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

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

#131

Post by pnutjam » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 2:17 PM UTC

taurath wrote: post #62

jchw wrote: post #61

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…

Netflix had a simple model, sell videos. Many of these other services are selling you to advertisers. Streaming is awful when it includes ads.

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

#132

Post by tguedes » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 2:20 PM UTC

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…

You could argue this puts Netflix in a great position. Netflix is going to live or die on streaming. For the other companies, streaming is another line on a P&L doc.

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

#133

Post by cyborgx7 » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 2:28 PM UTC

tguedes wrote: post #130

cyborgx7 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still baffled by the reasoning that leads to all the DRM theater. It does nothing. the moment a piece of content reaches streaming apps, it's on every torrent and free streaming platform.[1] All it does is that it makes the user experience of paying customers worse. Can't use their preferred video player. Can't use a frontend that puts all the content together. Can't save it for later to watch online, unless the…

At least in Netflix's case, some of it makes sense because of how much work they put in to their website. Almost everything on their homepage is personalized based on what they think will get you to watch that movie/show. From the pictures, summary description, and video preview, that's all customized to get you to watch more.

Wouldn't they make more money by you watching less? Also, there is no reason they couldn't have a decent website, just because they also didn't have DRM.

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

#134

Post by dijit » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 2:38 PM UTC

Mindwipe wrote: post #85

dijit wrote: post #84

Woman I know cycles her subscriptions, consumes what she has on backlog and then just moves onto the next. It seems to work for her, although I don't think I'd be comfortable doing that because I would miss out on pop-culture references. (I mean, one only has to look at imgur.com for a few minutes to notice a lot of Mandalorian memes, the cynic in me even considers that this might be due to Disney shilling that conte…

If Disney were going to shill Star Wars memes they wouldn't be about a character where they didn't make any merchandise in time for Christmas.

you mean like this: https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/26/baby-yoda-merchandise/

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

#135

Post by pgwhalen » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

cyborgx7 wrote: post #115

lotsofpulp wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many hundreds of hours of entertainment for $167? Granted it has almost no marginal cost for the seller, but as you said, you can buy HBO for a fraction of $167 and still watch it. 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 legitim…

> It has never been cheaper or easier That's exactly the thing though. It has been easier. We all remember it being easier, when we pirated something. The actual sentence should be "it has never been easier while also getting to pay for it". That's just not a very compelling case.

Pirating is easier in the same way an FTP server is easier than Dropbox.

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

#136

Post by Goladus » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:01 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #108

erik_seaberg wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

How many hundreds of hours of entertainment for $167? Granted it has almost no marginal cost for the seller, but as you said, you can buy HBO for a fraction of $167 and still watch it. 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 legitim…

> How many hundreds of hours of entertainment for $167?

That's not relevant. The simple fact is that $167 for a season is well beyond the budget of the average person whose opinion you're considering. "Hours of entertainment" is (always) the wrong formula, by the way. Nobody needs to steal anything to enjoy hours of free entertainment doing a myriad of activities. Most TV shows simply make no effort at all to price either episodes or full seasons for a wide market.

Compare two ABC shows on Amazon Video, General Hospital and The Bachelor. General Hospital is a daily soap opera with 36 minute episodes and modest production value. The Bachelor has 2-hour episode with higher production values. A full season of The Bachelor is reasonably priced at $20. Individual episodes are $3.

Individual General Hospital episodes are also $3 each. This doesn't seem too crazy if you're talking about someone who might otherwise miss an episode because they are traveling or something. It's probably steeper than it should be, I imagine most soap fans will just read up on what they missed if they care enough rather than shelling out money to watch. But regardless, the full 241-episode season is $735.00. This is quite obviously not priced to sell as a package. No one would buy that. It is simply 241 episodes times $3.00 per episode, which is a generic Amazon price for an HD episode of anything. In fact you can buy the SD version for $15.00. It is clear that no real thought at all has gone into the pricing scheme.

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

#137

Post by thatcat » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:06 PM UTC

tguedes wrote: post #130

cyborgx7 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still baffled by the reasoning that leads to all the DRM theater. It does nothing. the moment a piece of content reaches streaming apps, it's on every torrent and free streaming platform.[1] All it does is that it makes the user experience of paying customers worse. Can't use their preferred video player. Can't use a frontend that puts all the content together. Can't save it for later to watch online, unless the…

At least in Netflix's case, some of it makes sense because of how much work they put in to their website. Almost everything on their homepage is personalized based on what they think will get you to watch that movie/show. From the pictures, summary description, and video preview, that's all customized to get you to watch more.

They show you what they want you to watch, which is mostly netflix produced content that minimizes the per view overhead for them.

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

#138

Post by Goladus » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:09 PM UTC

Mindwipe wrote: post #89

paranoidrobot wrote: post #54

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…

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.

> All those also apply to subscription services

They quite obviously don't. Perhaps most notably availability at premier, which tends to matter a lot for TV shows if you have any desire to be part of the conversation about them.

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

#139

Post by Goladus » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

Mindwipe wrote: post #90

Dylan16807 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It costs more to buy four episodes of a single show than an entire month of a typical streaming service. That is not the "let me pick my channels" service that people often ask for.

It is, because a la carte is always significantly more expensive. It results in higher transaction cost overhead, more risk, more cash flow volatility etc. A la carte is significantly more expensive in literally every industry, globally, for a reason.

> a la carte is always significantly more expensive

True, but clearly not the case with most TV shows. It's not an a la carte premium. It's either targeting a niche market like collectors, or there's just no attempt to set a market price whatsoever as the example here demonstrates: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21682892

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

#140

Post by kipchak » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:17 PM UTC

cyborgx7 wrote: post #133

tguedes wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Netflix's case, some of it makes sense because of how much work they put in to their website. Almost everything on their homepage is personalized based on what they think will get you to watch that movie/show. From the pictures, summary description, and video preview, that's all customized to get you to watch more.

Wouldn't they make more money by you watching less? Also, there is no reason they couldn't have a decent website, just because they also didn't have DRM.

Maybe the approach is the more people watch, the more they talk about the (Netflix exclusive) shows with others who don't have Netflix and they hopefully buy in?