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It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

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Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#171

Post by WorldMaker »

dijit wrote: post #84

Woman I know cycles her subscriptions, consumes what she has on backlog and then just moves onto the next. It seems to work for her, although I don't think I'd be comfortable doing that because I would miss out on pop-culture references. (I mean, one only has to look at imgur.com for a few minutes to notice a lot of Mandalorian memes, the cynic in me even considers that this might be due to Disney shilling that conte…

The vast amount of Mandalorian memes seems to directly reflect Disney was correct to return to a weekly release schedule and away from the Netflix model of binge watching. Netflix shows often generate memes for a weekend or a week if Netflix is lucky, then dissipate quickly. With new Mandalorian episode each week, social media has been inundated with weekly fresh memes like clockwork.

It could also just be a Star Wars effect and that this is the first Star Wars TV series of any kind so that's also going to balance in its favor, or that it struck a nerve.

Ironically, Disney's lawyers actually tried to shut down some of the memes with DMCA takedowns in an instinctive bit of trying to control their copyrights. I'm not sure Disney quite expected the social media firestorm they created with The Mandalorian either.

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#173

Post by chipotle_coyote »

ce4 wrote: post #51
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want an "iTunes for movies". You... know that iTunes sells movies, right?

This is probaby not what he meant, movies on iTunes, Google movies, etc all have DRM while music doesn't. He just wants to "do basically anything with the file other than redistribute it."

That's fair, although with the current state of things it's a tougher ask. Even so, the iTunes for movies is, arguably, iTunes -- or Amazon's equivalent. (I do wonder whether DRM-free videos would have followed in the same way DRM-free music did if that market had taken off and streaming hadn't; at this point there's probably little commercial motivation to studios to make that change, as they'll just say "instead of buying that, subscribe to [insert video service here].")

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#174

Post by chipotle_coyote »

paranoidrobot wrote: post #54
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An actual 'A la carte' situation is that of the consumer being able to actually handpick the shows they want and only pay for those. This will never happen due to the industry being absolutely hostile to the idea... We've been able to do this with a substantial number of shows for years, though, by buying individual episodes or "season passes" on Amazon and iTunes. Maybe people just don't know, maybe people think t…

The problem with buying Season Passes is that they're usually a terrible option for many reasons. They're usually not available until well after the season premiered (12+ months later), roughly at the same time that the DVD/Bluray comes out. The quality of them is iffy, at best - SD or HD at poor bitrates. Fine for watching on a tablet or laptop, marginal at best on a TV/Surround system. They're tied to watching on t…

The season passes I bought on iTunes -- which was admittedly some years ago at this point -- actually added each episode the day after they aired on TV. It's my impression that's still the case with most shows; the exceptions are shows on "premium cable" channels like HBO. The bit rates of the shows that I got were comparable to most of the files that I'd previously pirate^H^H^H^H^H^Hfound just lying on the street like they'd fallen off the back of trucks.

The rest of your complaints are certainly true, though. As I mentioned in another reply, I think it's possible that if this a la carte model had taken off, there would have been successful pressure to go DRM-free just the way that there had been for music, although your mention of region-locking brings up that whole "international rights" folderol that's still with us even in the streaming world, so...

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#175

Post by chipotle_coyote »

Goladus wrote: post #136
lotsofpulp wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many hundreds of hours of entertainment for $167? Granted it has almost no marginal cost for the seller, but as you said, you can buy HBO for a fraction of $167 and still watch it. People just like to complain. It has never been cheaper or easier to instantly consume media, yet there is no satisfaction (because they’re comparing it to stealing the media, which is illogical of course). Of course, there are legitim…

> How many hundreds of hours of entertainment for $167? That's not relevant. The simple fact is that $167 for a season is well beyond the budget of the average person whose opinion you're considering. "Hours of entertainment" is (always) the wrong formula, by the way. Nobody needs to steal anything to enjoy hours of free entertainment doing a myriad of activities. Most TV shows simply make no effort at all to price e…

> The simple fact is that $167 for a season is well beyond the budget of the average person...

That's true, but the number quoted by the previous poster doesn't match what I'm seeing right now on Amazon, where each season tends to run around $25 on Blu-ray.

> Most TV shows simply make no effort at all to price either episodes or full seasons for a wide market.

I'm not sure I agree with "most." You even cite one example of a show that's priced reasonably and one that's, well, not. The "one size fits all" model of pricing that was adopted years ago seems to be built for weekly-at-most shows, not daily ones. I do think the pricing model was too high, though. (I'd have probably tried $2 per show for HD, not $3, and given tremendous discounts, like 50% off, for season passes. But I don't know whether you can feasibly make that model work for a show like General Hospital at all.)

