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Netflix Is Why AT&T bought Time Warner, and Comcast and Disney want Fox

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Re: Netflix Is Why AT&T bought Time Warner, and Comcast and Disney want Fox

#81
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does any of this change the OP's point about fragmentation of the market? It does nothing to benefit the consumer, the competition is not lowering prices, so why would consumers not go back to piracy when it results in a superior product?

Some of us have this bizarre wish to support the companies and people who produce things we enjoy even if they sometimes make it difficult.

I pay for things I could steal as well, because I like to support those companies. However what we have here is an entire industry working towards setting up their offerings as a worse product than free. Not just more expensive than free, but an objectively worse product, and they've acommplished this in part by eroding consumer rights.

You might expect some people to take an extremely principled stance but it would be unreasonable to expect the majority of society to do so when the companies themselves are operating as unprincipled entities.

Re: Netflix Is Why AT&T bought Time Warner, and Comcast and Disney want Fox

#82
post #5

If those company think it’s about content libraries they’re going to lose. All those companies think: we own a lot of media, we can just build a streaming media platform. And I think they’re way underestimating how hard it is to build the technology stack and processes that Netflix has. Netflix has an engineering team and a development and deployment process that has some production studios attached to it. Disney can…

While Netflix does have great technology and a lot of expertise in this area, Disney now effectively owns BAMtech (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAMTech), once known as MLB Advanced Media. That's the organization that built the streaming platform for Major League Baseball and supports many other sports leagues' and content providers' streaming efforts. They're actually pretty good at streaming.

Re: Netflix Is Why AT&T bought Time Warner, and Comcast and Disney want Fox

#83

These companies are obsessed with fragmenting the market for the sake of owning content from production to delivery. I have bad news for them: you're going to lose. People don't want to go back to paying $100/month for a dozen streaming "channels" with one or two good shows and a the same crap the rest of the other "channels" have. We want an on-demand nexus. A single hub. Just the other day I had the urge to watch g…

"We want an on-demand nexus." up until a point ... HBO has been all about the entire pipeline from its inception because it feels (and has proven) that its content alone is good enough for it to be purchased a la carte. Netflix and all others see this and say ... theres a business model here. Fastforward 20 years, creating good content is cheaper. There are more film grad students to make the supply cheaper. Add to t…

Apple has been trying to do the on-demand nexus on their platform for a while, but a lot of services don't want to play ball. Notably Netflix and Hulu. Which doesn't make sense to me since you'd be paying for whatever services anyways, just using the Apple branded app to view it through w/o their shitty interface (Netflix and Hulu interfaces really blow).

Re: Netflix Is Why AT&T bought Time Warner, and Comcast and Disney want Fox

#84
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does any of this change the OP's point about fragmentation of the market? It does nothing to benefit the consumer, the competition is not lowering prices, so why would consumers not go back to piracy when it results in a superior product?

because we are not cheap and are ok with paying for a service. How cheap should it be. There will be no service that people will pay for if they pirate content. The service they want is a service where they dont have to pay. If you are pirating you are not a customer. Any business man should not be concerned with trying to gain your market, its not profitable.

Steam, iTunes, and Spotify have almost completely killed off pirating for games and music. It's still possible but people would rather pay for those services because the services actually add a value over the actual data which is post scarcity.

TV and the film industry have decided they'll make more money by making a worse product and doing everything they can to prevent users from finding alternatives

Re: Netflix Is Why AT&T bought Time Warner, and Comcast and Disney want Fox

#85
post #23
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney does realtime streaming already. What does Netflix have that they would have problems to “copy”? Edit: the question was obviously in the context of the parent comment talking about “the technology stack and processes“. Regarding the market share advantage, it’s debatable if each user is worth over $1000.

Marketshare? People are happy to pay a single Netflix subscription, and many people already have one. People would be less happy to shell out for yet another subscription, especially for a single kind of content (unless you watch Disney all day, it doesn't make sense to subscribe).

It's highly likely (see what happened with Disney removing content from Netflix) that, as consolidation continues, other major studios will also remove their content from Netflix. Once that happens, Netflix may find it harder to keep people happy to pay their monthly subscription (which is why Ted Sarandos recently stated that 85% of Netflix content spending is going to be on originals https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/netflix-original-spend...)

