The biggest advantage of illegal video streaming service Popcorn Time is arguably that it’s easy to use. The app — which is so influential that VOD service Netflix considers it a serious competitor— employs the same BitTorrent protocols that have been used to pirate movies and TV shows for years, but wraps them in a sleek user interface, minimizing confusion and lending the enterprise an air of legitimacy. It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that Popcorn Time’s creator — an Argentinian designer and programmer named Federico Abad — built the software with his mother in mind.
In a fantastic interview with Abad by Norwegian paper Dagens Naeringsliv, the 29-year-old says he was frustrated by having to wait as long as six months to see new movies, and that the usual pirating experience was too messy — full of pop-ups and porn ads. Instead, he used his mother as a case study, designing a program that she would find easy to use. His guiding principle? Anyone should be able to start watching the movie they want in just two clicks.
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