38 ms·

Of course people would rather pay $10 a month to access everything, but that's just not sustainable. Look at Netflix's own financials. They got into content cre

Of course people would rather pay $10 a month to access everything, but that's just not sustainable. Look at Netflix's own financials. They got into content creation and they're now deep in debt despite their massive subscriber base. I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Isn't that what we hated about cable? Didn't we beg for the ability to pick and choose what we actually want to pay for? Now we finally have that and people instantly want to go back? Why? If Netflix doesn't make enough content that interests you then stop giving them money and give it to whoever does instead. I thought this is what we wanted.

mjevans 7y ago
The Industry can't get this simple message in to it's collective head: The convenience needs to be better and cheaper (including perceived risks') than piracy to win. These are the things they MUST do: * One payment, that's reasonable. * All the content from FOREVER accessible FOREVER in one place. Honestly, that's it for most people. For me they also need to... * Be DRM free so that it actually works on OSes that respect my privacy.
- icelancer 7y ago
  >> The convenience needs to be better and cheaper (including perceived risks') than piracy to win. Exactly. People saying "well it's not profitable" or this that and the other are missing the boat. Piracy is always going to exist and it's always going to be basically free. There is no beating that. That is the new reality we are in. Now, they must adjust to that reality, whether they like it or not. Many services have and many people pay plenty of money because of it. But we're rapidly moving to a place where piracy is simpler than what we have now, which is embarrassing for paid services.
  - edanm 7y ago
    It kind of sounds like you're getting your history backwards here. Piracy has existed for almost 2 decades at this point. Back then, people were making the argument that the industry needs to adjust, needs to make things as simple and cheap as piracy is, etc.
- Freak_NL 7y ago
  It would be nice if this problem could be solved through cooperation rather than just hoping a unicorn will appear. A flat subscription fee, perhaps with tiered pricing in terms of content resolution and number of concurrent users in a household. Figure out some fair distribution key for the viewer's contributions. Newer content gets a higher slice of the pie to encourage investing in new content, but older content under copyright (like a 40 year old film) will still bring in some money, and it makes sense to make a back catalogue available. Allow users to use their own clients if they wish (technically possible if you forget about DRM), and let enthusiasts create a user experience no platform has ever seen that can rival the ease of use of piracy (e.g., Popcorn Time, and similar services). Start out as a conglomerate of big studios with a clear short to midterm business model, but aim to set up a non-profit custodian in the long term to handle the maintenance and development of the platform, and make it possible to represent any content owner in a fair way — because if you don't, you'll end up the target of anti-trust lawsuits. This won't happen because of greed of course. Ah well, there is always piracy to supplement a Netflix/Disney/Whatever subscription and just pretend it does exist.
cyborgx7 7y ago
> I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Sounds like a perfect case for publicly funded infrastructure to me. > Now we finally have that We don't. We still have the one or two things we want packaged in with a ton of stuff we don't. It's actually worse. Each package (subscription platform) has one or two things we want distributed accross all of them, which a bunch of stuff we don't want packaged in. Not seeing how this is a good system.
- crystalmeph 7y ago
  >> I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. >Sounds like a perfect case for publicly funded infrastructure to me. Why would it be a case for publicly funded infrastructure? We’re talking about entertainment, not highways or clean water. As a consumer, yes, I would prefer an option to pay only for the shows I want to watch, but I don’t see why your tax dollars should fund my preferred method of entertainment.
- hiram112 7y ago
  > Sounds like a perfect case for publicly funded infrastructure to me. No thanks. My paychecks, after state and fed taxes, fica, retirement, insurance, etc are down to literally half of my actual salary. I don't want another few percent pilfered so I can subsidize my fellow Americans' NCIS and Dog the Bounty Hunter habits.
ilikepi 7y ago
> I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Isn't that what we hated about cable? Didn't we beg for the ability to pick and choose what we actually want to pay for? Now we finally have that and people instantly want to go back? Why? Well, that's only half of it. The other half is that people became fed up with their bills, not realizing that everyone has a unique subset of channels they liked, and paying for the full bundle was a way to subsidize all the other channels. Sadly it's rather difficult to balance these two issues.
atombender 7y ago
People aren't asking for a single distribution channel in the sense of a single monolithic company owning all the IP. They do want (1) convenient apps that aggregate, such as Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video, and (2) a way to get all the content without having to pay lots of individual companies (I'm subscribing to around 5 streaming services myself). Why can't video be like music? Spotify and Apple Music aggregate pretty much all the music in the world now. You don't have to sign up Warner and Sony and a thousand other labels to play music. There are stragglers, of course, but they're getting fewer. If this model works for Spotify et al, why can't it work for movies and TV? Moreover, all the music is licensed through a single IP rights licensing system. It's what allows music to be played on the radio and so on. I know very little about how it works technically, but it seems to work just fine.
- noelsusman 7y ago
