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> 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 retail

> 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.

cwyers 10y ago
> The problem with this argument is, financially, I'd be willing to pay $50/month for access to everything in a single distributor like Netflix. The problem with this argument is, financially, all the content distributors and rightsholders we currently have right now can't survive on that price. I mean, you're breaking out the dumb pipe provider into their own price bucket, so it's not apples-to-apples with current cable companies, but think of how much an everything package with a cable or satellite company costs, and think about how much content you don't get in such a package.
- kiba 10y ago
  They make the vast majority of their money on new content. Making money off their old catalog is more like a freebie when it's all milked out.
- thrownaway1984 10y ago
  So the solution is that Netflix change $8 Amazon charge $8 etc. I as a consumer pay for the services that have the shows I want. BUT instead of Netflix, Amazon, etc having their own site/app I use one aggregation site/app that seamlessly allows me to search for and watch all the content from the various services that I'm subscribed to in one interface.
rayiner 10y ago
You can say that of pretty much any product or service. People would rather get something illegally for free instead of paying to get it legally, if it's easy enough and the risk of getting caught is low. That by itself doesn't mean prices are too high or there is anything wrong with the market.
- thrownaway1984 10y ago
  Um the OP said she is willing to pay $50pm which is about 8x what netflix currently charge. She said that the inconvenience of having too many streaming services to choose from is the issue.
- fweespeech 10y ago
  > You can say that of pretty much any product or service. People would rather get something illegally for free instead of paying to get it legally, if it's easy enough and the risk of getting caught is low. That by itself doesn't mean prices are too high or there is anything wrong with the market. I'm talking about the quality/difficulty of service access, not the price. I probably should have just used $NN as the price. I've changed the OP from $50 to that if it makes it clearer. If you make me sort through 10 services, the time for the consumer to access the desired content is faster via piracy.
- maxander 10y ago
  Its a nice little bit of common wisdom that "free is always better," but its not actually true- if it were, Netflix and Spotify and their ilk would never have gotten off the ground, since there's not a thing they're selling that can't be pirated (and no realistic chance of punishment for piracy.) We're not homo economicus.
  - throwawaykf05 10y ago
    The main reasons Netflix, Spotify and their ilk exist are a) piracy is still not user-friendly enough for everyone, and b) people vastly overestimate the risk of getting caught for piracy. Both of these are largely due to the incessant efforts of copyright holders exerting their legal rights. We are, in the large, homo economicus.
harryh 10y ago
I don't understand. What's hard about having multiple streaming services? It's not all that different from having different channels on a TV.
- fweespeech 10y ago
  1) I don't own a TV because I find the hassle of dealing with a cable company and its business model excessive. 2) Dogpile vs. Google
  - harryh 10y ago
    About 85% of American households have cable TV. It sounds like your standards in this area are, ahem, a bit unusual. Perhaps it's not a great idea to extrapolate from your personal experience to the bulk of Americans and what they will or will not do when presented with a bunch of different streaming services.
    - fweespeech 10y ago
      http://fortune.com/2016/04/05/household-cable-cord-cutters/ http://fortune.com/2016/04/05/household-cable-cord-cutters/ > Combining the cord-cutting trend in recent years with the growing number of consumers who have never subscribed to cable television, a total of 24.6 million households, or 20.4% of all U.S. households, were cable-free at the end of 2015. Just fyi. And yeah, I don't really care about changing minds at this point. I've accepted I'm never going to be in the majority on anything.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  Not OP but: I don't want to have 10 different accounts to search/look through. It's not undoable, but it's extremely inconvenient. I'm just not going to keep up with who has what on their streaming catalogue if I can get it for free, and usually at a better quality, elsewhere. I just want to be able to turn on my TV, type a word and start playing.
- morgante 10y ago
  It's definitely a hassle to have to look through the various services to find which one actually has a bit of content, find the login for that service, and make sure that a bunch of separate accounts are maintained. This complexity removes one of the biggest advantages streaming is supposed to have over piracy: ease of use and effortlessness. In contrast, TV comes with a built in meta-discovery system. You can effortlessly switch between channels and even quickly summon up an overall display of which channels have which. It seems like there might be a hole opening in the market for a streaming aggregator which will provide a unified interface for managing your various subscriptions and switching between them (including to paid sources). It's too bad that every company would likely oppose such a service and thereby make it technically and legally impractical to maintain.

