201–210 of 335 posts
This is equivalent to shrinkflation: pay the same, get less. Streaming platforms want to retain most users, but also extract more value from them. Slowly a new threshold for what's "normal" is set, and perhaps then -more- adds can be added. There's no need to speculate where things go from there. Just look at where cable TV is.
As long as they have an add free option for a reasonable price I’m fine with it. It seems likely that with the money they are spending on shows streaming isn’t currently profitable. Looks like $2.99 extra a month gets you no ads.
At some point advertisers are going to say they don’t want to reach people who don’t pay the $2.99, and eventually the ad-free tier will become “limited ads”. Why would Amazon leave all that money on the table? Even PBS has about a minute and a half of “major corporate funders” ads on their nightly news.
I hope that it’s not inevitable though because there are so many streaming services, and because piracy and VPNs are an option.
If I had my way I’d create regulation that forces companies to offer ad free versions for some multiple above the ad supported price.
Imagine a world where a guy worth over 150 billion dollars who owns a company worth over a trillion dollars and has a quasi-monopoly over the internet is in such desperate need of more money to the point where he's going to put advertising on his video platform, even though people already pay for the platform. Instead of raising prices moderately, or putting better content on the platform, they decide to instead put…
1. Jeff Bezos no longer controls Amazon operations. 2. He doesn't own the company either, he owns a minority stake. 3. In what universe does Amazon come even remotely close to having a "quasi-monopoly" over the internet? This isn't true when limiting it to just e-commerce. 4. The majority of people actually prefer to watch ads over increasing prices. Streaming platforms ad-supported plans are MASSIVELY successful.
2. He owns a bit more than a minority stake, he owns (I've found several estimates, so I'm putting in a range here) between 9% and 12.5%. That's hardly a minority stake for a company worth nearly $1.5 trillion. He's the single largest shareholder.
3. Maybe not a full on monopoly, but AWS has the same market share in the cloud space as the next two providers combined. (MSFT + Google). That's as close to a monopoly as I can think in of a competitive industry without getting trust busted.
4. Most people I know would prefer to keep things the way they are - they pay for a premium service on top of already paying for Prime. If Amazon offered Prime Video for free but it was ad-supported, I'd be fine with that. I don't think I'm alone when I say that if I'm paying for a premium service (Video) on top of already paying for a service (Prime), Amazon shouldn't be allowed to triple-dip by selling ads.
Streaming platforms usually have ad-supported tiers, yes, but most of those are either free or very cheap.
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It is really not so repulsive to see the poor asking for money as to see the rich asking for more money. And advertisement is the rich asking for more money.
Presumably, the poor here asking for money is beggars literally just asking for money while advertisements are telling you about things you could get with money. It's a nice quip but it doesn't represent reality at all.
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> Just look at where cable TV is. With a cable DVR you can arbitrarily control the video stream. You never have to watch an ad if you don't want to. Amazon won't let you conveniently skip these ads. Streaming was always going to be about losing that freedom. Cable companies weren't bold enough to take that away, or it never occurred to them. The last time I had Spotify installed, it wouldn't even credit me with havin…
Even putting aside the ubiquity of tech like this: we had a particularly busy year and I ended up traveling a lot more often for work than I usually do, and it was insane to me how many fucking ads are in television now. Mind you I was a from the go cord cutter, when I left my parents and spread my wings, I never once wanted cable. I had it through them and it was... fine. Certainly not worth the absurd prices it goe…
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I live in Finland. My favorite place to get sportswear and just daily wear is H&M. No logos. My favorite design house is Makia. Really amazing stuff. https://makia.com/ but if it has a big-assed Makia logo I don't buy it. When I lived in New York there were so many options it was hard to choose, but I'd check out used clothing boutiques for fun things.
FWIW, in the US, H&M is known for fast-fashion, garbage-tier clothing. I've heard the brand is better outside the US, though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. Jeff Bezos no longer controls Amazon operations. 2. He doesn't own the company either, he owns a minority stake. 3. In what universe does Amazon come even remotely close to having a "quasi-monopoly" over the internet? This isn't true when limiting it to just e-commerce. 4. The majority of people actually prefer to watch ads over increasing prices. Streaming platforms ad-supported plans are MASSIVELY successful.
1. He's the chair of the board, so he has an outsized amount of control. He could easily fire the CEO or any other C-Suite members if he wanted to. 2. He owns a bit more than a minority stake, he owns (I've found several estimates, so I'm putting in a range here) between 9% and 12.5%. That's hardly a minority stake for a company worth nearly $1.5 trillion. He's the single largest shareholder. 3. Maybe not a full on m…
2. You're literally describing a minority stake here.
3. Last data point I saw was around 3% of internet traffic running through AWS. Also I'd say there's quite a large difference between the internet as an entity and the cloud infra a tiny part of it is run on.
4. Most people I know would prefer to get Prime for free but that's never gonna happen either. I'd wager that at this point the only cash flow positive streaming platform out there is Netflix which is simply not sustainable. So it's either cancel the product eventually, raise prices, or introduce ads. The vast majority of people would opt to go with the ads.
Imagine a world where a guy worth over 150 billion dollars who owns a company worth over a trillion dollars and has a quasi-monopoly over the internet is in such desperate need of more money to the point where he's going to put advertising on his video platform, even though people already pay for the platform. Instead of raising prices moderately, or putting better content on the platform, they decide to instead put…
1. Jeff Bezos no longer controls Amazon operations. 2. He doesn't own the company either, he owns a minority stake. 3. In what universe does Amazon come even remotely close to having a "quasi-monopoly" over the internet? This isn't true when limiting it to just e-commerce. 4. The majority of people actually prefer to watch ads over increasing prices. Streaming platforms ad-supported plans are MASSIVELY successful.
Everyone should have this bias. Then we wouldn’t have this shit show.