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Afrostream is shutting down

okayafrica.com

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Re: Afrostream is shutting down

#51

Post by gumbo »

jfc wrote: post #9
whalesalad wrote: post #4

The mission behind a company like this is admirable, but I can't help but feel like it is the wrong approach to diversity. It reminds me of BET... why would we want to segregate content to one specific channel or network? It feels backwards to me. True diversity would be having this content everywhere. A service like this is almost like a specialty kitchen item. My fiancée is a stickler for this stuff and it is somet…

Nothing to do with an approach to diversity. Just another startup that didn't get traction in its desired vertical. Look at Viki, a really popular VOD site, acquired by Rakuten for $200 million or so. Focuses heavily on South Korean, Chinese, and Japanese dramas. Segregation? More like making it easy for people who want to watch the shows to find and follow them regularly. Successful? Yep. This sort of media consumpt…

As an african from the diaspora I couldn't agree more. I think that one reason they did not succeed is that the people really sensible to the shows they had actually live in Africa instead of in the Diaspora. I know a lot of people in my country that do not watch anymore any movies from the US or from Bollywood. While my friends that are in the diaspora enjoy mainly watching popular shows or movies. The majority of people that did not go to school or cannot read or understand english don't relate to your typical american movie. It is just too far from their reality. We are all citizen of the world, but it is very difficult for the vast majority of africans to relate to movies about american's daily life or politics. Their reality is simply very different.

IMO Afrostream targeted the wrong audience. Now, one can argue that it would be a very hard sell $12 subscription to the audience that would have consumed it. That's just too much money for a lot of people.

Re: Afrostream is shutting down

#52

Post by toast0 »

sp332 wrote: post #6
majani wrote: post #2

I've always wondered whether VOD is an inherently unsustainable business model. The big daddy in the space charges $8-12 per month yet people regularly watch upwards of 10 movies per month on the service. That's less than $1 per movie?! Also, this forces anyone doing a similar business to charge even less than that to break into the market, so there reaches a point where we're talking fractions of pennies per movie o…

Once you've acquired the content, the marginal cost of a view is very low. So it makes sense to get as many customers as possible even if that means charging a lot less per view. And the stability of subscription income is nice too. I'm sure there are lots of people who have a $10/mo subscription going for years who hardly use the service at all.

I haven't seen any data for video content, but I imagine some content is pay $$$ to steam to as many users for a limited time, but much of it is probably pay $$$ to be able to stream it, plus $ each time it is streamed. And I imagine some deals are based on a share of revenue. I wouldn't be surprised if content was significantly more expensive than bandwidth.

Re: Afrostream is shutting down

#53

Post by sandGorgon »

dylz wrote: post #37
sandGorgon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what is the kind of infrastructure that needs to be built ? Very curious to know what are the big tech challenges if someone wants to build a VOD startup in a niche. How did Viki make it ?

Here are some tech challenges, this is strictly my opinion and shouldn’t be read too deeply, just a casual observation during lunch. My background is (as a hobby) I’ve built medium-sized >700m PV/m esports analytics apps targetted for Asia, covering CN/most of SEA, and have had to get local connectivity and local hosting as an "outsider" These countries are fairly insular. China: GFW (we all know about this), ICP lic…

This is mind boggling. Thank you for sharing this. I never knew that internet and traffic insularity was a thing outside of China.

Especially because this is such an alien concept in India.

Re: Afrostream is shutting down

#54

Post by T2_t2 »

> Let’s take the example of an African-American independent or Nigerian film (Nollywood) at € 3,000 per year of use.

What about giving away shares for content? I mean, if Afrostream gave away X% of the shares, in return for the rights to content outside the home country, the cost of content reduces to close to zero, and the money spent on operations and marketing starts to approach 100%.

This is a far less than ideal model, to be sure, but then, the company closing is a lot worse! Shares are worth nothing until there is a liquidation event, so maybe the play is to get the content providers to become shareholders?

I could see a play where content providers that have content worth essentially nothing (unless there is a marketplace for streaming Nollywood in the west I am unaware of {which is indeed extremely possible}) but for which they may be able to grow a market that, over time, has value. That seems like a win-win, or at least a no-lose-no-lose, situation.

Is that not worth pursuing?

Re: Afrostream is shutting down

#55

Post by EJTH »

Maybe don't make an etnocentric streaming site. Why would you even think that is a sane idea? Where is the white mans streaming service? This is borderline retarded.

Re: Afrostream is shutting down

#56

Post by dang »

EJTH wrote: post #55

Maybe don't make an etnocentric streaming site. Why would you even think that is a sane idea? Where is the white mans streaming service? This is borderline retarded.

We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop. Please don't create accounts to do this with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Afrostream is shutting down

#57

Post by EJTH »

dang wrote: post #56
EJTH wrote: post #55

Maybe don't make an etnocentric streaming site. Why would you even think that is a sane idea? Where is the white mans streaming service? This is borderline retarded.

We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop. Please don't create accounts to do this with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Dang. I think I asked a sensible question. What is the purpose of an etnocentric streaming service? Do you genuinely think this is a good idea? Poltiical affiliation aside this is just a horrible idea.

I guess you are in your good right to ban me, having a free market and all. Its just kind of perplexing to be honest. You add this makeshift appendum to the rules, yet I still see you enforce only one side.

Also I thought that worldstar was the number one afro video site.

Re: Afrostream is shutting down

#58

Post by gumbo »

watwut wrote: post #23
magic_beans wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a black person, sometimes I just want to watch a sitcom about regular black people, doing regular things. You'd think I'd be able to find this on streaming services. We have Atlanta and Insecure and Blackish now, but those are all tokens of their networks. BET and other Afro-centric networks/streaming services cater to that need for black people to escape from the constant bombardment of white lives and white issu…

Question from non-american: do you perceive there being difference between show about regular black people doing regular things and show about regular white people doing things? What is different? Besides skin color and hair style.

As an african from the diaspora I couldn't agree more. I think that one reason they did not succeed is that the people really sensible to the shows they had actually live in Africa instead of in the Diaspora. I know a lot of people in my country that do not watch anymore any movies from the US or from Bollywood. While my friends that are in the diaspora enjoy mainly watching popular shows or movies. The majority of people that did not go to school or cannot read or understand english don't relate to your typical american movie. It is just too far from their reality. We are all citizen of the world, but it is very difficult for the vast majority of africans to relate to movies about american's daily life or politics. Their reality is simply very different.

IMO Afrostream targeted the wrong audience. Now, one can argue that it would be a very hard sell $12 subscription to the audience that would have consumed it. That's just too much money for a lot of people.

Re: Afrostream is shutting down

#59

Post by Geekette »

As some comments imply it was strength of or "approach to diversity" in the market that caused the failure, it should be noted the post outlined: What caused Afrostream to close is not lack of traction or market demand but lack of capital. The more subscribers gained, the more content thus, more funding required. The VOD industry has high operating costs (content acquisition, marketing, localization, tech, etc) and a longer breakeven timeline (note cited examples of other much bigger but not yet profitable companies including Netflix). Afrostream addressed a sizable but ignored niche with demand demonstrated in user growth and it is unfortunate that they couldn't get more funding.
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