Re: Netflix Is Why AT&T bought Time Warner, and Comcast and Disney want Fox

#86
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The down voting you’re getting is emblematic of the entitlement mentality among tech folks when it comes to content. There is no right to consume entertainment someone else produced for free. If you don’t like the terms on which they’re selling the fruits of their labor, don’t buy it.

Completely playing devil's advocate here, but why should the companies feel entitled to money? If someone is going to go out of their way to pirate something, they're not spending money on it any anyway. So the company is spending their own money and time coming up with ways to prevent people from accessing their content which the other person wouldn't have paid for in the first place, then using that to show how muc…

>Completely playing devil's advocate here, but why should the companies feel entitled to money? If someone is going to go out of their way to pirate something, they're not spending money on it any anyway.

Entitled to money for services rendered is differnet than just being entitled to money. They don't think they deserve your money if you don't want to pay. They just don't think you should also get the product.

I seriously doubt the people spending time pirating and watching media would just suddenly take up reading books from the library or maybe sewing. They'd probably spend some money on media.

Not every pirated media is a lost sale. But some of them are.

I know when I sailed the high seas I just ended up forking down money for stuff I couldn't successfully pirate (multiplayer games and movies in theatres).

Re: Netflix Is Why AT&T bought Time Warner, and Comcast and Disney want Fox

#87
post #60
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or streamed it from Google Play for $2

How does any of this change the OP's point about fragmentation of the market? It does nothing to benefit the consumer, the competition is not lowering prices, so why would consumers not go back to piracy when it results in a superior product?

The larger point is that if you're willing to pay a la carte for individual shows/films (rather than a subscription service), basically all content is acceptable from a lot of providers.

Re: Netflix Is Why AT&T bought Time Warner, and Comcast and Disney want Fox

#88
post #76

These companies are obsessed with fragmenting the market for the sake of owning content from production to delivery. I have bad news for them: you're going to lose. People don't want to go back to paying $100/month for a dozen streaming "channels" with one or two good shows and a the same crap the rest of the other "channels" have. We want an on-demand nexus. A single hub. Just the other day I had the urge to watch g…

Agreed. TV for me is a nicety, I enjoy it from time to time. I'm already a bit putoff from having both Netflix and Hulu, forgetting which show is on which, two apps, etc. I have a feeling we're heading towards each player making their own ecosystem, apps, monthly charges. If/when that happens, I'll either not watch TV at all, or use the 'free' options widely available. I want to give them money, but not if it makes m…

>forgetting which show is on which

On my Android TV device (Mi Box $60 at WalMart) if I search a show it aggregates results from all my apps so it doesn't even matter which app it's on I just click from the results and it opens what I want.

Disclaimer: Not affiliated with anything I just mentioned just a happy customer.

Re: Netflix Is Why AT&T bought Time Warner, and Comcast and Disney want Fox

#89

These companies are obsessed with fragmenting the market for the sake of owning content from production to delivery. I have bad news for them: you're going to lose. People don't want to go back to paying $100/month for a dozen streaming "channels" with one or two good shows and a the same crap the rest of the other "channels" have. We want an on-demand nexus. A single hub. Just the other day I had the urge to watch g…

Well the ATT and other behemoths are set for a massive failure. Their core business has been navigating regulatory mazes while trying to seek near monopoly and push expensive and crappy subscriptions down the throats of old and gullible people. With each passing Year Netflix and Hulu are adding more and more original content which is becoming part of pop-culture. Within 5 years most of the cool things we want to watc…

Hulu is owned by Fox, Comcast, Warner and Disney.

Re: Netflix Is Why AT&T bought Time Warner, and Comcast and Disney want Fox

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Little has changed except the content delivery mechanism and availability of content on demand. What? You don't need to pay $100 for cable anymore, how is it that nothing has changed? Anyway, I think arguing with you is pointless, pirates will always find a way to justify their behavior.

Right, now you spend for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, HBO, Showtime, Stars, CBS, and soon Disney. Plus Crunchyroll if you like anime, plus a sports package for sports. If this keeps going $100 will seem like a bargain, and piracy will surge. I also think it’s rude and out of line to tell someone that arguing with them is pointless. Do the mature thing and just stop responding, or the even more useful thing and actually try…

>Right, now you spend for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, HBO, Showtime, Stars, CBS, and soon Disney. Plus Crunchyroll if you like anime, plus a sports package for sports.

And why are you subscribed to every single streaming platform? Do you actually need to watch every single show you might possibly like?

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