Well, paywall that this certainly don't do anything to help consumer convenience stick around.
At least it’s not ad based. They sell content, and you can chose to pay them for the content or not. A respectable business model by comparison.
A golden age of consumer convenience is passing
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Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing
#72> "I'm not reading your site if you paywall it. There are too many other free resources that are just as good if not better."
This really indicates what our economy has become. Everybody talks about the two business models companies employ; ad-supported or fee-based. These are the selling models Occasionally, piracy is discussed. While it may be a business model, piracy obviously isn't a selling model. It is a consumer consumption model though.
We do have another consumption model that is more difficult to see because it does not include any explicit agreement between a company and a consumer. This emerges from companies that begin using loss-leading (money-losing) models to gain customers, initially. They then expect that they will generate a network effect or be able to rely on inertia (what Malcolm Gladwell generalizes as "sludge") to retain those customers when they later change their model to something profitable. This fails because there is always another business trying something similar. Each of these companies has the same global reach and customers can switch easily between them so they just hop from one unsustainable bargain to the next optimizing their own costs. They are disloyal leeches. I don't say that to be derogatory; it just seems the best description.
Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing
#73Media embedded advertising has already been a thing for years, but companies hate leaving money on the table so they cannot resist the temptation of showing more ads. I wonder why it is that Steam hasn't had any issues remaining such a successful video game platform, while other forms of media have struggled to keep up. You're competing with piracy, but you throw ads in my face. I can download any show or movie I wan…
Steam is successful because its advertising is rather low key, showing a popup with offers, and providing a search, directory plus suggestions. Their gain is from consumer analytics too. (They also take a cut for using their platform from the game developers or publishers. It also provides some added value like achievements, basic social media in forms of forums and chat, some (somewhat broken at times) controller ha…
It’s important to take Steam DRM in context. In a world where DRM was becoming more intrusive by the day, and you had to contend with every game having its own unique way to mess your system up in its fight against piracy, Steam provided one single DRM system that almost everybody agrees to use. For consumers, worse than no DRM, but miles ahead of the status quo it replaced.
Also, Steam does have an offline mode. You just have to ping the mothership every few weeks iirc.
Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing
#74I finally broke down and paid for YouTube Premium. There is literally no other option to watch YouTube on a TV nowadays. It is absolutely mindblowing the level of nonstop ads they shove down your throat in-between (and during) every single video now. Completely unwatchable otherwise. And it's impossible to buy a dumb TV in 2022, so you're stuck with the official Android/Roku YouTube apps that have no ad-blocking capa…
>And it's impossible to buy a dumb TV in 2022, so you're stuck with the official Android/Roku YouTube apps that have no ad-blocking capability.
You can just do literally the same thing you'd do with dumb TV and connect computer to one of it's HDMI ports. "Smartness" of a TV does not take away any feature from it, unless you're so hurt by software updates - which you can simply disregard by not connecting the TV to the internet.
Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
When casting to the TV you get ads, even though you don't in the browser! I just tried it, since I had the same idea.
Plug your laptop directly in via HDMI/DP. Buy an air mouse/keyboard to control it from your couch. Here's an example: https://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Keyboard-W1-Multifunctional-... The flexible sovereign combo of a general purpose computer and a user agent. I use a forever-docked ThinkPad x230 under my TV, which can do 1080p and 802.11n (5GHz).
Thanks for the tip. It works with both an HDMI cable and wirelessly via AirPlay.
Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is everyone acting so apocalyptic? Netflix is offering a cheaper tier with ads. If you don’t want ads, keep paying for the tier you have been paying.
Apocalypticism is in vogue now. Everything is coming to an end.
Humanity has often been preoccupied by the impending end of all things.
https://www.britannica.com/list/10-failed-doomsday-predictio...
Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I wonder why it is that Steam hasn't had any issues remaining such a successful video game platform, while other forms of media have struggled to keep up. Well, Youtube's ad problem comes from the fact that it is run by the largest internet advertiser. Netflix--video streaming in general--suffers from the fact that there are very few major content producers, and after seeing the monetary success of Netflix, the con…
Epic game store definitely tries to enforce exclusivity. Prime example beeing Square Enix games. FF7 Remake first released on Epic Game Store and only much later released on Steam. Kingdom Hearts still isn't available in Steam and probably never will be. It's one of the prime reasons I will never buy from them. That way lies madness.
Yes, they've tried to, but as I've said, it hasn't been particularly effective. Most of the games that had the year-long Epic store exclusivity period happily released on Steam at the end of that period.
Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing
#78Media embedded advertising has already been a thing for years, but companies hate leaving money on the table so they cannot resist the temptation of showing more ads. I wonder why it is that Steam hasn't had any issues remaining such a successful video game platform, while other forms of media have struggled to keep up. You're competing with piracy, but you throw ads in my face. I can download any show or movie I wan…
Steam is successful because its advertising is rather low key, showing a popup with offers, and providing a search, directory plus suggestions. Their gain is from consumer analytics too. (They also take a cut for using their platform from the game developers or publishers. It also provides some added value like achievements, basic social media in forms of forums and chat, some (somewhat broken at times) controller ha…
For me it’s about context. Steam ads do not bother me that much since it’s easy to turn off/dismiss, but also importantly they're "first party" - I’m already on steam and a gaming mood so I don’t mind checking out offers for other games.
Streaming ads are annoying because under no circumstances I'd be thinking of picking up tampons while watching a football game.
Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing
#79Media embedded advertising has already been a thing for years, but companies hate leaving money on the table so they cannot resist the temptation of showing more ads. I wonder why it is that Steam hasn't had any issues remaining such a successful video game platform, while other forms of media have struggled to keep up. You're competing with piracy, but you throw ads in my face. I can download any show or movie I wan…
> “ I can download any show or movie I want and have it playing in minutes without having to deal with multi platform bullshit.” Is this as true as it once was? It seems most of the old trackers are offline or dead now. I’d guess because of the success of streaming services finally meeting the market demand. It’s also possible I’m just old and out of the loop now.
I wanted to watch the currently in-progress season of a certain anime via the usual legit sites like Crunchyroll, Funimation, etc. All of this anime's seasons are now "not available in my region due to licensing issues".
The DVD/Blu-Ray season sets cost 85-90€ each(!!!) for 13 (~20-22 minutes) episodes per season. That price to me is simply unacceptable, since that's more for one season than the entirety of series like "Friends" or "House, M.D.", either of which provide vastly more content and are WAY more popular than any anime.
As it stands now, I'll probably just wait until the last six episodes of this season become available then use the free "test period" for the "aniverse" channel on Prime Video, on which I arbitrarily can't watch 1080p HD because I have the absolute audacity of not using Windows (a problem which downloads from certain ... 3rd-party sites do not share).
Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing
#80Media embedded advertising has already been a thing for years, but companies hate leaving money on the table so they cannot resist the temptation of showing more ads. I wonder why it is that Steam hasn't had any issues remaining such a successful video game platform, while other forms of media have struggled to keep up. You're competing with piracy, but you throw ads in my face. I can download any show or movie I wan…
What is locally crafted consumption?