101–110 of 187 posts
The same way you usually never paid for single networks when you bought cable stuff but just bought a bundle with a whole bunch of them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think we have, I think the problem has gotten worse. Let me try to make an example. Let's say there's one popular streaming platform, that is $5/mo. They mostly just aggregate and license content. Later on, content owners want to skip the middleman so they start making their own streaming services. So now you have 3 streaming services, which are each $5/mo. So you are now paying 3x as much. But you don't watc…
I think people preferred Netflix being the only game in town simply because then if it wasn’t on Netflix you could mostly discard it, not that there wasn’t great content not on Netflix. It’s the tomato sauce choice fallacy - many people will be quite happy just having one, as compared to having 50 because then you can’t be happy with your choice because you’ll be wondering about the other ones. In the end - just pick…
I strongly disagree with this.
Netflix previously had much more diverse content. It's currently (as of the last few years) banking on that their own content will substitute the licensed content disappearing on their platform. That The Witcher will satiate your Game of Thrones itch, that "superhero show #1" will be good enough over whatever Disney/Marvel puts on Disney+.
This might work for a few people, but I believe/hope it won't work for most. Chatting about the latest episode of Twin Peaks or the new Nolan movie by the water cooler doesn't work with a pale substitute.
The entire premise of the linked article is based on that cable packages survived and thrived as more players entered the market, and so should streaming services. What it ignores is that "alternative sources"/piracy didn't exist at the time, and does now. People will pay for as many services as they're comfortable with and with as much hassle as they can handle switching apps, and no more.
They should take a hint from music streaming platforms, and let the services compete, and spread the content over all of them, otherwise they will face the reality that people will pirate their service while paying for others.
Sorry for the long rant
Signed
/ Multiple service subscriber
It is not a zero sum game, because when there are enough of them I can't be assed anymore and I will simply torrent the content instead. The same way you usually never paid for single networks when you bought cable stuff but just bought a bundle with a whole bunch of them.
It's getting to the point now where I'm sick of paying so much money and the idea of that seedbox is far more appealing. It's not just the money, it's having to dart about several different applications and remotes to try and find what you want to watch, drives me mad.
I wanted to stream The Force Awakens the other day, I couldn't find it any where.
Solution: Sign up to an aggregator service that's say $15 / month and you can watch any streaming service. When the month is up your $15 is distributed between providers depending on how much you watched each of them.
Why take your share of $15 /month if you can easily coerce the vast majority of consumers to pay the full $15 for your service by releasing the next season of .
All it took for the masses to immediately flood Disney+ was owning Star Wars and Marvel.
I subscribed to HBO because of Game of Thrones back in the day, I have Prime anyways and share Netflix with 3 other people.
I want what you described but nobody is going to let this happen if consumers who are too tech-illiterate to pirate will pay up anyways.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's amazing how we have gone full circle in the last 15 years or so. In the old days, people complained about their cable tv bill: why do I have to pay for 250 channels when I only watch 5 of them? Let me pay only for what I watch. Now that the future is here, people are complaining that they need to sign up for too many streaming services. Why can't I just pay once for a bundle and get everything I need? I'm just a…
There are only so many $10-15/month services one can sign up for before you’re paying just as much as you would for cable, but now the UX is splintered and shit.
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The problem with buying Season Passes is that they're usually a terrible option for many reasons. They're usually not available until well after the season premiered (12+ months later), roughly at the same time that the DVD/Bluray comes out. The quality of them is iffy, at best - SD or HD at poor bitrates. Fine for watching on a tablet or laptop, marginal at best on a TV/Surround system. They're tied to watching on t…
All those also apply to subscription services, and subscription services remain significantly more popular with users. Sometimes people on HN might have to accept they are not typical users a bit.
It is not a zero sum game, because when there are enough of them I can't be assed anymore and I will simply torrent the content instead. The same way you usually never paid for single networks when you bought cable stuff but just bought a bundle with a whole bunch of them.
I'm willing to pay for a service that I use a lot and gives me an API that's at least as good as this. But it doesn't make any sense for me to pay for 5 services that combined give me a much worse API. Having to use 5 crappy apps typing in 5 crappy search boxes until I find what I want to watch is quite frustrating.
We started 2019 with Amazon Prime and Netflix, but when Netflix dropped support for streaming from iOS to Apple TV using Airplay, we dropped it (having to use the Netflix Apple TV App was worse than using torrents). Last month, we noticed that most of our torrent streaming is HBO content, and we subscribed to HBO instead. We've been torrenting The Mandalorian from Disney+ recently, but right now that's not remotely close to enough to make us actually want to subscribe to Disney+.
Who ever thinks that requiring people to subscribe to more services is going to actually make them do that, when there is a hassle free, simple, reliable, and cost-free alternative, is delusional.
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> 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…
> maybe people think the prices are too high Absurdly high. Game of Thrones costs $167 on Amazon, which is more than binge-watching it eleven times using one-month HBO subscriptions.
People just like to complain. It has never been cheaper or easier to instantly consume media, yet there is no satisfaction (because they’re comparing it to stealing the media, which is illogical of course).
Of course, there are legitimate issues in countries that have BS licensing restrictions forcing people to use a middle man such as cable or satellite TV providers. Also, copyright terms are far too long in the US, so there are valid reasons to pirate. But price/availability in US usually aren’t it, in my opinion.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's amazing how we have gone full circle in the last 15 years or so. In the old days, people complained about their cable tv bill: why do I have to pay for 250 channels when I only watch 5 of them? Let me pay only for what I watch. Now that the future is here, people are complaining that they need to sign up for too many streaming services. Why can't I just pay once for a bundle and get everything I need? I'm just a…
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with buying Season Passes is that they're usually a terrible option for many reasons. They're usually not available until well after the season premiered (12+ months later), roughly at the same time that the DVD/Bluray comes out. The quality of them is iffy, at best - SD or HD at poor bitrates. Fine for watching on a tablet or laptop, marginal at best on a TV/Surround system. They're tied to watching on t…
I'm still waiting for "Steam for TV series/Films". I've always felt that that approach would work better as we're unlikely to get a single streaming service with "most content" akin to music streaming". The model works well for distributing games and doesn't have any of the deal breaking problems that you listed (well except for it going out of business, but should not be a problem as long as you have access to the f…
For example: https://store.steampowered.com/app/468060/PADAK/