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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

#231

Post by shmerl »

scarface74 wrote: post #230
scarface74 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial video for the most part has always been copy protected even in the analog days with Macrovision. From a historical reason, the only reason we have DRM free music sells is because of Apple. In 2008, the music industry was trying to pressure Apple into licensing its DRM scheme so that competitors could sell music compatible with iPods. Steve Jobs countered saying that if the music industry would sell all of…

We are talking about buying DRM-free digital films. Who sells them now at scale? I doubt you can draw pricing parallels with sales of physical legacy media (optical disks). Why do you think that making them DRM free would cost less? Today the cost of digital movies is between $9.99 and $14.99 and the cost of a season of Everybody Hates Chris is $20 on iTunes.

Digital product should cost less than physical, since there is no expense of printing physical disks. But if it already costs so for DRMed digital, then sure, price won't likely be less.

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

#232

Post by [deleted] »

scarface74 wrote: post #221
shmerl wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much would that cost to buy? Price usually depends on many factors of the market. But if it's not available at all, it doesn't matter how much you would be willing to pay - you can't buy it, period. > All purchased digital music has been DRM free for a decade. So if music can be sold DRM-free in parallel to renting services, what problem is there with video that prevents it?

Commercial video for the most part has always been copy protected even in the analog days with Macrovision. From a historical reason, the only reason we have DRM free music sells is because of Apple. In 2008, the music industry was trying to pressure Apple into licensing its DRM scheme so that competitors could sell music compatible with iPods. Steve Jobs countered saying that if the music industry would sell all of…

[deleted]

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

#233

Post by lgregg »

virusduck wrote: post #228
lgregg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We want an on-demand nexus. A single hub. That is close to existing, it'd be nice if the top players agreed to open their APIs so you could integrate it into a unified TV external like Chromecast or Firestick. Or, to go further, a unified platform that can process subscriptions and PPV across each library. > $100/month for a dozen streaming "channels" with one or two good shows and a the same crap the rest of the o…

$12/mo on modem rental??!! A cable modem only costs like $30--I can't believe that's what they're charging for rental.

It is a gateway rather than just a normal modem. I understand the charge. Their default router is a Cisco DPC3939 with the voice option which already retails at a high price. They buy it in bulk, but it's still likely in the upper double-digit range on a year-long contract. They probably don't make an actual profit until you're 75% through your initial contract then it's just cash.

Overall, I think a lot of people go far as to look at the prices then balk and back out or just don't even want to deal with it. Comcast also have a strict list of modems and gateways they will approve to use their network.

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

#234

Post by yebyen »

rgbrenner wrote: post #131
yebyen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're talking about HBO Go, I don't know how you gauge success, but if it's subscriber numbers I would take that with a grain of salt. I am a Comcast subscriber, and like many Comcast subscribers I'm sure, I have one of their boxes in my house, with the most basic Cable TV package, because if I don't take it my cost goes up (I mean the overall price of the monthly billed amount from Comcast/Xfinity). We get crapp…

HBO had $8.6B [0] in revenue last year.. For comparison, Netflix had $11.7. HBO is clearly succeeding.. 0. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/hbo-had-its-largest-subscr...

Yes, but how much of that can you attribute to direct internet sales?

> HBO’s direct-to-consumer subscriptions, which include HBO Now sign-ups through internet-based distributors like Amazon and DirecTV Now, have topped five million in the U.S.

> 5,000,000 * 12mo * $15

> $900,000,000

I'm sure not saying that is a sign they are not successful, but unless I'm missing something, $7.5B of those revenue are probably not related to their direct-to-customer subscriptions or internet streaming products. (I'm not sure what kind of gatekeeping I am engaging in here, but it would be interesting to know what HBO's actual sales numbers are wrt every particular mode of distribution channel.)

Yeah they're getting something from every Comcast subscriber that ostensibly pays $10 for the cheapest TV package or better that bundles HBO, I just know that I'm not using my cable TV service at all, or HBO Go enough to warrant paying ${netflix_subscription} many dollars direct to them and I'd probably cancel it today, if it wouldn't ultimately end up costing me something for the trouble in the long run.

