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Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

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Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#101

Post by Karsteski »

mdasen wrote: post #51
mathieuh wrote: post #9

Baffles me why all these streaming companies are shooting themselves in the foot. For about 18 months there was a golden age where it was easier to pay for things than to pirate. Now we’re in a situation where it’s even /harder/ than it’s ever been. People will pay for media if it’s easy and a good experience. The barrier to piracy is non-existent these days and you actually get a far better experience.

It's not that baffling. For a time, they were trying to grow their subscriber base and luring them in with low prices. Now that they have their subscriber base, they want to get back to the revenue they were getting before. Realistically, entertainment companies weren't going to accept lower revenue than they previously had for their product. As the industry transitions from physical media and cable TV to streaming,…

Netflix refuses to serve me HDR/4K content unless I jump through a series of hoops and use the correct browser, OS and whatever else I'd have needed to do. Now I just refuse to pay for it, especially given how easy it is for me to just pirate quality content.

I have no problem paying Floatplane for LinusTechTips content, because they just provide the high quality content, where I can even just download the VODs easily. I'm tired of corporations fucking me at every angle when possible...

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#102

Post by throwaway5959 »

at_a_remove wrote: post #73
arcticbull wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It isn't harder to pay than to pirate. It's just getting more expensive. No, it's harder too. Shows I want to watch bounce between the various silos of un-indexed content, without notice, as licenses shift and expire. Each silo behind their own separate paywalls. New ones pop up and shut down. Their feature matrix changes. They introduce geo restrictions, device restrictions, they force you to sign in from your 'ho…

I only recently got into this pirating thing. I was completely willing to have a Netflix subscription, and Amazon Prime, and HBO/Max. Now I feel like I am being milked. So screw it, I literally spent money on some stream pirating software, going hog wild. I have JustWatch and spreadsheets. My targets are listed and I knock them down. Sure, I'll do your service for a whole month, during which I will slurp down the TV…

That sounds more expensive than just paying money for content.

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#103

Post by throwaway5959 »

aodin wrote: post #27
mathieuh wrote: post #9

Baffles me why all these streaming companies are shooting themselves in the foot. For about 18 months there was a golden age where it was easier to pay for things than to pirate. Now we’re in a situation where it’s even /harder/ than it’s ever been. People will pay for media if it’s easy and a good experience. The barrier to piracy is non-existent these days and you actually get a far better experience.

> "One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue" Gabe Newell of Valve, Oct 2011 [1] https://www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-piracy-issue-service-...

I struggle to understand how services like Netflix or Max have an issue with providing service. How could they possibly make it easier to access their content with various apps?

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#104

Post by AniseAbyss »

mathieuh wrote: post #9

Baffles me why all these streaming companies are shooting themselves in the foot. For about 18 months there was a golden age where it was easier to pay for things than to pirate. Now we’re in a situation where it’s even /harder/ than it’s ever been. People will pay for media if it’s easy and a good experience. The barrier to piracy is non-existent these days and you actually get a far better experience.

[dead]

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#105

Post by manuelmoreale »

throwaway5959 wrote: post #103
aodin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue" Gabe Newell of Valve, Oct 2011 [1] https://www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-piracy-issue-service-...

I struggle to understand how services like Netflix or Max have an issue with providing service. How could they possibly make it easier to access their content with various apps?

The issue is that Neflix, Max and the others are a bridge between you and the content you want to watch. When this content starts to shift around and things that were available in one place now are in another, consuming content becomes problematic.

In addition to that, prices are going up while overall catalogue size seems to be going down (at least the catalogue of quality content)

On top of that you have an increasing tendency of just canceling things left and right because the ROI from the companies perspective is not as high as they were hoping and so fuck the people who were invested in that TV series.

The end result is that the entire streaming landscape is a mess, everything is becoming more expensive and you get no real benefit in return and at a certain point, if I want to watch TV series X or Movie Y my best bet is to just pirate the damn thing and call it a day.

