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Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

joe-steel.com

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Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#141

Post by Tallain »

jprete wrote: post #115
forrestthewoods wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of scripted shows tripled from 2009 to 2022. From 210 to 599. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/peak-tv-2022-co... !

This was also the period where Netflix et al discovered that shows become more costly to make and less likely to get brand-new subscribers around season 3. So it’s hard for me to give that statistic any weight.

For Netflix, it's not just about new shows driving subscriber count. I'm probably summarizing incorrectly, but it also has to do with their royalty structure. Canceling a show after two seasons allows them to save a ton of money by short-changing their creators and stars, while still getting headlines about signing huge-figure deals with those same people.

[source]: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/tvs-new-...

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#142

Post by lotsofpulp »

ndriscoll wrote: post #101
citizenkeen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep thinking about Plex but I struggle with the idea of teaching my kids that stealing is okay. Like, for a little kid: "This kind of theft is okay, this kind of theft isn't." seems nuanced for a little kid.

Simple enough: stealing is bad, but sharing is good. If you had a replicator and could make physical things for free to give to your neighbors, of course you'd do that.

And the people who work on Sesame Street will feed and clothe and shelter themselves with the things you give them with your (nonexistent) replicator.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#143

Post by starttoaster »

greiskul wrote: post #133
kaibee wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was also the period where Netflix et al discovered that shows become more costly to make and less likely to get brand-new subscribers around season 3. This isn't the only reason I stopped watching shows, but its certainly a contributing factor. Kinda gets old seeing some cool first season setup a bunch of interesting story arcs, great show, etc and then cancelled.

Yeah, if Netflix wants to do short shows, they should follow the British model of TV series. Short series but with a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Not this bunch of half started stories that just stop.

Netflix is just following the Japanese model of animated series where you put out an incredibly strong season one and then cut all funding to it.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#144

Post by bee_rider »

jwrallie wrote: post #94
wand3r wrote: post #15

Basically there was a finite amount of content and a lot of it appeared on Netflix. Then 4+ services launched and a near fixed amount of content was divided by 4. Then they doubled the price. So now for a worse discovery experience you are effectively paying 8x the price.

Does anyone has experience with cancelling and switching services periodically so that you can access all the content, but not at the same time?

This is basically incompatible (or at least really difficult) with password sharing, but then the streaming companies are trying to erode that bit of their moat.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#145

Post by scubbo »

wackget wrote: post #138
lathiat wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also enjoy every streaming service solving many technical problems the others have already solved. The most painful one for me right now is that Paramount+ has all their videos rendered with black bars top and bottom. So when I watch the latest Star Trek New Worlds and Star Trek Discovery on my 34" 1440p ultrawide, it literally has a black border all the way around the edge. Watching the same episode on Prime Video…

Isn't that just a regular aspect ratio issue? If the content is filmed in 1:2.4 and you're trying to watch it on a 16:10 screen, it's always going to be letterboxed. In that case, if it doesn't look letterboxed then it's either stretched (deformed) or parts of the video are cropped/lost.

I think they're saying that the base content _itself_ has the letterbox "burned in", so that when they watch it on their TV (with an wider ratio) it has black borders on all four sides - at the sides because of ratio mismatch, and at the top and bottom because they're present in the base media.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#146

Post by NoodleDerek »

wackget wrote: post #138
lathiat wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also enjoy every streaming service solving many technical problems the others have already solved. The most painful one for me right now is that Paramount+ has all their videos rendered with black bars top and bottom. So when I watch the latest Star Trek New Worlds and Star Trek Discovery on my 34" 1440p ultrawide, it literally has a black border all the way around the edge. Watching the same episode on Prime Video…

Isn't that just a regular aspect ratio issue? If the content is filmed in 1:2.4 and you're trying to watch it on a 16:10 screen, it's always going to be letterboxed. In that case, if it doesn't look letterboxed then it's either stretched (deformed) or parts of the video are cropped/lost.

People expect black bats on the top or the sides but not both.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#147

Post by poink »

wand3r wrote: post #15

Basically there was a finite amount of content and a lot of it appeared on Netflix. Then 4+ services launched and a near fixed amount of content was divided by 4. Then they doubled the price. So now for a worse discovery experience you are effectively paying 8x the price.

The thing for me is that the media companies that thought they could just launch their own streaming services and keep all the money for themselves completely devalued the engineering of Netflix. It was "FAANG" for a reason. Viscerally, Netflix doesn't feel like it belongs alongside Google, but it did, because it was good.

How does Disney fail to make money off Star Wars? Because they decided to build a shitty tech company in-house instead of just doing what they know and licensing their content to the experts.

They had to have it all, and they played themselves.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#148

Post by rcarr »

> I’m not sure what’s going to get me to reactivate Disney+, maybe it’ll be whenever the second season of Andor comes out towards the end of 2024 or early 2025, but it’ll just be the two months the show runs, and then I’m out again like the Falcon leaving the Death Star.

I don't get why you'd even pay for two months if it's just one show you want to watch. Wait until it's all aired, subscribe for one month, watch it all over a few nights and then cancel the subscription.

Re: Please Pay for a Year of Nothing

#150

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

codetrotter wrote: post #97
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you're right, I watched one season of Law and Order and thought "Great, I've seen 80% of all detective shows, no need to watch any more." /s

I think it comes down to personal taste. I could likewise see someone say that 80% of all soccer matches are the same. That once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. And then on the opposite end you have people enjoying soccer who will be happy to tell you about the nuances between different matches, different players, different teams, etc.

Isn't the issue there that some people basically just don't like soccer so they can't appreciate the differences?

I would put myself in that camp - watching soccer just doesn't appeal to me that much, so it all kind of seems the same. But I can very much appreciate the differences to people that enjoy watching the sport, and I think this could be said about nearly any endeavor.

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