Before Netflix was a service available around the world, people in countries that didn't have it had other illegal ways of streaming movies. One of them is Popcorn Time. Or it was, since it turns out that the service has been closed.
Visiting the Popcorn Time site now displays a graph representing the number of times people have searched for the service. Its peak was clearly in the window of 2015 and 2016, after which the drop was pronounced. Interest in the service continued to slowly decline further.
According to Bloomberg, the people behind Popcorn Time sent an email to announce its closure. But it is not the first time that it happens. Its creators abandoned the service after its introduction. Since it was open source, other people came in and continued to keep it alive and release new versions. And it is likely that, after this closure, it will return in one form or another in the future.
In that sense, this time the cause behind the closure of Popcorn Time is not mentioned. You may have a legal relationship, as was the case in 2015, based on emails that emerged after the massive Sony hack at that time.
It may also have something to do with the way Popcorn time works in the first place, which is peer-to-peer exchange via BitTorrent technology. Since alternatives streamed from servers cost ten cents a dozen these days, they are likely to be better received, even if the more popular ones have a massive legal target in them.
(Fountain: Popcorn time, Bloomberg)
