Australians Pay Up to 431% More For Online TV Shows

[Revolutionary]

This is pretty much why we are the international leaders of GoT piracy. Foxtel is a joke...except not even remotely funny.

 

[JayRPG]

Yeah, comparing Netflix ($7.99? per month for pretty close to unlimited content) vs. Foxtel ($110 per month for a limited set of channels + $15 if you want an even more limited set of those channels in HD + One off and rental costs for certain movies and TV shows) is completely nonsensical.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Damn, everything in Australia costs SO MUCH compared to the US.

Their Min wage is also higher.

 

[CrazyBlaze]

there is next to no point getting netflix once it officially arrives in Australia, due to licensing deals, etc the amount of content will be a hell of a lot lower than the US version, heck a Canadian friend of mine can get canadian netflix but still uses the american one for exactly that reason.

dont forget according to the head of roadshow the people who use a proxy and pay for netflix are as bad as terrorists and pedophiles.

so yes i can pay $30 for a single season of a tv show streaming or i can pay a third of that for the whole of netflix.. and people wonder why australians skip the bullshit middle man

The Netflix Canada has gotten a whole lot better over the past year, at least for shows. They are more readily avilable on Netlfix Canada than on Netlfix US. The one I would say is the worst is Netflix U.K. So little choice, though they do (or at least used to) have a lot of Pixar on there.

As the most extreme example, Australians using Foxtel Play pay 431% more than Americans using Netflix for that latest season of Orange is the New Black. Other absurdly high figures include Season 5 of The Walking Dead, in which the cheapest available price for Australians is $39.99 through iTunes, 376% more than UK NowTV customers pay to stream it.

Shouldn't that be Season 4 of the Walking Dead? Season 5 airs this fall, unless I'm unaware of some pre airing buying going on here.

 

[RA92]

It's not really that Australia pays more for all its digital goods; it's more that we're paying off our past crimes. Once we've paid off our debt to society, we're allowed to rejoin society, and pay reasonable prices.

http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Australian_7e5763_895980.jpg

 

[Tien Shen]

Lets see, Aussies get fleeced with insanely higher charges and sometimes they have to wait to watch it legally or can't even legally access it at all, and Foxtel and politicians wonder why they pirate so much? And their response it too try and push harsher penalties for piracy or even lean on ISPs to police their subs? Have they ever heard of treating the cause and not the symptoms?

 

[small]

i was just reading the choice report.. aparently they didnt take into account buying vs renting/streaming hence the huge difference

 

[Verlander]

Not heard of Foxtel. Looked it up. Newscorp? Ah. Murdoch. Sorry guys, hope some competition sees it's way through.

 

[bug_of_war]

It's not really that Australia pays more for all its digital goods; it's more that we're paying off our past crimes. Once we've paid off our debt to society, we're allowed to rejoin society, and pay reasonable prices.

Wait, WHAT? WHAT!?

OT:

And this is why I like the used games/dvd rental stores. Cheap and satisfying!

 

[Dascylus]

I have never understood this. I've heard Steam prices have a similar hike.
Is it the service providers or is Foxtel the australian Netflix and they are just being cunts?

I can understand a certain amount of localisation, different countries have different laws regarding sex and indecency... Germany has this crazy thing about not showing the swastika out of historical context (strange huh?).

I can understand that the shipping on physical items might end up being extortionate, I imagine customs checking each individual package to ensure no immigrants are hiding in the box-set of Breaking Bad.

Surely when you set a $10 price tag on a digital item and then sell it internationally then you just convert the $10 to the local currency and be done with it. But no, apparently that's not fuckish enough.

The aussies are a great lot, shame that a few cunts ruin it for the majority.

 

[Trunkage]

On the plus side, there are a number of VPNs people use, there just aren't that many people aware of it yet. I wonder if ISPs in Australia will do what NZ ISPs did and offer VPN services along with their plans.

There's also plans from Netflix to move in on the hungry Aussie market at some undefined date in 2015. Telstra and Foxtel will either change or die. It'll be good to not have greedy corporations holding us back.

Foxtel and the complete nutjob from Village Roadshow know about this. Foxtel has all rights and this is actually illegal way of getting your content under current conditions.

Turnball had an event with these two stakeholders, Choice and anyone who wanted last night. I hope it will start getting rid of this silliness

 

[Trunkage]

Damn, everything in Australia costs SO MUCH compared to the US.

