Afrostream is shutting down
okayafrica.com
Afrostream is shutting down
1–10 of 59 posts
Re: Afrostream is shutting down
#2I'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 on some services. How is any of this sustainable given the massive cost of acquiring the content in the first place, and is there any VOD service with healthy profits that you can point me to?
Re: Afrostream is shutting down
#3I'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…
I imagine that one could do well if you break into a niche that isn't really represented in other platforms. If you could make an indie VOD you may be able to get content cheaper and then you can market to those who like indie films.
Re: Afrostream is shutting down
#4The 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 something I really love about her. She hates speciality, single-use items. Take the cherry-pitter[1]. It's obnoxiously large, like a beefy can opener, and the only thing it does is remove pits from cherries (and, apparently Olives). She doesn't want stuff like that in our kitchen, and I don't blame her.
Regardless of your cultural background, why might you want to buy a standalone TV/streaming package for one vertical of content? I think we'd all agree the future would might involve a-la cart purchases like this... but we aren't there yet. Once you combine your Basic TV via Sling or Playstation Vue, Netflix for the riff-raff, and an add-on luxury package like HBO GO - you don't have any more room for speciality items. They need to be REALLY special in order to work. Just like the cherry pitter – there just isn't any room left in my drawers for a single purpose item.
[1] https://www.oxo.com/products/preparing/fruit-vegetable-tools...
Re: Afrostream is shutting down
#5I'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…
I imagine that one could do well if you break into a niche that isn't really represented in other platforms. If you could make an indie VOD you may be able to get content cheaper and then you can market to those who like indie films.
Or old content.
Spotify provides access to a huge back catalogue and although it probably reduces the value of some content it monetises other old content that was basically dead.
Currently Netflix has a tiny library, when you take into account 50 years of film ripe for rediscovery.
Anyone know what the blocker is?
Re: Afrostream is shutting down
#6I'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.
Re: Afrostream is shutting down
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
I imagine that one could do well if you break into a niche that isn't really represented in other platforms. If you could make an indie VOD you may be able to get content cheaper and then you can market to those who like indie films.
Or old content. Spotify provides access to a huge back catalogue and although it probably reduces the value of some content it monetises other old content that was basically dead. Currently Netflix has a tiny library, when you take into account 50 years of film ripe for rediscovery. Anyone know what the blocker is?
The blockers are that old content that people are willing to pay for is more expensive than you think (tons of competition right now), and that rights management is incredibly expensive and Byzantine even for the big companies. To take the simplest example, what do you do when an attractive property is owned by a company that went out of business, or that can't be reached? And that's just the easiest scenario.
Re: Afrostream is shutting down
#8The 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…
True diversity is The Pirate Bay.
All the reasons why we can't have unfettered legal access to The Pirate Bay are also reasons why your utopian approach to "true diversity" is wrong-headed.
Re: Afrostream is shutting down
#9The 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 consumption is here now.
AfroStream did the same thing as Viki but instead of Asian countries used the African diaspora. Didn't follow them so don't know what the business reasons are for their failure, but relating it to diversity and segregation seems unwarranted.
It's more like they were targeting the long tail of media consumption, even if unsuccessfully.
Re: Afrostream is shutting down
#10The 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…
It's remarkably simplistic to draw analogies between small kitchen appliances and cultural-diversity in a way that suggests that the latter is even remotely as "clean" as the former. Diversity is intensely emotional for those in minority populations, and it cuts to the heart. A cherry pitter merely cuts to the pit of a piece of fruit.
So, from a business model perspective, an emotionally-connected underserved niche can represent a viable opportunity.
>why would we want to segregate content to one specific channel or network... >True diversity would be having this content everywhere.
Yes, that would be true diversity. But, it's not what we have. Hence, the opportunity for what you referred to as "segregation".
It's kind of a wishful world vs. the real world thing. Consider that, for those in a majority population, content that is specific to them is segregated as well...to all channels/networks.
But, populations that are underserved in media don't just go away because the content is not dispersed as one might wish. So, they represent a niche that is ripe to have their needs served via a medium that is exclusive to them. In that way, they are no different from any other underserved economic niche, on which a business might do well to focus.