The Exigent Duality
Sigh - 12:51 CST, 7/11/19 (Sniper)
Hah, what a joke.

I'm not even remotely "ashamed" to admit that I've been watching every single Lazio game for over a decade via "illegal" feeds-- in Minnesota, there is quite literally no other way for me to watch the games! Cut off those feeds, and Lazio can kiss goodbye to any more merchandise purchases, or plugs I give for the team via this blog and elsewhere. As for Europe, I've heard first hand from people-- and it's even discussed in this article-- that the "official" ways of watching the games are exorbitantly priced, to the point where it makes absolutely no sense to buy via those channels, than to subscribe to the "unofficial" sites.

There is precedent in other industries for this: for example, studies in the music industry found that "pirating" of music digitally actually increased album sales-- once people got a taste of the music, they wanted the higher quality version, and to support the bands. Ditto with software. In the case of football, how many people have gone on to pour thousands and thousands of dollars into foreign economies, because they went there to see their favorite team in person-- a team they only became fans of because "illegal" feeds brought that team into their lives?

Whenever I see "problems" like this-- graffiti, welfare fraud, software "piracy"-- I can always trace it back to root causes; central bank-oppressed people need an outlet for self-expression, the "welfare trap" cliff, or the absurd pricing of software, particularly in emerging markets. If Serie A is supposedly "losing" all of these millions of Euro on "piracy", then why don't they take some of that, throw up an internationally-available web site with streams of all the games, and charge a reasonable price? I'd subscribe in a heartbeat! The problem would go away, and they'd be making money off of it too.