  This is a good point, though Spotify hasn't been without its bumps. It has lost money almost every year and substantially reduced the total amount of money artists receive from people listening to their music. Artists have been forced to find alternative revenue streams to remain solvent, and it has taken a hammer to the "middle class" of musicians. All of this has been great for the consumer since we get cheap music, but if we want to port the same system over to shows/movies then we need to think through the implications of reducing the total amount of revenue that content creators get from people watching their content. Where are the alternative revenue streams? You can't take a TV show on tour. It's definitely possible, theoretically, but I'm not sure it's possible at a price point that people actually want to pay. Making video content is orders of magnitude more expensive than making music.
  - wool_gather 7y ago
    It's funny; I think that Spotify is an insanely good deal. I would absolutely pay more for the service, a lot more. I'd probably use it more if I were paying more, too, so maybe it wouldn't work out for them. But in my opinion, they're underpriced.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
hanklazard 7y ago
Or check out DVD.com (old-school Netflix) if you’re looking for selection. It’s way better for movies and TV shows if you’re willing to wait a few days.
Alupis 7y ago
> They got into content creation and they're now deep in debt despite their massive subscriber base. I've found that while Netflix has some decent original content - the overwhelming majority of it is garbage and totally uninteresting. Sometimes I feel some of the Netflix Originals where mothballed from normal venues, so Netflix picked it up, failing to realize why nobody else wanted to produce it in the first place. As just an example, I was a huge fan of Arrested Development - but continuing that show where it left off after ~10 years of not being on air... it just didn't "have it" anymore... And... when I search for a movie, it seems about 90% of the time they don't have it. Instead, they recommend a bunch of Netflix Original's that totally aren't what I'm looking for.
- addicted 7y ago
  The best Netflix originals are the British shows they've rebranded as Netflix originals in the US. The actual Netflix created ones have largely missed the mark for me.
  - ljm 7y ago
    And a lot of 'Netflix originals' over in the EU are essentially localised variations of a theme. The theme is usually the end of the world, zombies, or the dead coming back to life. Or some horrible phenomena at the edge of a forest, and the once peaceful town is under attack from the supernatural. What makes it worse is that Netflix now dubs foreign content by default to make it all look English. And they do their best to trick you.
    - jrnichols 7y ago
      what's frustrated me about Netflix originals is the same thing that drove me away from a lot of traditional TV - some awesome shows being cancelled after 2-3 seasons. I had hoped that Netflix would at least give their own shows a good story arc, but nope. they're doing the same thing Fox/CBS/NBC do. i still much prefer shows without commercials, though.
      - 7y ago
iamnotacrook 7y ago
"I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Isn't that what we hated about cable? Didn't we beg for the ability to pick and choose what we actually want to pay for? Now we finally have that and people instantly want to go back? Why?" I don't know about anyone else but I'm interested in shows, not channels. I'm not going to sign up to 10 channels - that'd cost too much and some months I'd probably watch nothing on some of them. If I could pick and choose which shows I watched I'd have no problem with a low-friction "sign up via email and pay for what you watch" but that's not the offer. Your suggestion is fine for people who are rich and have loads of time to watch hours of tv every day. That's not the target for these companies though - they recognize it's a zero-sum game and want it to be them you pick over Netflix (or vice versa).
wnevets 7y ago
>They got into content creation and they're now deep in debt despite their massive subscriber base. because content companies started holding their content hostage for higher fees or outright refusing to allow netflix to license it. Netflix creating their own content was a matter of survival.
inetknght 7y ago
> I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Isn't that what we hated about cable? Didn't we beg for the ability to pick and choose what we actually want to pay for? Now we finally have that and people instantly want to go back? Why? 1) I don't want to pay for content I won't watch. 2) I don't want to be required to pay for content I won't watch in order to watch content I want to watch. 3) I want to easily watch the content I want without needing to have dozens of different separate accounts or services. I mean similar to "press button, get bacon" style of easy. 4) I want to pay in money and nothing else. I don't want to pay with my data; I don't want to pay with my viewing history. 5) I want to watch whenever and wherever I choose, no take-backs.
- ohithereyou 7y ago
  The only system that can cover all five of your points right now is piracy. 1) No charge, so you're not paying for content you won't watch 2) Same as 1 3) A torrent client speaking RSS + a private torrent site that serves RSS covers this 4) You pay with nothing - no money, no data, and no viewing history 5) Files without DRM can be played on any device and cannot be retroactively deleted by the service provider Piracy really is most often a services problem.
  - austhrow743 7y ago
    Physical discs.
    - snuxoll 7y ago
      DRM, high cost, and ironically, poor availability (I bought all the seasons of ER in 1080p off iTunes, there exists no Blu-Ray sets for the show and the DVDs are often more expensive than what I paid Apple for digital copies that I promptly stripped the DRM from)
  - jogundas 7y ago
