First Click: Popcorn Time is now more popular than popcorn

June 26th, 2015

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Well, it happened. Google searches for “popcorn” now routinely rank the Popcorn Time bittorrent streamer ahead of the succulent snack of superheated chemical corn consumed at movie houses since time immemorial. And in a head-to-head fight, “Popcorn Time” beats “popcorn” nearly two to one. Congratulations internet, you’ve killed Americana.

Torrenting movies and TV shows is nothing new, of course. But Popcorn Time adds a media player on top of a sequential downloader making it a "Netflix for pirates" that's incredibly easy to use regardless of platform — be it Windows, OS X, Linux, or Android. There’s even a nifty PC and Mac installer that bypasses Apple’s security features to install an iOS app without requiring a Jailbreak. The team behind the installer claims more than 1 million iOS installs, already. "It’s fucking breaking records," said a representative to VentureBeat, calling it "the most downloaded mobile app outside the Google and Apple stores."

google trend popcorn time NL

The dramatic rise of Popcorn Time has not gone unnoticed by Netflix. It was specifically mentioned in Netflix's January letter to investors. "Piracy continues to be one of our biggest competitors," said the letter. "This graph of Popcorn Time’s sharp rise relative to Netflix and HBO in the Netherlands, for example, is sobering."

A whine that pairs perfectly with popcorn, coincidentally.


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Popcorn of the day

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