cwyers 10y ago

> The problem with this argument is, financially, I'd be willing to pay $50/month for access to everything in a single distributor like Netflix. The problem with this argument is, financially, all the content distributors and rightsholders we currently have right now can't survive on that price. I mean, you're breaking out the dumb pipe provider into their own price bucket, so it's not apples-to-apples with current cable companies, but think of how much an everything package with a cable or satellite company costs, and think about how much content you don't get in such a package.

kiba 10y ago
They make the vast majority of their money on new content. Making money off their old catalog is more like a freebie when it's all milked out.
thrownaway1984 10y ago
So the solution is that Netflix change $8 Amazon charge $8 etc. I as a consumer pay for the services that have the shows I want. BUT instead of Netflix, Amazon, etc having their own site/app I use one aggregation site/app that seamlessly allows me to search for and watch all the content from the various services that I'm subscribed to in one interface.

rayiner 10y ago

You can say that of pretty much any product or service. People would rather get something illegally for free instead of paying to get it legally, if it's easy enough and the risk of getting caught is low. That by itself doesn't mean prices are too high or there is anything wrong with the market.

thrownaway1984 10y ago
Um the OP said she is willing to pay $50pm which is about 8x what netflix currently charge. She said that the inconvenience of having too many streaming services to choose from is the issue.
fweespeech 10y ago
> You can say that of pretty much any product or service. People would rather get something illegally for free instead of paying to get it legally, if it's easy enough and the risk of getting caught is low. That by itself doesn't mean prices are too high or there is anything wrong with the market. I'm talking about the quality/difficulty of service access, not the price. I probably should have just used $NN as the price. I've changed the OP from $50 to that if it makes it clearer. If you make me sort through 10 services, the time for the consumer to access the desired content is faster via piracy.
maxander 10y ago
Its a nice little bit of common wisdom that "free is always better," but its not actually true- if it were, Netflix and Spotify and their ilk would never have gotten off the ground, since there's not a thing they're selling that can't be pirated (and no realistic chance of punishment for piracy.) We're not homo economicus.
- throwawaykf05 10y ago
  The main reasons Netflix, Spotify and their ilk exist are a) piracy is still not user-friendly enough for everyone, and b) people vastly overestimate the risk of getting caught for piracy. Both of these are largely due to the incessant efforts of copyright holders exerting their legal rights. We are, in the large, homo economicus.

harryh 10y ago

I don't understand. What's hard about having multiple streaming services? It's not all that different from having different channels on a TV.

fweespeech 10y ago
1) I don't own a TV because I find the hassle of dealing with a cable company and its business model excessive. 2) Dogpile vs. Google
- harryh 10y ago
  About 85% of American households have cable TV. It sounds like your standards in this area are, ahem, a bit unusual. Perhaps it's not a great idea to extrapolate from your personal experience to the bulk of Americans and what they will or will not do when presented with a bunch of different streaming services.
  - fweespeech 10y ago
    http://fortune.com/2016/04/05/household-cable-cord-cutters/ http://fortune.com/2016/04/05/household-cable-cord-cutters/ > Combining the cord-cutting trend in recent years with the growing number of consumers who have never subscribed to cable television, a total of 24.6 million households, or 20.4% of all U.S. households, were cable-free at the end of 2015. Just fyi. And yeah, I don't really care about changing minds at this point. I've accepted I'm never going to be in the majority on anything.
CaptSpify 10y ago
Not OP but: I don't want to have 10 different accounts to search/look through. It's not undoable, but it's extremely inconvenient. I'm just not going to keep up with who has what on their streaming catalogue if I can get it for free, and usually at a better quality, elsewhere. I just want to be able to turn on my TV, type a word and start playing.
morgante 10y ago
It's definitely a hassle to have to look through the various services to find which one actually has a bit of content, find the login for that service, and make sure that a bunch of separate accounts are maintained. This complexity removes one of the biggest advantages streaming is supposed to have over piracy: ease of use and effortlessness. In contrast, TV comes with a built in meta-discovery system. You can effortlessly switch between channels and even quickly summon up an overall display of which channels have which. It seems like there might be a hole opening in the market for a streaming aggregator which will provide a unified interface for managing your various subscriptions and switching between them (including to paid sources). It's too bad that every company would likely oppose such a service and thereby make it technically and legally impractical to maintain.