7 ms·

It's a conspiracy to extract as much profit from consumers as possible. If everyone has Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, Prime Video, YouTube and iTunes subscriptions th

It's a conspiracy to extract as much profit from consumers as possible. If everyone has Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, Prime Video, YouTube and iTunes subscriptions then large rights holders extract more money. It's been said before, but the premium cable TV channel model is what they're going for.

partiallypro 10y ago
If you account for all the content discrepancies between each online video provider...ditching cable doesn't actually make much economic sense. The one reason I think many people -are- ditching cable is not because it's cheaper (when you're actually paying for it) it's that people are sharing accounts and don't bear the full brunt of the cost.
- serge2k 10y ago
  On demand shows and no ads.
- jethro_tell 10y ago
  Or because I don't want ads, I want stuff on demand, I want my accounts to be independent of my physical location, I can pick and choose the services I'm subscribed to, and finally I want to use a streaming box for everything not a cable box, and streaming box, and a dvd player.
  - takno 10y ago
    Well, that was why I got Amazon Prime, and then they introduced ads. Albeit only ones for their content, but I didn't want to get constantly "informed" about a series I'd already completely watched between every damn episode of the thing I'd chosen to watch. If I run out of stuff to watch on Netflix I doubt Amazon will be my next port of call
    - jethro_tell 10y ago
      Yeah, I won't get everything with all of these providers, but I try to prioritize my spending toward the companies that match the closest to what I want. Netflix tends to be at the top.
  - partiallypro 10y ago
    Ads have been rendered useless with DVR, and most every cable and satelite provider has online streaming for free as a part of their offering. Most of those streaming services work on virtually every console and standalone streamers like AppleTV and Roku. None of what you said holds water when you look at it objectively and economically. I hate cable companies as much as the next guy, but if you actually compare your budget on cable vs streaming, you'll often find that streaming costs more if you're trying to get close to the same offerings.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      It really depends. There's very little that I watch on my TiVo or real-time. I certainly watch more through Amazon/Netflix plus DVDs. Pretty much the only thing that keeps me from dropping cable TV is the fact that I can't get anything OTA so dropping cable TV would mean dropping TV 100%. (I do periodically toy with the idea of idea of dropping down to non-HD basic cable. But it's a bit like dropping landline phone service. It would save some $$s but I would be giving up a service that I use, albeit lightly.)
- kbutler 10y ago
  You're asserting that with cable you can watch what you want when you want? Never had that cable subscription.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Between many channels on-demand programming and DVR, cable often isn't too far from "what you want when you want".
- rconti 10y ago
  Ditching cable doesn't make economic sense if you're watching everything they're sending your way.
onion2k 10y ago
Unless people get annoyed enough to stop paying for streaming services and go back to piracy, and then all these businesses lose.
- ake1 10y ago
  welcome back to the free service that is easier to use.
rayiner 10y ago
That doesn't really make any sense. Netflix doesn't want you to have a Hulu subscription. They'd love to be the one that has all the content. It's the content creators driving this. They don't want any one distributor becoming too powerful, because that distributor would then have too much leverage over the content creators.
- khedoros 10y ago
  >> If everyone has [list of services] then large rights holders extract more money. > It's the content creators driving this. You're agreeing with the post you replied to.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    My reading of his argument is that it's a conspiracy between Netflix, Hulu, etc, to make more money for themselves. They're not the rights holders.
    - khedoros 10y ago
      > They're not the rights holders. I understand it, and I'm not sure why you felt the need to state it. > My reading of his argument is that it's a conspiracy between Netflix, Hulu, etc, to make more money for themselves. I was trying to find a nice way to say "I think that you read the argument wrong". darpa_escapee's argument is about a conspiracy of content owners. The conspiracy that they're talking about is spreading content from the major providers across as many distribution channels as possible, so that one would have to subscribe to half a dozen services to get access to all the media produced by a particular content owner, for example.
    - darpa_escapee 10y ago
      Sorry if I wasn't clear. khederos clarified my argument well. Netflix is at the behest of the rights holders who want to collect licensing fees from as many customers as possible. One way to do that is to divide their content catalogs among many different services.
cwyers 10y ago
It's not a conspiracy, there's no backroom deals made through a haze of cigar smoke. The value of streaming rights is increasing, non-streaming revenue for the same content is slowly shrinking, there's multiple streaming services out there bidding up the rights to content, and the rightsholders are behaving appropriately according to their incentives. Remember, part of what made Netflix possible to begin with was the fact that the content they were licensing had already made its money through theatrical runs, cable deals and home video for movies, and original network fees and syndication rights for TV shows. So the content holders only had to worry about marginal revenue over negligible costs -- you can get very little for the content and still come out ahead. As streaming becomes a bigger and bigger piece of the pie, it canibalizes those other revenue channels, and more and more streaming money is required to make it revenue-positive. The market is reacting.
- rayiner 10y ago
  It's also the way the market should work. Content creators are selling a non-fungible product. Streaming services are to a great extent, fungible, like retailers. In fact, as content creators get their arms around streaming, I expect more of them to set up their own "shops" instead of relying on retailers, in the same way Apple and Tesla do.
  - fweespeech 10y ago
    > It's also the way the market should work. Content creators are selling a non-fungible product. Streaming services are to a great extent, fungible, like retailers. In fact, as content creators get their arms around streaming, I expect more of them to set up their own "shops" instead of relying on retailers, in the same way Apple and Tesla do. The problem with this argument is, financially, I'd be willing to pay $NN/month for access to everything in a single distributor like Netflix. If the effort required to stay legal exceeds reason [which is what you are suggesting with N channels purchased separately] why bother? I've honestly reached a point where I'm completely indifferent to anything that isn't already on Amazon Prime or Netflix. Create a dozen distributors and people will just pirate things.