    That's right! It would be interesting to see how torrented series statistics correlate with online streaming prices. My feeling is that as Netflix-like services become more expensive and/or fragmented, piracy picks up. Don't have any numbers to back this up with though.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Content creation? Unjustifiably huge budgets on stars, sets and effects with pocket change relatively speaking for the scripts and stories, especially after the first season. $100m to buy a minor series about comedians in cars that cost $100k an episode to make. $100m! No wonder their financials look ropy. > Didn't we beg for the ability to pick and choose what we actually want to pay for Erm, no? Don't know about the US but the UK experience of cable and satellite was a basic package with dire content, then every interesting thing was £££ extra. By the time you had a reasonable selection you were at £50-£100 a month. more if you wanted the sport channels. So we didn't cable cut, we never signed up in the first place. Compared to the licence fee it was always appalling value. Netflix want nearly a whole BBC yearly licence fee, and deliver a tiny fraction of the content. Not that I like all the Beeb do. :) When we cancel Netflix (very soon going on current programmes), it'll be back to terrestrial only as none of the streaming services now have "enough". So whatever comes to the BBC and Channel 4 then. I'd start torrenting again before subscribing to Amazon, Disney or whoever just to watch one interesting series, then hope I remember to cancel timely enough.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ninth_ant 7y ago
You’re making the alluring mistake of thinking of a monolithic “we” who all want the same thing. In reality people have many preferences and desires, and they pay for streaming services or not for a variety of reasons. Some people are maybe sick of being stuck with a giant cable company and are happy to pay for many streaming services. Other people likely still have cable and use streaming to supplement that for specific shows. Others have different reasons.
- mc32 7y ago
  Maybe they can have different subscription levels for different audiences, either resolution or content library or freshness. Although seeing that it’s artificial and only the resolution could have justification I’m not sure enough of their subscribers would identify of find value in that differentiation.
icelancer 7y ago
>> If Netflix doesn't make enough content that interests you then stop giving them money and give it to whoever does instead. This isn't the alternative reality Netflix and others are fighting. People are just going to pirate it if they can't offer it easily and at a price that the market will accept. There is no escaping that. It is on them to adjust, not the consumers.
deegles 7y ago
Why is it not sustainable? Because of content licensing fees. If video content was treated (i.e. regulated) like radio with a fixed price per minute then there would be competition for one stop streaming services instead of walled gardens.
lonelappde 7y ago
The too common refrain is people arguing talking themselves in circles trying to prove that they should get more content for a lower price due to some incoherent ad hoc theory of economics. Paying a la cart is "ripping us off by nickel and dime", and bundling is "cable packages, ugh".
rorykoehler 7y ago
You can only watch so much content. Streaming platforms should pay the content creators based on what is actually watched. The fact that they chose to also produce content is irrelevant. That's a completely separate business and if they mixed their books that's their mistake and they have to deal with it.
autokad 7y ago
I think streaming is incredibly worth it. if you watch anything with advertisements, that's typically 1/3 of your time watching commercials, thus if you make 50 an hour, you pay for your streaming service in just 1 hour. 10 hours if you make a 10th that, which its still paid for in a week for most people. its a fair argument that I spent about a year of my childhood watching commercials. thats 3240$ in netflix subscriptions to get that back. I think streaming has incredible value, and broadcast television's value proposition is extremely poor. I hope once people start doing the math, tv commercials is a thing of the past, or at least there is 1 commercial per break. that being said, netflix does have some deep concerns for me if I were to invest in it. its still never made a profit, subscribers are maxing out, and competition is just getting started. Netflix has also been extremely liberal politically, and that's a recipe to divide your customer base by 2, something with their extreme debt loads is problematic.
- alecco 7y ago
  > Netflix has also been extremely liberal politically, and that's a recipe to divide your customer base by 2, something with their extreme debt loads is problematic. I'd say it divides by more than half. I don't want any politics with my entertainment as many other people do. Even if the politics are aligned to my own. It becomes annoying as "preaching to the choir".
didibus 7y ago
> Didn't we beg for the ability to pick and choose what we actually want to pay for? Yes, and that is slowly disappearing, as everything is becoming isolated again and bundled with extra crap I don't care about.
e40 7y ago
How much did Netflix pay for the Rock and Chappelle specials? I read it was over $100M, for both men's specials, and that was what, less than 10 hours of programming? No wonder they are deep in debt.
- e40 7y ago
  Rock: $40M Ricky Gervais: $40M Chappelle: $60M Eddie Murphy: $70M $210M for less than 20 hours of programming. Wow.
01100011 7y ago
> I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Isn't that what we hated about cable? No. We hated cable for the high prices and bad service which were enabled by physical monopolies. If the backend was based on open protocols, you could buy an aggregating frontend from Netflix, Hulu, TiVo, etc and then buy whatever content you like from whatever content owner you like.
topranks 7y ago
Nobody wants “1 company to control all content.” What we do need is something like the music industry has. Subscribe to Spotify, Deezer, Tidal. They all pretty much have the same stuff, with slight differences in UI and the odd exclusive to differentiate them. That’s what they need to do - cross license. They can even have a delay before they do so for their own content or whatever. Just the admin of subscribing to 20 different services is enough to make me subscribe to none.
1337biz 7y ago
It's not a reasonable argument. If things are not super convenient many will just go back to piracy. The content house brands are just too weak to be able to demand a subscription.

