, they’d rather pirate content that isn’t available via these platforms. This is an understandable stance, as there are loads of streaming services right now and paying for all of them isn’t financially feasible for many people.

More reading: The best video streaming services worth your time and money

Another reader felt that taking the legal route sometimes delivers an inferior experience, such as streaming issues and an inconsistent user interface. But hopefully Plex’s solution as a one-stop hub for streaming services helps in this regard.

Only 8.7% of respondents said they didn’t pirate content in 2022, while 7.6% said they didn’t know. Either way, it’s clear that piracy is definitely the norm among polled readers.

Comments

• DisqusSuqs: The Gabe Newell thing is where I’m at. While there will always be pirates (people pirate legally free content), there are millions willing to pay. It’s the fact that piracy often offers not just the same for free but an actively superior experience compared to paid. The legitimate customer willing to pay for 5 services still has to juggle numerous interfaces, tracking what shows have new episodes and where, on which app new content is released, which app has whatever title available they think of wanting to watch, inconsistency in basic app features, if they live in a country the content has been released, etc.
• Nerdelbaum Frink: I pay for Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon prime. Anything else that I want to watch that isn’t on those gets pirated, and I only have prime because of prime shipping, so once that outweighs its benefits (which is likely now or one price hike away), it’s getting dropped as well. I have zero ethical qualms with pirating things due to the greed of shareholders. Sports particularly. I will never pay for a streaming service just for sports simply because sports organizations (looking at you NFL) clearly have no desire to put out a quality product.
• Techngro: Piracy was always here to stay because there have always been (and will always be) people who don’t want to pay for things.
• curse: When it comes to all new streaming services? Well, they are chopping off the branch they are sitting on. Most of them would be better off by making an agreement with one of the 3-4 bigger services and have their shows there. I have no problems paying for a few services. 2-3 for video, one for music and so. But I won’t pay for 5-6 different video streaming services.
  Imagine if the top 10 songs were spread between Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, YouTube music and TIDAL. With only 2 songs each, and that you had to have a paid subscription to all 5 to listen to top 10. Well, that’s how video streaming is today.
  No wonder piracy is going up.