Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 844 posts

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#241

Post by comodore_ »

w0m wrote: post #121
joombaga wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're at or approaching a tipping point. For a long while I've not been able to justify the effort it takes to maintain automatic content downloads and a streaming server. But that maintenance cost isn't higher when I want content from an additional platform. If I'm gonna pirate an Amazon/MGM exclusive then I'm gonna cancel Netflix, Hulu, Paramount+ and Apple TV+ too.

Piracy was the Easiest/Only way to get content until ~2008ish. Since then; Netflix and (...x streaming platform) made it easier/better to Pay for the content than pirate it. It does feel like we're approaching a tipping point now in the other direction with all of these streaming fiefdoms. My household has Netflix, Hulu, D+, and Prime streaming now - that's already too many and needs pairing IMO.

I'd argue that we've reached the tipping point already. It will accelerate now. netflix just increased their prices again to compensate for slowing growth.

All these stream platforms produce their own exclusive shows and chances are that you're only interested in one or two flag ship series and the occasional movie or so. I believe this will hurt hulu the most then hbo before the rest, because compared to netflix and disney they have less exclusive content. This leads to a downward spiral, where you need more exclusive content to attract users which leads to more fragmentation and eventually drives costs, which is bad for platforms with less (exclusive) content, because user may ditch first because of unattractive content/cost ratio...

Pirating is great if you're just interested in a particular new show but nothing else, for me that's HBO. What you're missing out on with pirating is discovering new shows/movies that you actually like just by browser the platform.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#242

Post by Ecto5 »

LaundroMat wrote: post #220
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Piracy is competition to bad content behavior. It's a meaningful consumer response to monopoly, balkanization and other anti-consumer practices.

Asking for a friend of course, but what would be the best setup for a Netflix/Prime/...-like experience for own media for a family of not-too-digitally-savvy users? That friend uses Kodi (and a NAS) now, but it's still a bit arduous to use for his family. She wants profiles, availability on any device over wifi and 4G and movies and series only.

Lookup plex or jellyfin with sonarr or radarr to handle content. All projects are on github

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#243

Post by Cerium »

LaundroMat wrote: post #220
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Piracy is competition to bad content behavior. It's a meaningful consumer response to monopoly, balkanization and other anti-consumer practices.

Asking for a friend of course, but what would be the best setup for a Netflix/Prime/...-like experience for own media for a family of not-too-digitally-savvy users? That friend uses Kodi (and a NAS) now, but it's still a bit arduous to use for his family. She wants profiles, availability on any device over wifi and 4G and movies and series only.

Your friend may want to look into Plex. It has a good web client, as well as mobile and desktop so family can use it without a lot of work. It supports profiles and the server manager can assign collections to profiles to enable hiding some content from some users.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#244

Post by DrBazza »

paganel wrote: post #83
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Piracy is competition to bad content behavior. It's a meaningful consumer response to monopoly, balkanization and other anti-consumer practices.

Or we could fall back to watching movies made from the ‘30s to the ‘50s, that’s what I have been doing for more than half a year now and it has been wonderful for my mental well-being (they really knew how to make comedies back then, even after the Hayes code).

I've just made this comment myself. It's amazing how much casual violence there is in modern films that you just don't notice because it's everywhere.

I've watched more black and white classics in the last 15 months than I have in the last 20 years. Particularly the old sci-fi, horror, and slapstick films. Harold Lloyd, The Three Stooges, and Chaplin. Plus all the old St Trinians, and Sherlock Holmes. Abbot and Costello and so on. So pleasant to watch.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#246

Post by colinplamondon »

enragedcacti wrote: post #35
someperson wrote: post #17

This makes it very likely that the beloved Stargate franchise will return as an Amazon Prime exclusive franchise, which will be great news for those of us like myself with appetite for 60+ more seasons of that show (after the 17 seasons that have already been made). I watched the sci-fi show "The Expanse" on Amazon Prime Video. Season 4 (the one made by Amazon Prime Video) felt like it had a tenth of the budget compa…

If it makes you feel better the fourth book of The Expanse is the most boring in my opinion and the show stuck to the plot for the most part throughout. I still enjoyed both the book and the fourth season but the action and production really picks back up in the fifth season. EDIT: VAGUE REFERENCES TO SPOILERS BELOW

Seeing Laconia with serious CGI budget is going to be amazing.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#247

Post by Miraste »

enragedcacti wrote: post #35
someperson wrote: post #17

This makes it very likely that the beloved Stargate franchise will return as an Amazon Prime exclusive franchise, which will be great news for those of us like myself with appetite for 60+ more seasons of that show (after the 17 seasons that have already been made). I watched the sci-fi show "The Expanse" on Amazon Prime Video. Season 4 (the one made by Amazon Prime Video) felt like it had a tenth of the budget compa…

If it makes you feel better the fourth book of The Expanse is the most boring in my opinion and the show stuck to the plot for the most part throughout. I still enjoyed both the book and the fourth season but the action and production really picks back up in the fifth season. EDIT: VAGUE REFERENCES TO SPOILERS BELOW

Yes, season 4 has the exact same budget per episode and the same production company/crew as the other seasons. Amazon doesn't have anything to do with perceived changes (I thought 4 was still good and 5 was great).

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#248

Post by dkarp »

xixixao wrote: post #26
someperson wrote: post #17

This makes it very likely that the beloved Stargate franchise will return as an Amazon Prime exclusive franchise, which will be great news for those of us like myself with appetite for 60+ more seasons of that show (after the 17 seasons that have already been made). I watched the sci-fi show "The Expanse" on Amazon Prime Video. Season 4 (the one made by Amazon Prime Video) felt like it had a tenth of the budget compa…

I started watching SG1 again (I saw it incomplete as a kid). It’s incredibly good. It pushes rationalism and feminism in a sane way that I’m not sure would happen in today’s environment. It’s incredibly rich in historical references and concepts. It’s rarely dumb and often preempts cliches. It’s still worth watching imho (and is much less known that Star Trek in US).

I just started doing the same last week (weird to suddenly see this thread after not much mention of SG1 for a long time...) and agree it is great. It is nice to watch as a series instead of the random odd episode I saw as a kid watching cable TV in the 90s. There is so much more of it than I remembered. I've almost finished season 1, so it's going to tide me over for a good long while!

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#249

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

frankbreetz wrote: post #8

If I had to pick a single politically uniting issue, breaking up Amazon and big tech would be it. Why has this not happened yet? Is the out of power party afraid the in power party will get credit? (This has been discussed when both parties were in power) If the government can't get something with this kind of support done, I fear the road we are headed down .

> Why has this not happened yet?

Regulatory capture, and campaign finance laws. Until we fix the latter, we can't fix the former.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#250

Post by margaretdouglas »

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #23

So what we're seeing is a repeat of the film industry from 1930's-1950's. You want to see a Paramount movie, you must go to a Paramount theater. Today you want to watch an Apple show you must go to Apple's VOD. We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Better stuff gets made in this kind of ecosystem.

What do you think cable networks were in the 90s? If you weren't paying a middle-man to aggregate them onto a single monopolized access point in your house you'd be paying NBC/ABC/CBS/etc individually. Think about how premium channels worked at the time; you'd pay for HBO or Cinemax on top of your monthly cable bill. It's not as though those premium channels were significantly cheaper than HBOMax or Netflix, and they didn't offer a fraction of the content you could consume at any given time.
Post reply on HN