mjevans 7y ago

The Industry can't get this simple message in to it's collective head: The convenience needs to be better and cheaper (including perceived risks') than piracy to win. These are the things they MUST do: * One payment, that's reasonable. * All the content from FOREVER accessible FOREVER in one place. Honestly, that's it for most people. For me they also need to... * Be DRM free so that it actually works on OSes that respect my privacy.

icelancer 7y ago
>> The convenience needs to be better and cheaper (including perceived risks') than piracy to win. Exactly. People saying "well it's not profitable" or this that and the other are missing the boat. Piracy is always going to exist and it's always going to be basically free. There is no beating that. That is the new reality we are in. Now, they must adjust to that reality, whether they like it or not. Many services have and many people pay plenty of money because of it. But we're rapidly moving to a place where piracy is simpler than what we have now, which is embarrassing for paid services.
- edanm 7y ago
  It kind of sounds like you're getting your history backwards here. Piracy has existed for almost 2 decades at this point. Back then, people were making the argument that the industry needs to adjust, needs to make things as simple and cheap as piracy is, etc.
Freak_NL 7y ago
It would be nice if this problem could be solved through cooperation rather than just hoping a unicorn will appear. A flat subscription fee, perhaps with tiered pricing in terms of content resolution and number of concurrent users in a household. Figure out some fair distribution key for the viewer's contributions. Newer content gets a higher slice of the pie to encourage investing in new content, but older content under copyright (like a 40 year old film) will still bring in some money, and it makes sense to make a back catalogue available. Allow users to use their own clients if they wish (technically possible if you forget about DRM), and let enthusiasts create a user experience no platform has ever seen that can rival the ease of use of piracy (e.g., Popcorn Time, and similar services). Start out as a conglomerate of big studios with a clear short to midterm business model, but aim to set up a non-profit custodian in the long term to handle the maintenance and development of the platform, and make it possible to represent any content owner in a fair way — because if you don't, you'll end up the target of anti-trust lawsuits. This won't happen because of greed of course. Ah well, there is always piracy to supplement a Netflix/Disney/Whatever subscription and just pretend it does exist.