Their Min wage is also higher.

Isn't Brazil's Min wage more than the US now? (kidding - due to the GFC, the income inequality is getting worse than the US.)

The reason why our min wage HAS to be higher is things cost more. At min wage, if you had your own small place, you'd be able to pay for rent and not much more. We offer traineeship at my work. If the person doesn't live at home, they literally can't afford the rate they are paid. That means they could be under the parents roof for another 4 years (depending on the length of the traineeship). When you get out, you don't earn much more. There is no disposable income when your on min wage here.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Damn, everything in Australia costs SO MUCH compared to the US.

Their Min wage is also higher.

Isn't Brazil's Min wage more than the US now? (kidding - due to the GFC, the income inequality is getting worse than the US.)

The reason why our min wage HAS to be higher is things cost more. At min wage, if you had your own small place, you'd be able to pay for rent and not much more. We offer traineeship at my work. If the person doesn't live at home, they literally can't afford the rate they are paid. That means they could be under the parents roof for another 4 years (depending on the length of the traineeship). When you get out, you don't earn much more. There is no disposable income when your on min wage here.

Chicken and the egg. Things may cost more because employers have to pay more.

 

[Haru17]

Damn, everything in Australia costs SO MUCH compared to the US.

Their Min wage is also higher.

Isn't Brazil's Min wage more than the US now? (kidding - due to the GFC, the income inequality is getting worse than the US.)

The reason why our min wage HAS to be higher is things cost more. At min wage, if you had your own small place, you'd be able to pay for rent and not much more. We offer traineeship at my work. If the person doesn't live at home, they literally can't afford the rate they are paid. That means they could be under the parents roof for another 4 years (depending on the length of the traineeship). When you get out, you don't earn much more. There is no disposable income when your on min wage here.

Chicken and the egg. Things may cost more because employers have to pay more.

I didn't say they had political problems, outside of all that censorship BS. Believe me, I'm fully aware how hard it is to find a developed country with more backwards policies than the US. Yep, America, land of opportunity and no compassion for others...

 

[CommanderL]

australia is so overpriced to buy books its cheaper to buy them overseas and ship them to australia then go to a local book store
and fuck rupert murdoch

 

[Strazdas]

Unfortunately for the content providers there is f**k all they can do about it , you cannot block them fast enough as soon as one VPN is blocked another will be set up.

wait... block VPNs.... how is that even legal? ISPs are not allowed to block any traffic i make. ANY traffic. Their job is to provide the service of traffic relaying. anything i do with said service is on me. If i do it for something illegal the blame falls on me, they however dont have a right to police what traffic goes though. The only exception are sites blocked by law enforcement (like child pornography). VPNs are not illegal, thus they cannot block them. Just like they cannot block P2P traffic. There are plenty of legitimate uses for both.

The content providers are very much aware of VPNs [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/09/heavy_vpn_users_are_probably_pirates_says_bbc/], and having ISPs offer them as a service to customers is almost the exact opposite of what they want to happen.

I find this hilariuos considering that VPNs are used exactly because they CANNOT trace what is being sent via VPNs so there is aboslutely no way to gauge the number of pirates among the users. VPN for example is good for hosting servers at home, as it hides your actual UP to anyone connecting as thus gives you a massive company layer of security against DDoS and the like.

I have never understood this. I've heard Steam prices have a similar hike.
Is it the service providers or is Foxtel the australian Netflix and they are just being cunts?

Its basically local providers like Foxtel and content OWNERS. That is, Netflix does nto set the rules, owners do. for example for The Walking Dead - AMC can allow or dissalow any episode anywhere for any price because they "own" the series. these "owners" abuse this right to the point where they are indeed stealing from humans as whole.

Chicken and the egg. Things may cost more because employers have to pay more.

Not how it works. To put it simply: If you pay your workers more and everyone else does too, then the workers have more disposable income, which means they are going to buy more of your products, which means you get to sell more and earn more income, which means you can afford to pay more. Paying more increase the volume, and thus increase your profit without needing to increase the price. that increase for profit could go to wage increasement, which means you have large sustainable revenue stream while maintaining profitability. then any increase in prices will be significantly more profitable due to large volume of items sold.

 

[bug_of_war]

And I have never seen a place here in Australia sell a used anything aside from charity places trying to sell unwanted donations and car dealerships for less then 10% what the price is new.

Please tell me what state you live in so I can remember to never move there and just be happy in little old SA.