Popcorn Time, known for being an app that made streaming movies and TV shows almost as easy as using Netflix, has shut down. The tool was launched in 2014 and in a single year it became one of the most popular services of the sector.
Its appeal was that searched the .torrent files of the most popular movies, it located the highest quality version and played it in streaming, skipping the download process of the uTorrent pages. All this in a free application and with a very simple interface from the moment it was released.
A few hours ago your story has come to an end– The developers behind the app sent an email to journalists declaring their end. A farewell note posted by Popcorn Time, featuring an illustration of a bag of movie popcorn with X marks for the eyes and a “RIP” at the top of the page (exactly the cover photo for this story is taken from this official statement).
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Netflix feared Popcorn Time
In 2015, Netflix Inc. went so far as to warn investors about the rise of Popcorn Time In a financial report he did and CEO Reed Hastings stated, “Piracy remains one of our biggest competitors.” This platform was shown as a greater threat to the giant Netflix than its direct competitors such as Amazon.
The web always denied these industry accusations claiming that this platform did not host any stolen material. Still, the blockages to his platform were a constant.
BitTorrent has traditionally been characterized by offering a not very intuitive system for users with little computer knowledge or for those who simply want to see something without further complications. Y Popcorn Time was as simple as using Netflix.
An open source that opened the doors to many developers
The history of this platform is marked by its constant struggle in this streaming content market. In fact, the creators of Popcorn Time left the service shortly after its launch, and emails that followed a Sony Group Corp hack concluded that law enforcement may have played a role in this abandonment.
Anyway, she didn’t give up and came back open source. The open application code allowed other developers publish new versions. The software provided a link to computers around the world that were hosting content through the BitTorrent file-sharing system.
Popcorn Time thus became one of the greatest audiovisual revolutions of recent times, and at the same time one of the biggest headaches in the film industry. By having released your code every time the industry kills one of its versions another half a dozen appeared to take their place.
This platform was also on the Counterfeiting and Piracy Watch List of the European Commission.
Popcorn Time blamed the traditional Hollywood format for its success
Its revolution in the sector was always accompanied by criticism of the traditional content offering model. In 2015 the developers of the “popcorn service” sent a statement to the TorrentFreak website in which they stated that film and television studios “should compete” with its tool creating its own streaming utility in which to offer film and TV premieres on an international level”.
In their letter they also remarked that applications like his are responding to a consumer demand, because the Hollywood industry “fails in its transition to the modern era.” The letter said: “Maybe the time has come to consider the will of the viewers and offer them a fresh, complete and useful service, instead of trying to punish them ”.
This punishment they refer to is why someone in Europe, for example, should wait to see a movie that is already airing in the United States, when both clients are paying practically the same within a streaming content payment platform.
It is true that the industry seems to have been learning from these criticisms and trends in the sector. For example, the last big recent release, ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, arrived in Spain almost at the same time as the United States. Even if this is not always the case today.
Some will go and others will come
In the face of complaints from competitors like Netflix, Popcorn Time advocates have always said that “the world of torrenting was here with millions of users long before us and it will be here with billions of users long after us. “
Subdivx.com, one of the subtitles pages for best-known series and films that existed for Spanish speakers, announced its closure after almost two decades of history. The administrator of this website said: “the owners of the rights do not give up, and let’s face it, in the end they always win.”
Still, history has shown us that some pages of content go, but others end up appearing.