cyborgx7 7y ago

> I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Sounds like a perfect case for publicly funded infrastructure to me. > Now we finally have that We don't. We still have the one or two things we want packaged in with a ton of stuff we don't. It's actually worse. Each package (subscription platform) has one or two things we want distributed accross all of them, which a bunch of stuff we don't want packaged in. Not seeing how this is a good system.

crystalmeph 7y ago
>> I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. >Sounds like a perfect case for publicly funded infrastructure to me. Why would it be a case for publicly funded infrastructure? We’re talking about entertainment, not highways or clean water. As a consumer, yes, I would prefer an option to pay only for the shows I want to watch, but I don’t see why your tax dollars should fund my preferred method of entertainment.
hiram112 7y ago
> Sounds like a perfect case for publicly funded infrastructure to me. No thanks. My paychecks, after state and fed taxes, fica, retirement, insurance, etc are down to literally half of my actual salary. I don't want another few percent pilfered so I can subsidize my fellow Americans' NCIS and Dog the Bounty Hunter habits.

ilikepi 7y ago

> I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Isn't that what we hated about cable? Didn't we beg for the ability to pick and choose what we actually want to pay for? Now we finally have that and people instantly want to go back? Why? Well, that's only half of it. The other half is that people became fed up with their bills, not realizing that everyone has a unique subset of channels they liked, and paying for the full bundle was a way to subsidize all the other channels. Sadly it's rather difficult to balance these two issues.

atombender 7y ago

People aren't asking for a single distribution channel in the sense of a single monolithic company owning all the IP. They do want (1) convenient apps that aggregate, such as Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video, and (2) a way to get all the content without having to pay lots of individual companies (I'm subscribing to around 5 streaming services myself). Why can't video be like music? Spotify and Apple Music aggregate pretty much all the music in the world now. You don't have to sign up Warner and Sony and a thousand other labels to play music. There are stragglers, of course, but they're getting fewer. If this model works for Spotify et al, why can't it work for movies and TV? Moreover, all the music is licensed through a single IP rights licensing system. It's what allows music to be played on the radio and so on. I know very little about how it works technically, but it seems to work just fine.

noelsusman 7y ago
This is a good point, though Spotify hasn't been without its bumps. It has lost money almost every year and substantially reduced the total amount of money artists receive from people listening to their music. Artists have been forced to find alternative revenue streams to remain solvent, and it has taken a hammer to the "middle class" of musicians. All of this has been great for the consumer since we get cheap music, but if we want to port the same system over to shows/movies then we need to think through the implications of reducing the total amount of revenue that content creators get from people watching their content. Where are the alternative revenue streams? You can't take a TV show on tour. It's definitely possible, theoretically, but I'm not sure it's possible at a price point that people actually want to pay. Making video content is orders of magnitude more expensive than making music.
- wool_gather 7y ago
  It's funny; I think that Spotify is an insanely good deal. I would absolutely pay more for the service, a lot more. I'd probably use it more if I were paying more, too, so maybe it wouldn't work out for them. But in my opinion, they're underpriced.
dragonwriter 7y ago

hanklazard 7y ago

Or check out DVD.com (old-school Netflix) if you’re looking for selection. It’s way better for movies and TV shows if you’re willing to wait a few days.

Alupis 7y ago

> They got into content creation and they're now deep in debt despite their massive subscriber base. I've found that while Netflix has some decent original content - the overwhelming majority of it is garbage and totally uninteresting. Sometimes I feel some of the Netflix Originals where mothballed from normal venues, so Netflix picked it up, failing to realize why nobody else wanted to produce it in the first place. As just an example, I was a huge fan of Arrested Development - but continuing that show where it left off after ~10 years of not being on air... it just didn't "have it" anymore... And... when I search for a movie, it seems about 90% of the time they don't have it. Instead, they recommend a bunch of Netflix Original's that totally aren't what I'm looking for.

