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Netflix, Amazon and Hulu No Longer Find Themselves Upstarts in Online Streaming

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Re: Netflix, Amazon and Hulu No Longer Find Themselves Upstarts in Online Streaming

#41

Post by dragonwriter »

coloroadie wrote: post #40
dragonwriter wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consumers will eventually have two choices: purchase a very small subset of services directly from providers or go back to the big bundle. I don't think the cable-style "big bundle" will exist much longer, just premium sources which you pay for per source (or, for the highest-value premium content, per individual piece of content or individual viewing) and advertising-supported disaggregated content. There might be…

Why do you think the big bundle will go away? Sure, subscribing to a small number of one-off streaming services may make sense for some consumers, but not all. For example: if you collect the top three must-have channels from each member of your average American family, you'll discover that mom, dad and the kids have very different tastes in media. By the time each family member finds and subscribes to the streaming…

> Why do you think the big bundle will go away?

Because the big bundle -- especially the big-bundle of sources that are themselves advertising-supported -- is an artifact of access-provider-as-gatekeeper. Especially with net neutrality, that's a feature of cable TV that doesn't exist on the internet.

Re: Netflix, Amazon and Hulu No Longer Find Themselves Upstarts in Online Streaming

#42

Post by cheriot »

jstx wrote: post #36
cheriot wrote: post #18

The streaming services created the a la carte programming people have wanted from cable companies. They don't have a choice, content owners don't want any of them to have too much bargaining power. http://www.lazyfan.com One big problem is the lack of a TV guide equivalent. I've been taking a crack at this problem and have a prototype for movies (TV shows are still TODO).

XBMC has a solution for TV, but it only applies to your own hosted media. Take a look at PseudoTV. I was actually writing a similar plugin for Plex.tv last year until my client hours put that on the backburner indefinitely.

I'll check out PseudoTV when I get home. Thanks.

I have a long list of tools that do something similar and I've not come across that one before.

Re: Netflix, Amazon and Hulu No Longer Find Themselves Upstarts in Online Streaming

#43

Post by ghaff »

fluidcruft wrote: post #30
ctdonath wrote: post #24

Ok, so long-term participants aren't new anymore. What's much more interesting is the death of the "long tail service" which attracted so many to these services in the first place: the implicit promise that their goal was to provide _everything_ in their catalogs, meaning you could give up buying media outright because they'd have & host whatever you could want. ...then others saw how very much money Netflix et al we…

This is partly what makes Redbox is so infuriatingly frustrating. Netflix DVDs are in awful shape and waits for the "long tail" disks are insane. I really can't get behind the online rentals because they feel like Blockbuster-style ripoffs. At the same time that I can rent a new release from Redbox for $1.50, streaming wants to charging $4 for the exact same show. Public library inter-library requests are becoming th…

I'm missing the old Netflix DVD service. I still use it but a lot of films have dropped off my queue and my perception is that the bad disk count has gone up as well. It's tolerable given the lack of alternatives and the fact that my film tastes are relatively conventional, but it's still unfortunate.

Re: Netflix, Amazon and Hulu No Longer Find Themselves Upstarts in Online Streaming

#44

Post by deeviant »

manigandham wrote: post #34
aaviran wrote: post #2

As a consumer, I don't like the direction where streaming services are headed - many small services with limited content (original or not). I've been a Netflix customer for years now (I also had Hulu Plus, cancelled it due to their then-horrendous interface). While in the past I was very impressed with Netflix's selection, I now find it... meh, despite all the original content. When I pay Netflix, it's not for one, t…

This is the natural evolution of the space. The fundamental laws havent changed, it's either everything bundled together for a flat price or a-la-carte where you'll need to get all the services you want and put them together yourself. A-la-carte is what lots of people have been complaining about and now it's here, I don't really see what the problem is. If people are expecting to have all the available content of cab…

A la carte is generally not described as running around searching 2-3 totally independent services, dealing with 2-3 different UI's, business models, etc, but having the ability to get discrete packages from a single provider which expressing on the programs you are interested in, and paying a fractional sum that is roughly proportional to the amount of content you selected versus the amount of content available in "the big package". Thus not being forced to subsidize groups such as sports fans, if you are not a sport fan.