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

#235

Post by yebyen »

vincentmarle wrote: post #43
yebyen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're talking about HBO Go, I don't know how you gauge success, but if it's subscriber numbers I would take that with a grain of salt. I am a Comcast subscriber, and like many Comcast subscribers I'm sure, I have one of their boxes in my house, with the most basic Cable TV package, because if I don't take it my cost goes up (I mean the overall price of the monthly billed amount from Comcast/Xfinity). We get crapp…

HBO Go is what you get when you subscribe to HBO through your cable service, HBO Now is a direct subscription to HBO.

Thank you. That was clear-as-mud every time I wondered what the difference was before.

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

#236

Post by r00fus »

wvenable wrote: post #188
makecheck wrote: post #61

Companies focus on buying content while ignoring the quality of the broadcast experience. I am tired of competitors that skimp on this. Netflix doesn’t shove ads in your face, works on every platform and almost never has mysterious transmission failures. And now they have excellent content too. They have figured out so much more than some of the last-century providers.

Amazon prime shows ads for other prime shows occasionally and it just pisses me off. I'm seeing less of them, so maybe they got the message. Prime is also very much a superficial copy of the Netflix interface.

Prime Video is just a teaser for Amazon Video. I can't let my kids use it because they'll either buy or complain about not being able to buy the non-free stuff.

It's a mess for that reason alone.

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

#237

Post by Crespyl »

CuriousCosmic wrote: post #165
macspoofing wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't know how to break this to you but as long as there are more than one country there's going to be one that will not hunt down the privateers of the other. Ok. Piracy will be made harder and harder, to the point where it will be inaccessible to mainstream. This also means that the tech savvy pirates will be more exposed. >If studios weren't greedy and produced objectively garbage content I would buy a product…

I'd like to hear how you think piracy will be made more difficult. I'm not trying to be antagonistic, I am just curious as I have only seen the piracy community grow in recent years.

It's not so much that the act of fetching and viewing pirated content will become more difficult, it's that rightsholders will continue to apply more and more restrictive techniques and outright deny content to paying customers.

See the new DRM features in Windows 10 and the way the Windows Store version of Netflix interacts with perfectly legitimate screenshot tools, or the way Netflix simply refuses to provide 4k content to any other platform.

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

#238

Post by r00fus »

sureaboutthis wrote: post #30

It's interesting it took ATT and Disney this long to figure out that this is a thing.

They were hoping Netflix would die or be acquired and lose it's edge.

It's possible they did know but couldn't replicate what Netflix has done with any reliability or profitability. Innovators dilemma.

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

#239

Post by rayiner »

scrumption wrote: post #187
adventured wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are paying customers sitting through 5 minutes of FBI warnings in front of DVDs because some other people pirate? It's not your product to design, in this case you don't get to decide how it's presented. You also don't get to decide the design of iOS, or how Apple designs its next processor, or what color Stack Overflow's logo is, or the design of Wikipedia, or what resolutions YouTube offers, or what algorithm…

Just like you don't get to decide if I download it for free or not, lol. But for your information, I can and do run userscripts, custom ROMs, jailbroken firmware etc to change the exact sort of thing you spent the second half of your post talking about. You sound like you have a very boring consumerist relationship to technology and the opposite of a hacker ethos.

"Hacker ethos" is using other peoples' work for free?

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

#240

Post by scarface74 »

shmerl wrote: post #231
scarface74 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about buying DRM-free digital films. Who sells them now at scale? I doubt you can draw pricing parallels with sales of physical legacy media (optical disks). Why do you think that making them DRM free would cost less? Today the cost of digital movies is between $9.99 and $14.99 and the cost of a season of Everybody Hates Chris is $20 on iTunes.

Digital product should cost less than physical, since there is no expense of printing physical disks. But if it already costs so for DRMed digital, then sure, price won't likely be less.

Digital product should cost less than physical, since there is no expense of printing physical disks. But if it already costs so for DRMed digital, then sure, price won't likely be less.

The cost of manufacturing a disc is less than a buck in volume (http://www.dvdreplication.com/blu-raydiscmanufacturing.htm). The cost of a movie is in mostly in creating the content.

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