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It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

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Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#71

Post by josteink »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #41
BurningCycles wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>why do I have to pay for 250 channels when I only watch 5 of them? Let me pay only for what I watch. But that is still the case. If I could only pay for the shows I watch, I would not complain. But if I watch one Netflix show, I can't just subscribe to that show, I must pay for a ton of stuff I'm not remotely interested in. You still have Netflix, Disney+ and all the cable channels you need to subscribe to if you wa…

> An actual 'A la carte' situation is that of the consumer being able to actually handpick the shows they want and only pay for those. This will never happen due to the industry being absolutely hostile to the idea... We've been able to do this with a substantial number of shows for years, though, by buying individual episodes or "season passes" on Amazon and iTunes. Maybe people just don't know, maybe people think t…

> This is what we all want price-wise, but would we really, truly want to turn Netflix into the equivalent of the iOS App Store for essentially all legal streaming movies and television?

You mean like the music industry has Spotify, Google Music, Deezer, Tidal, Apple Music and many many more, and everyone has a 99% full catalog?

You better motherfucking believe it.

This is the only thing people want in the ultra laggard video-streaming market.

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#72

Post by OJFord »

Lammy wrote: post #60
starky wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I got rid of Netflix because they often didn't have what I wanted to watch, and only have Amazon Prime Video because I don't pay any extra for it with my Prime subscriptions. Not to mention that not every streaming service is available in Canada. If I have to worry about where to find the show I want to watch or whether it is available in my country, then I may as well just go straight to a source that I know wi…

> because I don’t pay any extra for it with my Prime subscription. I see their advertising is effective. The price of Prime was even increased recently to help fund video production.

Advertising or not, you can't get Prime without VoD, so if GP likes the deal just for shipping, or for shipping and music, then fine.

Personally I have it mainly for shipping, and get good value out of that (especially since here it's next day by default, some items same day), and stream occasionally.

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#73

Post by feu »

ce4 wrote: post #53
parasubvert wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There... is an iTunes for movies. I mean, I own hundreds of iTunes movies, some of which I purchased 13 years ago. Microsoft, Google, and Sony all have equivalents.

You're not owning them. You own a license to watch on Apple's terms and as long as iTunes is around. Microsoft shut down the drm servers and killed their clients' ebooks in April: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20318852

Microsoft gave their customers a full refund, what's the problem?

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#74

Post by scarface74 »

ce4 wrote: post #53
parasubvert wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There... is an iTunes for movies. I mean, I own hundreds of iTunes movies, some of which I purchased 13 years ago. Microsoft, Google, and Sony all have equivalents.

You're not owning them. You own a license to watch on Apple's terms and as long as iTunes is around. Microsoft shut down the drm servers and killed their clients' ebooks in April: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20318852

That’s not strictly true. If the movie you purchased was from one of the five major studios that support Movies Anywhere, you can link your Amazon Prime, Google, iTunes, or Vudu account (along with others) and any movie purchased on one can be transferred to the other services.

https://moviesanywhere.com/welcome

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#75

Post by nabla9 »

Streaming wars are called wars because newcomers are willing to burn money for market share. Next few years Disney streaming operations are expected to make $5B loss every year. They are still profitable because they make money from everything else, including cable.

This is problem for Netflix. Competitors have other sources of revenue aside from streaming services, Netflix has just streaming.

Netflix hasn't had positive free cash flow since 2011. As their most popular series are leaving for competition and and the quality of original content is suffering because they are in panic mode to create more original content.

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#76

Post by Oletros »

xiphias2 wrote: post #28
prawn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially because torrenting was once slow and painful, so Netflix and co compared very favourably. Now, torrenting is fast and chances are you've watched almost anything worth watching on Netflix already. Paying for a few of them might appeal to people who've historically paid for cable (or Foxtel/etc in Australia), but it's a noticeable cost otherwise. We currently subscribe to Netflix and Stan, but have dropped S…

I happily pay for Netflix, but actually I travel a lot and don't always have Wifi, so I like to download the movies. My problem with Netflix is that its download function is very unstable, so actually I'm thinking of going back to torrenting just because there's no payed option for watching movies offline easily.

Here in Spain, HBO doesn't even have the option to download for offline watching.

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#77

Post by scarface74 »

londons_explore wrote: post #52
im3w1l wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The complaint about bundling has the implicit assumption that if you'd pay for only 5 out of those 250 it would be a lot cheaper, but that's not really true. Cost of providing those 245 channels is basically zero, so there are no savings they could pass on. Anyway with these streaming services, it's not so much that people want to pay for a bundle. It's more that micromanaging a lot of subscriptions is a chore. If th…

The days of online services having an API and interoperating are largely over in a post-Cambridge Analytica world. No company wants another potentially shady company getting between them and the customer and ruining their reputation or misusing their data.

Most of the streaming services (excluding Netflix) work with the Apple TV app. It is possible. Also on iOS/tvOS devices, you can sign in with your cable provider (or OTT provider) once and the apps that require a login all work with it.

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#78

Post by scarface74 »

gnicholas wrote: post #69
sujNansnam wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mistake you’re making is thinking there is a such a thing as “50 cents a month” of content. HBO was never going to sell you Game of Thrones for 50 cents. Netflix was never going to sell you House of Cards for 50 cents. They are selling you [your favorite show] for $10 and throwing in the rest of the catalog. Digital content has zero marginal cost. That means that a provider would rather sell you every show in the…

> Digital content has zero marginal cost. In Netflix’s case, I’m not sure this is true. I’ve heard that some of the content is paid based at least partly on usage.

That has never been true. Just take a look at all of their announced content deals.

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#79

Post by trollied »

nabla9 wrote: post #75

Streaming wars are called wars because newcomers are willing to burn money for market share. Next few years Disney streaming operations are expected to make $5B loss every year. They are still profitable because they make money from everything else, including cable. This is problem for Netflix. Competitors have other sources of revenue aside from streaming services, Netflix has just streaming. Netflix hasn't had posi…

> Competitors have other sources of revenue aside from streaming services, Netflix has just streaming.

Netflix have been doing cinema releases of their titles ahead of their streaming debut. Surely that's other revenue?

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#80

Post by altacc »

parasubvert wrote: post #42
BurningCycles wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>why do I have to pay for 250 channels when I only watch 5 of them? Let me pay only for what I watch. But that is still the case. If I could only pay for the shows I watch, I would not complain. But if I watch one Netflix show, I can't just subscribe to that show, I must pay for a ton of stuff I'm not remotely interested in. You still have Netflix, Disney+ and all the cable channels you need to subscribe to if you wa…

A la carte TV/Movies have existed for longer than Netflix has been streaming. Google Play, Apple TV, Sony PlayStation store and Microsoft Xbox store all sell seasons and/or episodes and/or full movies. And you can often rent movies for cheaper. Overall, consumers preferred the subscriptions. They’re a better deal if you watch more than 5-10 hours a month. Though there are some things you can only purchase a la carte.

There's also a big psychological difference between deciding just the once to start a subscription, and having to constantly decide if you want to pay to watch a particular series. Even if the prices worked out similar, I think people would be less likely to watch if they had to decide to spend 50c (or whatever) each time they watched an episode.
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