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Ultimately what everyone wants is a super easy interface to pay for precise a la carte content, never bundled, never subscription-based. I 100% do not want thi

Ultimately what everyone wants is a super easy interface to pay for precise a la carte content, never bundled, never subscription-based. I 100% do not want this. I want to pay for one subscription to get all the media I want (music, tv shows, movies, books, etc). And I don’t care at all about ownership. I’d pay $50-100/month for this subscription, and we’re getting close if you don’t mind cobbling together a half dozen subscriptions and using a bunch of different apps.

super-serial 8y ago
That's expensive if you don't watch much TV. I just watch sci-fi shows and wish I could put my money just towards those types of shows. My perfect subscription would be a mix, where I pay a small fee per month but can try out individual shows. If I like the show I'd pay for the rest of the season. For example Amazon now has The Expanse, Starz has Counterpart, Netflix has Black Mirror and I also liked the new Lost in Space. Hulu has... Future Man? CBS All Access has... the ability to ruin Star Trek, so I might want to watch that train wreck. Anyway if there was a cheap subscription like Amazon Prime which allowed me to try out a couple free episodes, then pay $3 per episode that would work. That way I feel like I'm supporting the specific shows I want to see.
mlthoughts2018 8y ago
You start by saying you don’t want a unified interface where you can get exactly the content you want, then your very next sentence is that you want a single unified interface to get exactly the content you want. It sounds like you specifically do want a single interface for a la carte content (note: this has nothing to do with ownership vs restricted access), and you currently achieve something like this with a combination of subscription products that bundle a bunch of content you do want with a bunch of other content you don’t want but also don’t care about. A situation where the price is broken down to individually activate just the content you want and not the content you don’t would offer exactly the same experience but with less irrelevant content and you’d only pay for what you choose to consume. In other words, the concept of “I pay for one subscription and get exactly and only all the content I personally want” is equivalent to a unified portal for a la carte purchasing.. activating an on-going payment for ability to see Show A and never activating the same payment for Show B which you don’t care for. The “subscription price” is just the total price of your personal a la carte activations (be they ownership purchases, rentals, or recuring payments to license access to that singular content). At any rate, your comment here is explicitly contradictory.
- ryanwaggoner 8y ago
  You’ve misread my comment. The unified interface part is not what I objected to. I explicitly do NOT want to pay a la carte. I understand what you’re saying about only paying for what I consume and not paying for any irrelevant content. And yet, I prefer a subscription, even if the total cost is higher. I don’t want the cognitive overhead of constantly trying to decide if it’s worth a little bit of money to purchase or rent a specific piece of content. I’d much rather pay a flat fee once per month for all-you-can-consume access. If we were talking about something very expensive, then my position might differ, but in the grand scheme of things, this is relatively trivial, so I’m happy to pay a few extra bucks to not think about it as much.
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    > “I don’t want the cognitive overhead of constantly trying to decide if it’s worth a little bit of money to purchase or rent a specific piece of content.” But you already engage with this decision-making overhead when deciding what to watch and not watch. It’s built into any viewing system whether it’s all-you-can-watch after entry in a portal or not. Also I hardly believe you never purchase on-demand content at all, especially since no combination of subscription services currently covers everything, and large chunks of content still can only be purchases in an on-demand fashion.

super-serial 8y ago

That's expensive if you don't watch much TV. I just watch sci-fi shows and wish I could put my money just towards those types of shows. My perfect subscription would be a mix, where I pay a small fee per month but can try out individual shows. If I like the show I'd pay for the rest of the season. For example Amazon now has The Expanse, Starz has Counterpart, Netflix has Black Mirror and I also liked the new Lost in Space. Hulu has... Future Man? CBS All Access has... the ability to ruin Star Trek, so I might want to watch that train wreck. Anyway if there was a cheap subscription like Amazon Prime which allowed me to try out a couple free episodes, then pay $3 per episode that would work. That way I feel like I'm supporting the specific shows I want to see.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

You start by saying you don’t want a unified interface where you can get exactly the content you want, then your very next sentence is that you want a single unified interface to get exactly the content you want. It sounds like you specifically do want a single interface for a la carte content (note: this has nothing to do with ownership vs restricted access), and you currently achieve something like this with a combination of subscription products that bundle a bunch of content you do want with a bunch of other content you don’t want but also don’t care about. A situation where the price is broken down to individually activate just the content you want and not the content you don’t would offer exactly the same experience but with less irrelevant content and you’d only pay for what you choose to consume. In other words, the concept of “I pay for one subscription and get exactly and only all the content I personally want” is equivalent to a unified portal for a la carte purchasing.. activating an on-going payment for ability to see Show A and never activating the same payment for Show B which you don’t care for. The “subscription price” is just the total price of your personal a la carte activations (be they ownership purchases, rentals, or recuring payments to license access to that singular content). At any rate, your comment here is explicitly contradictory.

ryanwaggoner 8y ago
You’ve misread my comment. The unified interface part is not what I objected to. I explicitly do NOT want to pay a la carte. I understand what you’re saying about only paying for what I consume and not paying for any irrelevant content. And yet, I prefer a subscription, even if the total cost is higher. I don’t want the cognitive overhead of constantly trying to decide if it’s worth a little bit of money to purchase or rent a specific piece of content. I’d much rather pay a flat fee once per month for all-you-can-consume access. If we were talking about something very expensive, then my position might differ, but in the grand scheme of things, this is relatively trivial, so I’m happy to pay a few extra bucks to not think about it as much.
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  > “I don’t want the cognitive overhead of constantly trying to decide if it’s worth a little bit of money to purchase or rent a specific piece of content.” But you already engage with this decision-making overhead when deciding what to watch and not watch. It’s built into any viewing system whether it’s all-you-can-watch after entry in a portal or not. Also I hardly believe you never purchase on-demand content at all, especially since no combination of subscription services currently covers everything, and large chunks of content still can only be purchases in an on-demand fashion.