*fewer

Where actual piracy sites have less regional restrictions than official stores.

The fact that piracy websites are more straight forward and more user-friendly.. Tells a lot about the shit services out there.

I use a site that has 0 ads, has basically everything I can think of, and has a better UI than every streaming service. There are some minor issues, such as episodes being out of place and some content servers being unreliable. It's no replacement for a home media server, but I'd gladly suffer 3 minutes of troubleshooting if it meant avoiding even 5 seconds of ads

PeerTube FTW

and I allow it because they are doing god's work

there also mroe than a handful of them, as opposed to YT.

This is so so true.

youtube != just movies/tv shows

if it was we'd all probably be happier

YouTube free you mean.

YouTube premium is still one of the few paid sites that are ad free.

Turns out lack of regulation is a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, the quality of pirate sites varies wildly - with some being virus infested hellholes.

On the other hand, there's no legal bullshit to get in the way of them providing their service. Their competition can't easily just cut them off from content.

And because they're operating privately rather than publically, they're incentivised to operate sustainably rather than chase quarterly profits - which oftentimes benefits their "customers"