I don't really think your statement connects well with this discussion. My understanding of the current discussion in this thread is a general dislike of how the major players are carving out exclusive deals ensuring the content distribution is fragmented and the only strategy to get a decent mix of content requires using multiple services each with different UI's, pricing models, ad policies, etc.

Re: Netflix, Amazon and Hulu No Longer Find Themselves Upstarts in Online Streaming

#45

Post by gdilla »

warfangle wrote: post #26
gdilla wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the copyright holders are organizations which are very much alive. Copyright does and should expire after some number of years post death of original rights holders if they're individuals. We need copyright law upgrades, especially for digital media, like removing geographic territories which are traditionally negotiated region by region. That is insane when you're talking 1s and 0s and www distribution.

> But the copyright holders are organizations which are very much alive According to some views they're alive ;) > Copyright does and should expire after some number of years post death of original rights holders if they're individuals. Unless it gets retroactively extended again. But that brings us back to "securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and disco…

I don't know. There's something to be said about profiting off your work while you are alive. Corporations on the other hand, are an odd beast since they can have long lifespans where the rights can be transferred easily to a new organization, and the cycle continues.

I do believe it's generally good for innovation to let copyrights expire.

Re: Netflix, Amazon and Hulu No Longer Find Themselves Upstarts in Online Streaming

#46

Post by manigandham »

deeviant wrote: post #44
manigandham wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the natural evolution of the space. The fundamental laws havent changed, it's either everything bundled together for a flat price or a-la-carte where you'll need to get all the services you want and put them together yourself. A-la-carte is what lots of people have been complaining about and now it's here, I don't really see what the problem is. If people are expecting to have all the available content of cab…

A la carte is generally not described as running around searching 2-3 totally independent services, dealing with 2-3 different UI's, business models, etc, but having the ability to get discrete packages from a single provider which expressing on the programs you are interested in, and paying a fractional sum that is roughly proportional to the amount of content you selected versus the amount of content available in "…

Those are just implementation details, whether it's split out with a single company with different packages or different vendors entirely.

The basic offering is the same, everything for a bulk discount or pick and choose but you'll have to deal with putting it together.

It's not in the interest of any company to do both, they're separate models so they'll either focus on offering a big package deal or a smaller tighter service.

Re: Netflix, Amazon and Hulu No Longer Find Themselves Upstarts in Online Streaming

#47

Post by teh_klev »

fluidcruft wrote: post #15
teh_klev wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many small services with limited content (original or not) UK customer here, totally agree. Add to that the frustration of time limits on how long content is available for. I'm dawdling my way through Alias, just started s03, but Amazon emailed me today to say it's going away on April 12th. Multiple devices, or device lock-in - I have a Roku 3, it'll do Netflix, BBC iPlayer, NowTV and Google Play. But I need to buy…

My Roku does Amazon... did that change in newer models? As far as I know it's Android that Amazon refuses to support for VOD (because they're trying to push their half-assed Kindle Fire line of Android knockoffs). Which is unfortunate because I had been a heavy purchaser of Amazon VOD season passes (not Prime)--back in the days before streaming you could set it up to auto download to TiVo as new episodes were release…

Sadly not in the UK and I did trawl all the offerings on my Roku.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/ontv/devices

Re: Netflix, Amazon and Hulu No Longer Find Themselves Upstarts in Online Streaming

#48

Post by ctdonath »

jerf wrote: post #35
ctdonath wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long until someone provides a bundling service? For just $50/mo they'll give you Netflix/HBO/Discovery/PBS/etc thru a single interface.

Ah, but how will they? Startup: "Hey, Comcast, I'm a new startup trying to provide bundling services for all the fragmented streaming services out there! We feel we can offer a real win-win for both you and our customers by making it easier to subscribe and consume your service! And look at this awesome new Angular UI we built for your service that runs on Node.js backed by Mongo! It's web-scale!" Comcast: "Sorry, ki…

Apple: "Hey, Netflix & Hulu & Crackle & ... & HBO, we can double your revenue overnight if you'll consent to our bundling service."

Netflix & Hulu & Crackle & ... & HBO: "OK."

(Simplistic, yes; you fill in the details.)

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