addicted 7y ago
The best Netflix originals are the British shows they've rebranded as Netflix originals in the US. The actual Netflix created ones have largely missed the mark for me.
- ljm 7y ago
  And a lot of 'Netflix originals' over in the EU are essentially localised variations of a theme. The theme is usually the end of the world, zombies, or the dead coming back to life. Or some horrible phenomena at the edge of a forest, and the once peaceful town is under attack from the supernatural. What makes it worse is that Netflix now dubs foreign content by default to make it all look English. And they do their best to trick you.
  - jrnichols 7y ago
    what's frustrated me about Netflix originals is the same thing that drove me away from a lot of traditional TV - some awesome shows being cancelled after 2-3 seasons. I had hoped that Netflix would at least give their own shows a good story arc, but nope. they're doing the same thing Fox/CBS/NBC do. i still much prefer shows without commercials, though.
    - 7y ago

iamnotacrook 7y ago

"I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Isn't that what we hated about cable? Didn't we beg for the ability to pick and choose what we actually want to pay for? Now we finally have that and people instantly want to go back? Why?" I don't know about anyone else but I'm interested in shows, not channels. I'm not going to sign up to 10 channels - that'd cost too much and some months I'd probably watch nothing on some of them. If I could pick and choose which shows I watched I'd have no problem with a low-friction "sign up via email and pay for what you watch" but that's not the offer. Your suggestion is fine for people who are rich and have loads of time to watch hours of tv every day. That's not the target for these companies though - they recognize it's a zero-sum game and want it to be them you pick over Netflix (or vice versa).

wnevets 7y ago

>They got into content creation and they're now deep in debt despite their massive subscriber base. because content companies started holding their content hostage for higher fees or outright refusing to allow netflix to license it. Netflix creating their own content was a matter of survival.

inetknght 7y ago

> I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Isn't that what we hated about cable? Didn't we beg for the ability to pick and choose what we actually want to pay for? Now we finally have that and people instantly want to go back? Why? 1) I don't want to pay for content I won't watch. 2) I don't want to be required to pay for content I won't watch in order to watch content I want to watch. 3) I want to easily watch the content I want without needing to have dozens of different separate accounts or services. I mean similar to "press button, get bacon" style of easy. 4) I want to pay in money and nothing else. I don't want to pay with my data; I don't want to pay with my viewing history. 5) I want to watch whenever and wherever I choose, no take-backs.

ohithereyou 7y ago
The only system that can cover all five of your points right now is piracy. 1) No charge, so you're not paying for content you won't watch 2) Same as 1 3) A torrent client speaking RSS + a private torrent site that serves RSS covers this 4) You pay with nothing - no money, no data, and no viewing history 5) Files without DRM can be played on any device and cannot be retroactively deleted by the service provider Piracy really is most often a services problem.
- austhrow743 7y ago
  Physical discs.
  - snuxoll 7y ago
    DRM, high cost, and ironically, poor availability (I bought all the seasons of ER in 1080p off iTunes, there exists no Blu-Ray sets for the show and the DVDs are often more expensive than what I paid Apple for digital copies that I promptly stripped the DRM from)
- jogundas 7y ago
  That's right! It would be interesting to see how torrented series statistics correlate with online streaming prices. My feeling is that as Netflix-like services become more expensive and/or fragmented, piracy picks up. Don't have any numbers to back this up with though.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Content creation? Unjustifiably huge budgets on stars, sets and effects with pocket change relatively speaking for the scripts and stories, especially after the first season. $100m to buy a minor series about comedians in cars that cost $100k an episode to make. $100m! No wonder their financials look ropy. > Didn't we beg for the ability to pick and choose what we actually want to pay for Erm, no? Don't know about the US but the UK experience of cable and satellite was a basic package with dire content, then every interesting thing was £££ extra. By the time you had a reasonable selection you were at £50-£100 a month. more if you wanted the sport channels. So we didn't cable cut, we never signed up in the first place. Compared to the licence fee it was always appalling value. Netflix want nearly a whole BBC yearly licence fee, and deliver a tiny fraction of the content. Not that I like all the Beeb do. :) When we cancel Netflix (very soon going on current programmes), it'll be back to terrestrial only as none of the streaming services now have "enough". So whatever comes to the BBC and Channel 4 then. I'd start torrenting again before subscribing to Amazon, Disney or whoever just to watch one interesting series, then hope I remember to cancel timely enough.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

ninth_ant 7y ago

You’re making the alluring mistake of thinking of a monolithic “we” who all want the same thing. In reality people have many preferences and desires, and they pay for streaming services or not for a variety of reasons. Some people are maybe sick of being stuck with a giant cable company and are happy to pay for many streaming services. Other people likely still have cable and use streaming to supplement that for specific shows. Others have different reasons.

