YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99 • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#251

Post by happymellon » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 5:58 AM UTC

Jeremy1026 wrote: post #237

keithwinstein wrote: post #12

ObShameless reminder that https://puffer.stanford.edu remains free of charge. The site streams San Francisco affiliates and local stations of NBC/CBS/ABC/PBS/FOX/CW as part of a university study on video streaming algorithms -- it's essentially a big A/B test to try to reproduce or clarify some of the findings in the research literature. We're now posting all our data and analysis each day. Research talk here: https:…

Replying to save for later.

Or click on the favourite link, or bookmark it, or literally anything else other than worthless comments like this.

This isn't Facebook.

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#252

Post by exikyut » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 6:00 AM UTC

Plough_Jogger wrote: post #145

crazygringo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no lawyer, but it doesn't exactly seem legal. Streaming free local network broadcasts was definitively ruled as illegal by the Supreme Court in 2014 -- remember that was Aereo's entire business model. [1] It seems like the Stanford service is trying to justify themselves by being an academic study and limiting to 500 concurrent participants... but it's telling they don't list any legal justification on the site,…

An interesting aspect of Aereo's model is that they attempted to circumvent these regulations by leasing each customer an individual antenna which they could access remotely. They maintained "antenna farms" full of tiny antennas.

Wow, what did that look like?

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#253

Post by listenallyall » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 6:01 AM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #194

mkhpalm wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about other people but I don't "think" I want a la carte, I absolutely know I do. So much so that I don't pay for anything because nobody offers what I'm willing to pay for.

Many of those channels you "don't want" actually subsidize the channels you do want.

Further, most channels he does want can only exist in a bundled world, since too few people would pay for that specific channel a la carte

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#254

Post by justapassenger » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 6:08 AM UTC

CivBase wrote: post #200

justapassenger wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why they don't do that with YouTube channels too. Let users pay $1 or $2 a month to disable ads on a channel (or $10 a month for "YouTube Premium"). That seems much more sustainable than relying exclusively on ads for income and loosing potential subscription customers to Patreon. They could even offer higher priced, per-channel subscription tiers that ad flairs to comments and unlock emojis like…

> Complex subscription options are one of the easiest way to lose subscribers. Source? Twitch and Patreon get along just fine. The existing options can continue as they are. > It's far from being proven. YouTube has already swallowed the expensive part of the deal - creating a video hosting platform. I'm just asking them to augment their monetization scheme that other platforms have already demonstrated demand for. >…

> Source? Twitch and Patreon get along just fine. The existing options can continue as they are.

It’s how human brain operates. We’re very easily overwhelmed with multiple options.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/iese/2018/11/05/cant-decide-wha...

> Source for what?

Source for a claim that selling ads is extremely unstable. Check alphabet or Facebook earning reports from last 10 years.

> I don't know if YouTube operates at a profit or not, but that's not really relevant.

How is operating at profit not relevant in a context of a business model? Especially when suggested business models of companies that lose money, like patreon, as a something that YouTube should be doing.

We’re so deep in the bubble now. Real business models and profits are irrelevant as long as they seem cool.

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#255

Post by bonestamp2 » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 6:09 AM UTC

caymanjim wrote: post #119

I love YoutubeTV, and I've been using it for years. This is probably enough to get me to cancel, though. It started at $40 when I signed up a couple years ago, they raised it to $50 last year, and now $65 for just a few more channels (and among them, only one I even want). I wish they'd offer a more a la carte option. I'd be willing to pay $10-15 per major broadcaster's channel collection, or $2-7 for individual chan…

Now they're doing the exact thing that drove everyone away from their cable company to them in the first place. It's clear misunderstanding of their customers. I'm sure most of the HN demographic would have no real trouble affording this 30% rate hike, but it's not about the actual money, it's about the principle.

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#256

Post by twic » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 6:09 AM UTC

bonestamp2 wrote: post #246

nerfhammer wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

always wondered if netflix couldn't have had warehouses full of dvd drives to avoid licensing fees. wouldn't work for new releases with a lot of peak demand but maybe it would be more feasible for the back catalog of older titles.

When you buy a consumer DVD, that DVD only has a license for home viewing. Video stores require a special license to rent out videos. So, I assume netflix would have to pay that fee at least (which they probably already had for their mail order DVDs).

They wouldn't rent the DVD to you. They'd sell it to you, with an agreement to buy it back later on. First-sale doctrine, baby!

They might also need to sell you a short-term lease on that particular drive bay, so that you are playing the DVD in your own home too.

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#257

Post by sails » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 6:10 AM UTC

sutterbomb wrote: post #132

strangescript wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the services fault. These big tv conglomerates don't want their channels optional because they know no one wants them for the most part. Or, at the very least, you won't accidentally start watching something on their network if you don't even have the channel.

Everyone thinks they want a la carte, but (most) everyone is wrong. Bundling is generally better for consumers and producers. https://cdixon.org/2012/07/08/how-bundling-benefits-sellers-... Stratechery also has written about this

This [1] article on the four myths of bundling agrees

[1] https://coda.io/@shishir/four-myths-of-bundling

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#258

Post by drgath » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 6:12 AM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #151

mnm1 wrote: post #78

Have they figured out how to play the show you click on yet? No. $50 a month and the basic functionality of the app doesn't even work. With a Chromecast, it's even worse. Eventually, after clicking back and forth, disconnecting and reconnecting, it may play. Then you have to turn off the closed captioning for every single show even though it's off in the settings. Then it randomly stops at times. The ui displays the…

Sounds like you have a generation 1 Chromecast™ and bad WiFi. We hope you'll try YouTube TV again with a Chromecast Ultra™ and a Nest Wifi™ 3 pack. Take care!

Asking someone to spend $400+ just to upgrade equipment in order to support a service that doesn’t work well on the original equipment you sold them, takes some guts.

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#259

Post by Hamuko » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 6:23 AM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #216

aahhahahaaa wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah holy crow it has gotten way worse? are episodes shorter or something? I think I just sat through 5 minutes of ads.

Hour shows are 40 minutes. Half hour are 18.

Didn't it used to be like 22/44 or 24/48?

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#260

Post by ChuckMcM » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 6:25 AM UTC

At $20 they were disruptive, at $65, they are dead to me. I will be interesting to see how many others leave. The "teaser" cable package is more channels and half the cost.

I think it is just a continuing trend in Google getting squeezed harder and harder by the falling search advertising margins and no replacement or even side hustle to compensate.

Just before Google winks out of relevance I expect to see them try to charge people to use maps.