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#176

Post by chipotle_coyote »

cyborgx7 wrote: post #115
lotsofpulp wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many hundreds of hours of entertainment for $167? Granted it has almost no marginal cost for the seller, but as you said, you can buy HBO for a fraction of $167 and still watch it. People just like to complain. It has never been cheaper or easier to instantly consume media, yet there is no satisfaction (because they’re comparing it to stealing the media, which is illogical of course). Of course, there are legitim…

> It has never been cheaper or easier That's exactly the thing though. It has been easier. We all remember it being easier, when we pirated something. The actual sentence should be "it has never been easier while also getting to pay for it". That's just not a very compelling case.

I think I'm with allstairSH here, sorry; I just didn't find piracy to be easier than paying for content. Your "all you need is a web browser" case is fine as long as there's something you can browse to that has the content you want -- and as long as the use case is something like what you want, which I think you said was watching stuff in a web browser on a low-end Unix laptop. My use case is very often watching on a 4K television in my living room. And, frankly, I'm not sure what piracy method is easier even in the only-web-browsing case for me compared to "browse to streaming site with desired content."

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#177

Post by chipotle_coyote »

josteink wrote: post #71
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An actual 'A la carte' situation is that of the consumer being able to actually handpick the shows they want and only pay for those. This will never happen due to the industry being absolutely hostile to the idea... We've been able to do this with a substantial number of shows for years, though, by buying individual episodes or "season passes" on Amazon and iTunes. Maybe people just don't know, maybe people think t…

> This is what we all want price-wise, but would we really, truly want to turn Netflix into the equivalent of the iOS App Store for essentially all legal streaming movies and television? You mean like the music industry has Spotify, Google Music, Deezer, Tidal, Apple Music and many many more, and everyone has a 99% full catalog? You better motherfucking believe it. This is the only thing people want in the ultra lagg…

Of the services you listed, to the best my knowledge, exactly zero of them are profitable yet. Tidal is eternally on the brink of bankruptcy. Deezer's situation has been so bleak they pulled their IPO a few years ago. Google Music and Apple Music are essentially loss leaders being subsidized by their owners. Spotify has always burned through money like it was going out of style. And artists are eternally complaining -- with cause -- that nearly all of them make less money under this system than they did under the old one.

You know what Spotify thinks is the way forward for them? Exclusives. That's why they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on podcasts. You may love it if they're functionally undifferentiated from their competitors, but they don't. Apple and Google can slide because they're Apple and Google, but services that actually need to pay their own way need to give you a reason to pay them, not Apple or Google.

So, sure. Consumers love "pay $10 a month to whoever you want, eh, it's all the same, tomato, tomahto." But it's not at all clear to me that it's a sustainable model in the long run. And I'm pretty sure the reason the video streaming world didn't even pretend to take a stab at that business model is they don't think it is, either.

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#178

Post by cyborgx7 »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #176
cyborgx7 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has never been cheaper or easier That's exactly the thing though. It has been easier. We all remember it being easier, when we pirated something. The actual sentence should be "it has never been easier while also getting to pay for it". That's just not a very compelling case.

I think I'm with allstairSH here, sorry; I just didn't find piracy to be easier than paying for content. Your "all you need is a web browser" case is fine as long as there's something you can browse to that has the content you want -- and as long as the use case is something like what you want, which I think you said was watching stuff in a web browser on a low-end Unix laptop. My use case is very often watching on a…

I'm sure their approach is either for a lot of people. But it is a huge burden for me. And if they just gave me access to the files and maybe an api, it would work for both of us, instead of just for you.

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#179

Post by Lammy »

starky wrote: post #169
Lammy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because I don’t pay any extra for it with my Prime subscription. I see their advertising is effective. The price of Prime was even increased recently to help fund video production.

Amazon Prime price is still $79CAD as it has been since I signed up and I definitely get my money's worth. I actually didn't even realize it came with Prime Video when I signed up. Additionally, I make use of Amazon Photos unlimited backup for ~250GB of the raw files from my camera, any other cloud backup service would cost a similar amount every year.

I'm still a member, at least for now, but have been through two price increases: first from USD $79/yr to $99, and again recently from $99 to $119. I'm glad it works for you, but I doubt I'll renew this year due to the increased price, the horrible ways Amazon treats its employees, and the way the Amazon marketplace itself has become a wasteland of counterfeit products.

[] Not even talking about the warehouses, but literally every SWE friend of mine who has worked for them has a horror story.

Re: It’s not a zero-sum game for Apple TV+, Netflix, and Disney+

#180

Post by fluffything »

yegle wrote: post #152
fluffything wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might not be a zero sum game for them, but it definetely is a zero-sum game for me. When I want to watch something, I just want to click it and watch it. This is the API that my torrent tracker gives me for free (Airplay to Apple TV works great for this). I'm willing to pay for a service that I use a lot and gives me an API that's at least as good as this. But it doesn't make any sense for me to pay for 5 services…

FWIW, the Google Play Movies (yes, the app on Android) provide an aggregated search based on the service you subscribed to. You can simply filter free TV/movie to see what's available to you, so you don't need to deal with 5 apps if you have 5 services.

Good to know. Sadly, Apple TV doesn't have this yet.
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