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

Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

techdirt.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 556 posts

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#101

Post by matwood »

roland35 wrote: post #97
jfim wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay per view has the drawback of requiring too many decisions, leading to decision fatigue. Subscribing to a service for $20/mo is a one time decision, whereas figuring out if the show you're about to watch is worth $0.30 gets tiring really quickly. Monthly credits works a bit better, but the all you can eat model completely avoids this.

That is a good point, I have a harder time deciding if I want to spend $3-4 to rent a movie on Amazon than just pulling up Netflix and browsing around! Plus I don't feel like I wasted money if I don't enjoy a movie and stop watching (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs sorry!). On the other hand I don't mind buying music, since I basically know the entire song ahead of time, and I don't think I ever buy more than $10 worth…

> That is a good point, I have a harder time deciding if I want to spend $3-4 to rent a movie on Amazon than just pulling up Netflix and browsing around!

I'm the opposite. It's easier to spend money on something I'll probably like vs. spending time on something that's likely mediocre. What normally happens is I browse around Netflix watching previews for an hour, get bored, and go do something else.

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#102

Post by tyingq »

Hasn't driven me to piracy. It has, however, driven me to subscribe/unsubscribe as needed. Paid for a month of HBO, for example, mostly for the Chernobyl series, watched that and a few movies, unsubscribed.

I think that pattern might hurt these services more than piracy.

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#103

Post by Bombthecat »

hunta2097 wrote: post #20
sbarre wrote: post #6

"May" drive them back? This has already happened in my circles.. People who had cut the cord but all but walked away from casual piracy and signed up for Netflix and HBO (and probably Prime Video because they had Amazon Prime already) are openly talking about the fact they're definitely not signing up for more streaming services, and are seeking out torrenting again for the stuff that's being pulled from Netflix (esp…

I think there is a model for rotating streaming provider. You can easily watch a year's worth of a provider's [good] content in 3 months. Just change provider every 3 months to a different one, then binge it all. Maybe a service that automatically deactivates your account at the best point in the billing-cycle? If you could do it without too much overlap you could actually do it on a monthly basis: Jan - Netflix Feb…

Until the streaming services go full circle: show is only visible money to Friday next episode next week. When all episodes are "aired" they start from episode one from Monday to Friday. So that you need to be subscribed for several months. (that's when they go back to more episodes which they just cut to 10)

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#104

Post by matwood »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #62
eitland wrote: post #14

No surprise. Even we (HN) predicted this the moment the first content company withdrew their content from Netflix. Two reasons: 1. People only have so much money. 2. When people compare it to what they used to payit seems unfair. People complain when gas prices increases by a few percent, no wonder they complain when they suddenly have to pay twice or even three times for the same content they used to pay one low mon…

I remember the days (circa 2009/2010) where the main complaint about streaming Netflix was that there was nothing on it compared to the disk collection. When exactly did that change? There must have been a brief “monopoly period” when Netflix had all of the content, but I don’t remember it.

> There must have been a brief “monopoly period” when Netflix had all of the content, but I don’t remember it.

I think it's important to segment the content into movies and TV shows. At one point Netflix did have a lot of popular TV shows, and new seasons seem to show up pretty quickly. Netflix never really had a huge selection of popular movies. Some here and there, but never a deep catalog.

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#106

Post by TeMPOraL »

aquova wrote: post #32

I was discussing with a friend that in some bizarre alternative universe where things had played out differently, cable would seem like the great alternative to all the streaming services we have now. You only have to pay one monthly fee, and you have thousands of choices available to you! Sure, it's not on demand, but with so many options, and many things on a regular schedule, finding things to watch is easier than…

The cable suffered because of two things: aggressive market segmentation with channel packs, and ads. Without these two, cable TV would be like Twitter for TV - a streaming service with a weird but perhaps adorable limitation that the streaming schedule is set for you.

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#107

Post by dagw »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #50
mcv wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I'd prefer to have everything on Netflix, I'm definitely going to get Disney+. Not a fan of Disney the corporation, but if Disney+ contains everything Star Wars, everything Marvel, everything from Jim Henson, and everything from all their other properties, there's no way I'm going to pay for easy access to that. We don't even watch regular TV anymore at my home. It's either Netflix or Youtube.

There are only one or two Marvel or Star Wars movies a year though. Is that really worth subscribing to a streaming service for? (Not to mention that only maybe a quarter of these movies are worth seeking out, the rest are something I’d only ever watch for free on an airplane or something. But that’s just personal taste).

Two movies time 4 movie tickets pr movie (for a family) is pretty close to one years worth of streaming service.

If you're also the sort of person that considers popcorn an integral part of the movie watching experience then the streaming services is almost certainly cheaper even if you only watch those two movies a year.

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#108

Post by vanderZwan »

personlurking wrote: post #48
hunta2097 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a model for rotating streaming provider. You can easily watch a year's worth of a provider's [good] content in 3 months. Just change provider every 3 months to a different one, then binge it all. Maybe a service that automatically deactivates your account at the best point in the billing-cycle? If you could do it without too much overlap you could actually do it on a monthly basis: Jan - Netflix Feb…

Though unrealistic, all things considered, there needs to be a single site for everything (akin to pirated tv/film sites, incidentally). The user would go to a central place where all streaming options are available to be browsed and watched. The point of differentiation would be at payment, as the cost to the user, for whatever they just selected, would go to those who own the rights. No walled gardens, everyone win…

> Though unrealistic, all things considered, there needs to be a single site for everything (akin to pirated tv/film sites, incidentally).

I'm from the Netherlands. I live in Sweden. In both countries the banks have been able to set up a shared service to make digital payments easy for consumers, despite them being competitors[0][1]. In the Netherlands we also have one national transport chip-card used by all public transport providers[2].

Based on that I would say that what this may need is just the right amount of (and type of) government regulation to force the different competitors to play nice enough to create a better end-product for consumers and to compete healthily with each other. I won't pretend to know what that regulation would look like though.

[0] https://www.tikkie.me/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swish_(payment)

[2] https://www.ov-chipkaart.nl/home-1.htm

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#109

Post by tbyehl »

scarface74 wrote: post #18
sbarre wrote: post #6

"May" drive them back? This has already happened in my circles.. People who had cut the cord but all but walked away from casual piracy and signed up for Netflix and HBO (and probably Prime Video because they had Amazon Prime already) are openly talking about the fact they're definitely not signing up for more streaming services, and are seeking out torrenting again for the stuff that's being pulled from Netflix (esp…

“Your circle” unless it includes families with small kids, isn’t Disney’s primary audience. Most normal middle class people aren’t going to go through the trouble of pirating movies and setting up a Plex server and then worry about setting up their router to get a good connection while they are away from home and even then deal with the abysmally slow upload speed of the typical home network instead of spending $8 a…

> Most normal middle class people aren’t going to go through the trouble of pirating movies and setting up a Plex server

But they probably have a friend who has a friend who put in the effort and is willing to share.

Re: Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy

#110

Post by TeMPOraL »

apexalpha wrote: post #105

People forget you don't need to pay for all of them yourself. About 5 people share the Netflix I use. I suppose someone else will get Disney and give me access.

That's true. But streaming services are also heavily underutilized. My Netflix subscription is used by 5 to 6 people - that's why I actually pay for the highest tier, to minimize the chance that somebody will be locked out because others wanted to watch something else at the same time. Even 5-6 people, I doubt my Netflix account is used for more than 10-15 hours a week in total.
Post reply on HN