5 ms·

I think their point is not anti-competition, but rather anti-fragmentation. Really the issue is an issue of frontends. If there were a frontend that transpare

I think their point is not anti-competition, but rather anti-fragmentation. Really the issue is an issue of frontends. If there were a frontend that transparently handled all the different providers and let you pay for what you wanted to watch when you wanted to watch it, that would be much more pleasant to navigate. But media companies want to control the frontend, for both lock-in and advertising potential. And don't forget DRM!

rayiner 7y ago
Competition is fragmentation.
- reificator 7y ago
  > Competition is fragmentation. No it is not. I don't have to buy a separate car or a separate gas cap or whatever to go fill up my car with gas. There's a standard that car manufacturers follow and a standard that gas stations follow that allow them to interop without issue. I can stop at a Diamond Shamrock, a Wawa, a 7-11, a Sinclair, a Texaco, or a Phillips 66 and get gas at any of them. And while I'm filling up that gas, I have to pay for it. At most places I can use my Visa, my Discover, my MasterCard, or walk inside and pay cash. American Express is of course the outlier here. Competition can exist and flourish despite agreed upon standards. A standard to watch all your video from one app despite buying/renting/subscribing to multiple services does not mean an end to competition. To the contrary it would make me significantly more likely to try new services. In fact Amazon's model for this proves it can work. It's just that their frontend is tied to their subscription service, rather than being its own entity. But I watched Ash vs Evil Dead on Amazon by buying a Starz subscription. I watched Game of Thrones by buying an HBO subscription on Amazon. It was seamless from my perspective and I was able to watch in my favored player. Now we just need something that can do that but is not tied to a specific service. We'll call it MetaPlayer. I open up MetaPlayer and search for Stranger Things. Since I have a Netflix subscription, I watch it and that's it. I then search for The Simpsons. I don't have Hulu, so I'm prompted to sign up, preferably with one click, and then I can watch the Simpsons the exact same way I watched Stranger Things. And so on.
  - elichamberlin 7y ago
    There kinda is a metaplayer, its called reelgood
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  It isn't when it's commoditized. I have 4 or 5 grocery stores within a short walking distance of me right now. I can buy roughly the same stuff in all of them. I usually go to whichever is cheapest for the stuff I want to buy. They differ in sizes, so they don't stock all the same things, but there's nothing stopping any of them to sell any of the products the others do. This is how healthy competition works.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    But you can’t. I can only get my wife’s cold brew coffee and high protein bread at giant or target. I have to go to Costco to get their house brand items. I have to go to Trader Joe’s to get their house brand frozen foods. Over a month I probably go to four different grocery stores to shop for the whole family.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      The situation is still different than if you had to subscribe to 4 different grocery stores because each chain owns exclusive right to certain categories of items. There's friction in the market that prevents all grocery stores in the area from having the same set of items at the same prices, but the situation is an order of magnitude better for consumers than what you have with video/music/game distribution.

rayiner 7y ago

Competition is fragmentation.

reificator 7y ago
> Competition is fragmentation. No it is not. I don't have to buy a separate car or a separate gas cap or whatever to go fill up my car with gas. There's a standard that car manufacturers follow and a standard that gas stations follow that allow them to interop without issue. I can stop at a Diamond Shamrock, a Wawa, a 7-11, a Sinclair, a Texaco, or a Phillips 66 and get gas at any of them. And while I'm filling up that gas, I have to pay for it. At most places I can use my Visa, my Discover, my MasterCard, or walk inside and pay cash. American Express is of course the outlier here. Competition can exist and flourish despite agreed upon standards. A standard to watch all your video from one app despite buying/renting/subscribing to multiple services does not mean an end to competition. To the contrary it would make me significantly more likely to try new services. In fact Amazon's model for this proves it can work. It's just that their frontend is tied to their subscription service, rather than being its own entity. But I watched Ash vs Evil Dead on Amazon by buying a Starz subscription. I watched Game of Thrones by buying an HBO subscription on Amazon. It was seamless from my perspective and I was able to watch in my favored player. Now we just need something that can do that but is not tied to a specific service. We'll call it MetaPlayer. I open up MetaPlayer and search for Stranger Things. Since I have a Netflix subscription, I watch it and that's it. I then search for The Simpsons. I don't have Hulu, so I'm prompted to sign up, preferably with one click, and then I can watch the Simpsons the exact same way I watched Stranger Things. And so on.
- elichamberlin 7y ago
  There kinda is a metaplayer, its called reelgood
TeMPOraL 7y ago
It isn't when it's commoditized. I have 4 or 5 grocery stores within a short walking distance of me right now. I can buy roughly the same stuff in all of them. I usually go to whichever is cheapest for the stuff I want to buy. They differ in sizes, so they don't stock all the same things, but there's nothing stopping any of them to sell any of the products the others do. This is how healthy competition works.
- rayiner 7y ago
  But you can’t. I can only get my wife’s cold brew coffee and high protein bread at giant or target. I have to go to Costco to get their house brand items. I have to go to Trader Joe’s to get their house brand frozen foods. Over a month I probably go to four different grocery stores to shop for the whole family.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    The situation is still different than if you had to subscribe to 4 different grocery stores because each chain owns exclusive right to certain categories of items. There's friction in the market that prevents all grocery stores in the area from having the same set of items at the same prices, but the situation is an order of magnitude better for consumers than what you have with video/music/game distribution.