mc32 7y ago
Maybe they can have different subscription levels for different audiences, either resolution or content library or freshness. Although seeing that it’s artificial and only the resolution could have justification I’m not sure enough of their subscribers would identify of find value in that differentiation.

icelancer 7y ago

>> If Netflix doesn't make enough content that interests you then stop giving them money and give it to whoever does instead. This isn't the alternative reality Netflix and others are fighting. People are just going to pirate it if they can't offer it easily and at a price that the market will accept. There is no escaping that. It is on them to adjust, not the consumers.

deegles 7y ago

Why is it not sustainable? Because of content licensing fees. If video content was treated (i.e. regulated) like radio with a fixed price per minute then there would be competition for one stop streaming services instead of walled gardens.

lonelappde 7y ago

The too common refrain is people arguing talking themselves in circles trying to prove that they should get more content for a lower price due to some incoherent ad hoc theory of economics. Paying a la cart is "ripping us off by nickel and dime", and bundling is "cable packages, ugh".

rorykoehler 7y ago

You can only watch so much content. Streaming platforms should pay the content creators based on what is actually watched. The fact that they chose to also produce content is irrelevant. That's a completely separate business and if they mixed their books that's their mistake and they have to deal with it.

autokad 7y ago

I think streaming is incredibly worth it. if you watch anything with advertisements, that's typically 1/3 of your time watching commercials, thus if you make 50 an hour, you pay for your streaming service in just 1 hour. 10 hours if you make a 10th that, which its still paid for in a week for most people. its a fair argument that I spent about a year of my childhood watching commercials. thats 3240$ in netflix subscriptions to get that back. I think streaming has incredible value, and broadcast television's value proposition is extremely poor. I hope once people start doing the math, tv commercials is a thing of the past, or at least there is 1 commercial per break. that being said, netflix does have some deep concerns for me if I were to invest in it. its still never made a profit, subscribers are maxing out, and competition is just getting started. Netflix has also been extremely liberal politically, and that's a recipe to divide your customer base by 2, something with their extreme debt loads is problematic.

alecco 7y ago
> Netflix has also been extremely liberal politically, and that's a recipe to divide your customer base by 2, something with their extreme debt loads is problematic. I'd say it divides by more than half. I don't want any politics with my entertainment as many other people do. Even if the politics are aligned to my own. It becomes annoying as "preaching to the choir".

didibus 7y ago

> Didn't we beg for the ability to pick and choose what we actually want to pay for? Yes, and that is slowly disappearing, as everything is becoming isolated again and bundled with extra crap I don't care about.

e40 7y ago

How much did Netflix pay for the Rock and Chappelle specials? I read it was over $100M, for both men's specials, and that was what, less than 10 hours of programming? No wonder they are deep in debt.

e40 7y ago
Rock: $40M Ricky Gervais: $40M Chappelle: $60M Eddie Murphy: $70M $210M for less than 20 hours of programming. Wow.

01100011 7y ago

> I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Isn't that what we hated about cable? No. We hated cable for the high prices and bad service which were enabled by physical monopolies. If the backend was based on open protocols, you could buy an aggregating frontend from Netflix, Hulu, TiVo, etc and then buy whatever content you like from whatever content owner you like.

topranks 7y ago

Nobody wants “1 company to control all content.” What we do need is something like the music industry has. Subscribe to Spotify, Deezer, Tidal. They all pretty much have the same stuff, with slight differences in UI and the odd exclusive to differentiate them. That’s what they need to do - cross license. They can even have a delay before they do so for their own content or whatever. Just the admin of subscribing to 20 different services is enough to make me subscribe to none.

1337biz 7y ago

It's not a reasonable argument. If things are not super convenient many will just go back to piracy. The content house brands are just too weak to be able to demand a subscription.