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A couple of years ago, in the U.S., Amazon Prime had some HBO and a few other headliners, some overlap with Netflix, and otherwise kind of blew. Since then, an

A couple of years ago, in the U.S., Amazon Prime had some HBO and a few other headliners, some overlap with Netflix, and otherwise kind of blew. Since then, and particularly this year, Netflix is to the point where I can barely find anything to suit me except when one of the Marvel series launches. Amazon Prime still has the old HBO stuff -- to which they've added a few seasons. And seem to be picking up a few non-original titles each month that I actually don't mind watching. Some of the stuff disappearing from Netflix seems to be showing up on Prime. At the same time, they've lost a number of titles I enjoyed. But they seem to be doing better than Netflix. As far as I'm concerned, all Netflix past rhetoric about streaming being the future, has proven to be crap. I now kind of wish I had pirated, before everything started locking down so much. In lieu, I'm paying attention to my friends who have accumulated an amazingly substantial collection of discs. Especially if and where I can find them at bargain prices, it seems a better application of my money. I can rewatch at leisure, loan them to friends, and eventually rip them for durability/longevity. P.S. If I ever move somewhere where the public library isn't so distant, like some other friends, I'll throw my active support (and not just tax dollars) behind it.

dragonwriter 10y ago
Netflix was the first, had everything [0], and then once they proved the model, people threw money into competing with them, including buying exclusives, but even when the fact that Netflix was no longer a monopsony meant that the price for back catalog titles could only go up. Netflix, predictably, did exactly what (e.g.) HBO did when the same thing started happening, and shifted resources to original content, while still filling the gap with other people's content. > As far as I'm concerned, all Netflix past rhetoric about streaming being the future, has proven to be crap. Streaming is, I think, still the future, its just that paying a monthly service fee for the universal catalog of all streaming content (which works if the vendor is a monopoly on the consumer side and a monopsony in their relation to content creators, but not otherwise) is not. Instead, there'll be places you buy long-term streaming rights to particular titles and places where pay monthly for the privilege of streaming whatever's currently in their catalog, for which the best quality stuff will usually be either first-party or exclusively licensed, but there will also likely be some lower quality (from the perspective of the broad consumer marketplace, not necessarily any individual consumer) non-exclusive filler content, as well. (And there may be outlets where you don't pay for streaming, but its advertising backed.) IOW, just like Broadcast TV/Basic Cable + Premium TV + VHS/DVD/BluRay, but with streaming. [0] A dramatic exaggeration, obviously.

dragonwriter 10y ago

Netflix was the first, had everything [0], and then once they proved the model, people threw money into competing with them, including buying exclusives, but even when the fact that Netflix was no longer a monopsony meant that the price for back catalog titles could only go up. Netflix, predictably, did exactly what (e.g.) HBO did when the same thing started happening, and shifted resources to original content, while still filling the gap with other people's content. > As far as I'm concerned, all Netflix past rhetoric about streaming being the future, has proven to be crap. Streaming is, I think, still the future, its just that paying a monthly service fee for the universal catalog of all streaming content (which works if the vendor is a monopoly on the consumer side and a monopsony in their relation to content creators, but not otherwise) is not. Instead, there'll be places you buy long-term streaming rights to particular titles and places where pay monthly for the privilege of streaming whatever's currently in their catalog, for which the best quality stuff will usually be either first-party or exclusively licensed, but there will also likely be some lower quality (from the perspective of the broad consumer marketplace, not necessarily any individual consumer) non-exclusive filler content, as well. (And there may be outlets where you don't pay for streaming, but its advertising backed.) IOW, just like Broadcast TV/Basic Cable + Premium TV + VHS/DVD/BluRay, but with streaming. [0] A dramatic exaggeration, obviously.