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

2020 Bundles

stratechery.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 70 posts

Re: 2020 Bundles

#41

Post by msla »

claudiulodro wrote: post #15
lawrenceyan wrote: post #13

It's honestly been amazing to see the utter decimation traditional television/media has encountered over the last decade. An entire generation of kids is growing up without ever having watched TV thanks to Youtube and Twitch.

To be fair, there were only ever like 4 generations in the history of the world that grew up watching TV. Interesting to think about!

For most things, appointment media is going back to where it was prior to the 20th Century: Live performances, including sports, where seeing it with a crowd is part of the appeal. Scheduling your day to catch a program, be it "Fibber McGee and Molly" or "Leave It To Beaver" or "Cheers" or "Friends", will seem as bizarre to someone in 2050 as it might have to someone in 1850.

Re: 2020 Bundles

#42

Post by kjs3 »

dgudkov wrote: post #24

One of the most successful examples of bundling is Microsoft's enterprise plans. For instance, the top E5 plan includes so much enterprise software for so low price that it creates the perception of free software. MS Office? Free. Power BI? Free. Etc. Tableau, which I believe is a more sophisticated data visualization application is getting squeezed out from enterprise accounts. Why? Because Power BI is "free". Bundl…

Nothing in E5 is 'free', it's just included in a much more expensive license. What Microsoft has done successfully is convince people to just give up and write one big check because figuring out how to optimize spend for what you need is intentionally obtuse. Bundling is powerful, especially when used as a weapon.

Hey! Power BI is free! But we don't need it. Too bad! Try to put together a license bundle that both doesn't include it and cost less than our E5 and we'll make you wish you hadn't.

Which is especially galling because we paid for an E3 because "it was all in there", but we found out quickly we'll, yes, the product is there, but the feature of the product you need is an up-sell license. So we pay for individual up-sells, and then get hit with "hey, why not just cave and get an E5...whether you need it all or not".

I'm sorry, but Microsoft's enterprise licensing is simply a nightmare. We're months into trying to make decisions about whether to go to E5, and we still get evasion from the Microsoft folks and the discussion quickly devolves to "just pay for the E5...it's easier". Don't even get me started on the "what of our huge investment in on-prem licenses are applicable to Azure/O365?". The Microsoft sales people just chuckle.

Re: 2020 Bundles

#43

Post by sharkjacobs »

claudiulodro wrote: post #15
lawrenceyan wrote: post #13

It's honestly been amazing to see the utter decimation traditional television/media has encountered over the last decade. An entire generation of kids is growing up without ever having watched TV thanks to Youtube and Twitch.

To be fair, there were only ever like 4 generations in the history of the world that grew up watching TV. Interesting to think about!

And cable television as we know it has only existed since the 90's, generously since the 1980's

Re: 2020 Bundles

#44

Post by scarface74 »

dgudkov wrote: post #24

One of the most successful examples of bundling is Microsoft's enterprise plans. For instance, the top E5 plan includes so much enterprise software for so low price that it creates the perception of free software. MS Office? Free. Power BI? Free. Etc. Tableau, which I believe is a more sophisticated data visualization application is getting squeezed out from enterprise accounts. Why? Because Power BI is "free". Bundl…

Heck even Office 365 for personal use is amazing. It’s the same price as DropBox and you get up to 6TB (1TB per person but you can combine it) of storage for the same price plus everything else for up to six people.

Re: 2020 Bundles

#45

Post by scarface74 »

kodablah wrote: post #8
ErrantX wrote: post #5

> sports, meanwhile, is well on its way to being the only reason to keep the traditional bundle. Semi-side note but I feel this will go soon too. Amazon are starting to show sports, inclusive with Prime Video, in the UK.

I have just become a first-time cord cutter, if you can even call it that, with YouTube TV's recent opt-in inclusion of the RedZone channel. I still got way more (admittedly obscure) sports with my cable package, but this finally reached enough parity to move on. The real reason that sports fans should remain with their traditional bundle is the UX. With cable, if I want to flip between a dozen college football games…

YouTube TV, Hulu Live TV, and the like are not what I would call “cord cutting”. They are using the same business model as cable and you still have a bundle of channels you don’t want.

