This is the best summary I could come up with:
Torrent Freak’s annual look at piracy in 2023 saw the top 10 shows once again dominated by familiar faces from the world of streaming sci-fi, fantasy, and superhero material.
It’s a running trend for the last few years since the age of Game of Thrones’ climax—which dominated torrent sites for pretty much the entirety of its run, a legacy continued now by House of the Dragon, which took the crown in 2022—gave way to pirated streaming content.
It should be noted, as Torrent Freak does, these statistics only reflect a portion of any pirated content this year.
But even with that in mind, it’s not surprising that for the most part the biggest shows in demand are the ones that require premiums to access across multiple streaming platforms—even The Last of Us fits this, as both a hybrid show broadcast on premium cable and simulcast on (HBO) Max.
As the streaming age continues to descend into a portfolio of walled gardens, rather than its initial promise of offering access to content from a variety of studios in a singular place, it remains unsurprising that people will see piracy as an alternative to paying for another subscription-based service on top of what they already do to try out a show.
It’s not like the streamer didn’t have any big shows this year, either—it’s more likely that a lot more people have a Netflix subscription than they do an Apple TV+ or Disney+ subscription... and given the general trend across many streaming platforms this year has been increasing prices on cut or stagnated content, and, well, can you blame people for not wanting to buy in on top of what they already have?
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