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#106

Post by alexvoda »

mdasen wrote: post #51
mathieuh wrote: post #9

Baffles me why all these streaming companies are shooting themselves in the foot. For about 18 months there was a golden age where it was easier to pay for things than to pirate. Now we’re in a situation where it’s even /harder/ than it’s ever been. People will pay for media if it’s easy and a good experience. The barrier to piracy is non-existent these days and you actually get a far better experience.

It's not that baffling. For a time, they were trying to grow their subscriber base and luring them in with low prices. Now that they have their subscriber base, they want to get back to the revenue they were getting before. Realistically, entertainment companies weren't going to accept lower revenue than they previously had for their product. As the industry transitions from physical media and cable TV to streaming,…

Today it absolutely is harder to pay than to pirate.

It was easy when everything noteworthy was on Netflix. You payed for Netflix and got easy access directly on your TV to most trending content. This was more convenient than piracy.

Now the landscape is balkanaized and no one subscribes to all streaming platforms. You can never predict if something of interest will be present on the platform you subscribe to. Do you then subscribe to another service? Now you have to remember to unsubscribe. Do you rotate services and binge watch? Now you are not up to date and risk hearing/reading spoilers. This is less convenient than piracy.

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#107

Post by icegreentea2 »

Racing0461 wrote: post #7

What is the point of these aritificial tiers and gating 4k? The marginal cost to go from 1080p to 4k is insignificant unless there are underlying licensing deals hbo can't get out of.

I mean you answered it yourself. They have a product that is basically marginally free to produce, but that customers do seem to assign a marginal value to. Of course you'd try to charge for it.

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#108

Post by throwaway5959 »

manuelmoreale wrote: post #105
throwaway5959 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle to understand how services like Netflix or Max have an issue with providing service. How could they possibly make it easier to access their content with various apps?

The issue is that Neflix, Max and the others are a bridge between you and the content you want to watch. When this content starts to shift around and things that were available in one place now are in another, consuming content becomes problematic. In addition to that, prices are going up while overall catalogue size seems to be going down (at least the catalogue of quality content) On top of that you have an increas…

MAX, YouTube Premium, Spotify, Netflix, Disney+ can all be had for about $100/mo. Even assuming someone only makes $20/hour, that's about 15 minutes of work per day for a month to access effectively unlimited content. If you can't find what you want to watch there, swap providers or just buy the content on Apple TV/Google Play/etc.

Again, I struggle to see how these platforms don't provide massive value. Like that's one meal out any more for a family of four. Pirating content when it's so cheap seems entitled to me, like not tipping when you go out to eat (in the US) because you have personal issues with tipping.

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#109

Post by manuelmoreale »

throwaway5959 wrote: post #108
manuelmoreale wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that Neflix, Max and the others are a bridge between you and the content you want to watch. When this content starts to shift around and things that were available in one place now are in another, consuming content becomes problematic. In addition to that, prices are going up while overall catalogue size seems to be going down (at least the catalogue of quality content) On top of that you have an increas…

MAX, YouTube Premium, Spotify, Netflix, Disney+ can all be had for about $100/mo. Even assuming someone only makes $20/hour, that's about 15 minutes of work per day for a month to access effectively unlimited content. If you can't find what you want to watch there, swap providers or just buy the content on Apple TV/Google Play/etc. Again, I struggle to see how these platforms don't provide massive value. Like that's…

100/month can be A LOT depending on where you live.

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#110

Post by [deleted] »

at_a_remove wrote: post #73
arcticbull wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It isn't harder to pay than to pirate. It's just getting more expensive. No, it's harder too. Shows I want to watch bounce between the various silos of un-indexed content, without notice, as licenses shift and expire. Each silo behind their own separate paywalls. New ones pop up and shut down. Their feature matrix changes. They introduce geo restrictions, device restrictions, they force you to sign in from your 'ho…

I only recently got into this pirating thing. I was completely willing to have a Netflix subscription, and Amazon Prime, and HBO/Max. Now I feel like I am being milked. So screw it, I literally spent money on some stream pirating software, going hog wild. I have JustWatch and spreadsheets. My targets are listed and I knock them down. Sure, I'll do your service for a whole month, during which I will slurp down the TV…

[deleted]
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