Am I really a cord cutter with Hulu Live TV just because my TVs get TV streamed over an Ethernet cable (all of my TVs are connected to Ethernet directly or via a set top box) instead of coax?

Re: 2020 Bundles

#46

Post by robotresearcher »

kjs3 wrote: post #42
dgudkov wrote: post #24

One of the most successful examples of bundling is Microsoft's enterprise plans. For instance, the top E5 plan includes so much enterprise software for so low price that it creates the perception of free software. MS Office? Free. Power BI? Free. Etc. Tableau, which I believe is a more sophisticated data visualization application is getting squeezed out from enterprise accounts. Why? Because Power BI is "free". Bundl…

Nothing in E5 is 'free', it's just included in a much more expensive license. What Microsoft has done successfully is convince people to just give up and write one big check because figuring out how to optimize spend for what you need is intentionally obtuse. Bundling is powerful, especially when used as a weapon. Hey! Power BI is free! But we don't need it . Too bad! Try to put together a license bundle that both do…

They are deliberately creating an information asymmetry to exploit, where none naturally exists. I really dislike these sales strategies. I mean I really, really dislike them.

How can we discourage them in the market? Is 'no sale' all we have to employ against these tactics?

Re: 2020 Bundles

#47

Post by [deleted] »

sharkjacobs wrote: post #43
claudiulodro wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, there were only ever like 4 generations in the history of the world that grew up watching TV. Interesting to think about!

And cable television as we know it has only existed since the 90's, generously since the 1980's

[deleted]

Re: 2020 Bundles

#48

Post by kumarvvr »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #13

It's honestly been amazing to see the utter decimation traditional television/media has encountered over the last decade. An entire generation of kids is growing up without ever having watched TV thanks to Youtube and Twitch.

Yup. I became a father in 2015. Bought a TV in 2019. Never got a cable connection. Just bought a FireTV stick and have never ever felt that I was missing something. My kid loves to speak to the remote and watch youtube cartoons.

My wife is into regional language soaps and there are a myriad of apps that stream them. I have Amazon Prime for my Seinfeld binges. Some movies that I ahem get from the interwebs, I stream from my PC using VLC player app.

And all this in India, with a capped (200 GB a month) broadband connection. Never once experienced delays / lagging / buffering. And the base cost is Amazon Prime (15 USD per year, plus it has Prime benefits, Prime music, etc), internet (12 USD per month), misc apps (30 USD per year).

On average, that is about 20 USD per month (but that includes cost for Internet that I would pay for anyway, so actual incremental cost is 5 USD per month), for almost unlimited content.

A standard Cable connection would alone cost me about 10 USD a month.

Re: 2020 Bundles

#49

Post by [deleted] »

Swizec wrote: post #39
javajosh wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crucial to what? To making content "better", meaning more potent, more addictive, more alluring than real life? I'd argue that broadcast TV was an okay middle ground, because if you were addicted you were a couch potato. Now, we are all couch potatoes but without the couch, and without the social opprobrium, or even the opposite!, the world is a generally worse place. I mean, I love 3blue1brown, but is he worth the s…

I mean, Plato did always complain that writing makes people stupid and kids these days are ruining society because they can’t speak well or remember anything. And I think books were ruining kids these days in the 1600’s In 1800’s it was populist flashy newspapers with clickbait headlines 1900’s was radio 1950’s was TV Now it’s social media There’s always something. People who want to escape their lives will find a wa…

[deleted]

Re: 2020 Bundles

#50

Post by zwayhowder »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #13

It's honestly been amazing to see the utter decimation traditional television/media has encountered over the last decade. An entire generation of kids is growing up without ever having watched TV thanks to Youtube and Twitch.

An actual conversation with my son a few years ago:

  Son: Dad you said you've never lied to me...
  Me: I don't believe I have.
  Son: You told me you loved Looney Tunes when you were my age, but you also told me that YouTube didn't exist when you were my age. So how could you have loved Looney Tunes when you were my age?
Post reply on HN