partiallypro 10y ago

If you account for all the content discrepancies between each online video provider...ditching cable doesn't actually make much economic sense. The one reason I think many people -are- ditching cable is not because it's cheaper (when you're actually paying for it) it's that people are sharing accounts and don't bear the full brunt of the cost.

serge2k 10y ago
On demand shows and no ads.
jethro_tell 10y ago
Or because I don't want ads, I want stuff on demand, I want my accounts to be independent of my physical location, I can pick and choose the services I'm subscribed to, and finally I want to use a streaming box for everything not a cable box, and streaming box, and a dvd player.
- takno 10y ago
  Well, that was why I got Amazon Prime, and then they introduced ads. Albeit only ones for their content, but I didn't want to get constantly "informed" about a series I'd already completely watched between every damn episode of the thing I'd chosen to watch. If I run out of stuff to watch on Netflix I doubt Amazon will be my next port of call
  - jethro_tell 10y ago
    Yeah, I won't get everything with all of these providers, but I try to prioritize my spending toward the companies that match the closest to what I want. Netflix tends to be at the top.
- partiallypro 10y ago
  Ads have been rendered useless with DVR, and most every cable and satelite provider has online streaming for free as a part of their offering. Most of those streaming services work on virtually every console and standalone streamers like AppleTV and Roku. None of what you said holds water when you look at it objectively and economically. I hate cable companies as much as the next guy, but if you actually compare your budget on cable vs streaming, you'll often find that streaming costs more if you're trying to get close to the same offerings.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    It really depends. There's very little that I watch on my TiVo or real-time. I certainly watch more through Amazon/Netflix plus DVDs. Pretty much the only thing that keeps me from dropping cable TV is the fact that I can't get anything OTA so dropping cable TV would mean dropping TV 100%. (I do periodically toy with the idea of idea of dropping down to non-HD basic cable. But it's a bit like dropping landline phone service. It would save some $$s but I would be giving up a service that I use, albeit lightly.)
kbutler 10y ago
You're asserting that with cable you can watch what you want when you want? Never had that cable subscription.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Between many channels on-demand programming and DVR, cable often isn't too far from "what you want when you want".
rconti 10y ago
Ditching cable doesn't make economic sense if you're watching everything they're sending your way.

onion2k 10y ago

Unless people get annoyed enough to stop paying for streaming services and go back to piracy, and then all these businesses lose.

ake1 10y ago
welcome back to the free service that is easier to use.

rayiner 10y ago

That doesn't really make any sense. Netflix doesn't want you to have a Hulu subscription. They'd love to be the one that has all the content. It's the content creators driving this. They don't want any one distributor becoming too powerful, because that distributor would then have too much leverage over the content creators.

khedoros 10y ago
>> If everyone has [list of services] then large rights holders extract more money. > It's the content creators driving this. You're agreeing with the post you replied to.
- rayiner 10y ago
  My reading of his argument is that it's a conspiracy between Netflix, Hulu, etc, to make more money for themselves. They're not the rights holders.
  - khedoros 10y ago
    > They're not the rights holders. I understand it, and I'm not sure why you felt the need to state it. > My reading of his argument is that it's a conspiracy between Netflix, Hulu, etc, to make more money for themselves. I was trying to find a nice way to say "I think that you read the argument wrong". darpa_escapee's argument is about a conspiracy of content owners. The conspiracy that they're talking about is spreading content from the major providers across as many distribution channels as possible, so that one would have to subscribe to half a dozen services to get access to all the media produced by a particular content owner, for example.
  - darpa_escapee 10y ago
    Sorry if I wasn't clear. khederos clarified my argument well. Netflix is at the behest of the rights holders who want to collect licensing fees from as many customers as possible. One way to do that is to divide their content catalogs among many different services.

cwyers 10y ago

It's not a conspiracy, there's no backroom deals made through a haze of cigar smoke. The value of streaming rights is increasing, non-streaming revenue for the same content is slowly shrinking, there's multiple streaming services out there bidding up the rights to content, and the rightsholders are behaving appropriately according to their incentives. Remember, part of what made Netflix possible to begin with was the fact that the content they were licensing had already made its money through theatrical runs, cable deals and home video for movies, and original network fees and syndication rights for TV shows. So the content holders only had to worry about marginal revenue over negligible costs -- you can get very little for the content and still come out ahead. As streaming becomes a bigger and bigger piece of the pie, it canibalizes those other revenue channels, and more and more streaming money is required to make it revenue-positive. The market is reacting.

rayiner 10y ago
It's also the way the market should work. Content creators are selling a non-fungible product. Streaming services are to a great extent, fungible, like retailers. In fact, as content creators get their arms around streaming, I expect more of them to set up their own "shops" instead of relying on retailers, in the same way Apple and Tesla do.
- fweespeech 10y ago
  > It's also the way the market should work. Content creators are selling a non-fungible product. Streaming services are to a great extent, fungible, like retailers. In fact, as content creators get their arms around streaming, I expect more of them to set up their own "shops" instead of relying on retailers, in the same way Apple and Tesla do. The problem with this argument is, financially, I'd be willing to pay $NN/month for access to everything in a single distributor like Netflix. If the effort required to stay legal exceeds reason [which is what you are suggesting with N channels purchased separately] why bother? I've honestly reached a point where I'm completely indifferent to anything that isn't already on Amazon Prime or Netflix. Create a dozen distributors and people will just pirate things.