[stuxnet79]

It is estimated that all these pirate streams combined bring in more revenue than Netflix & other established media companies[1]. Margins are of course pretty incredible as capex and opex is effectively zero since the content is "free". Such a great business that it's attracted organized crime.

But on a technical level how can a federated "shadow Netflix" operate out in the open and pull in that kind of revenue without ringing all kinds of alarm bells. They need infrastructure and obviously storing/streaming copyrighted content is against the policy of virtually every cloud provider. I also doubt these guys are bootstrapping & setting up their own datacenters. I would love a speculative analysis on how all of this works that goes in the weeds.

[1] https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/iptv-market...

[jsnell]

That does not sound like credible estimate, and your link does not make any such claim.