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No surprise. Even we (HN) predicted this the moment the first content company withdrew their content from Netflix. Two reasons: 1. People only have so much mo

No surprise. Even we (HN) predicted this the moment the first content company withdrew their content from Netflix. Two reasons: 1. People only have so much money. 2. When people compare it to what they used to payit seems unfair. People complain when gas prices increases by a few percent, no wonder they complain when they suddenly have to pay twice or even three times for the same content they used to pay one low monthly fee from. Oh, and they probably also compare to Spotify. I see three ways this market can work that immediately feels fair to me: - all you can eat/listen/watch (Spotify model) - pay per view but a lot lower than today. (Can work even with multiple streaming sites.) - a hybrid approach where you pay for a number of monthly credits that works (should be somewhat cheaper than the Spotify model)

jfim 7y ago
Pay per view has the drawback of requiring too many decisions, leading to decision fatigue. Subscribing to a service for $20/mo is a one time decision, whereas figuring out if the show you're about to watch is worth $0.30 gets tiring really quickly. Monthly credits works a bit better, but the all you can eat model completely avoids this.
- bob_theslob646 7y ago
  >Subscribing to a service for $20/mo is a one time decision, whereas figuring out if the show you're about to watch is worth $0.30 gets tiring really quickly. "figuring out if the show you're about to watch is worth $0.30 gets tiring really quickly." This is the biggest problem in the industry that no one wants to talk about. Valuing content aka how much is x show worth. The monthly premiums actually kill or put as strong fixed upper bound on what the content is actually worth. It also brings up another argument on whether or not valuing content ( how much is x show worth) is even worth talking about and talking about how you got your show on x platform because that means 100x more people will see your stuff vs if you are not on x platform.
- roland35 7y ago
  That is a good point, I have a harder time deciding if I want to spend $3-4 to rent a movie on Amazon than just pulling up Netflix and browsing around! Plus I don't feel like I wasted money if I don't enjoy a movie and stop watching (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs sorry!). On the other hand I don't mind buying music, since I basically know the entire song ahead of time, and I don't think I ever buy more than $10 worth of music a month.
  - matwood 7y ago
    > That is a good point, I have a harder time deciding if I want to spend $3-4 to rent a movie on Amazon than just pulling up Netflix and browsing around! I'm the opposite. It's easier to spend money on something I'll probably like vs. spending time on something that's likely mediocre. What normally happens is I browse around Netflix watching previews for an hour, get bored, and go do something else.
    - em-bee 7y ago
      i solved this problem by setting a clear goal in what i am interested in. anything that doesn't fit my interest gets discarded easily. i will occasionally watch stuff that doesn't fit my definition, but i never need to search for something because i can always pick from my list. and if the list is empty i will spend an hour deliberately looking for things to add to that list.
akhilcacharya 7y ago
I remember the days (circa 2009/2010) where the main complaint about streaming Netflix was that there was nothing on it compared to the disk collection. When exactly did that change? There must have been a brief “monopoly period” when Netflix had all of the content, but I don’t remember it.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Maybe there wasn't. Maybe they just had enough stuff. I started using it when they added Star Trek: TNG, later on they added quite a lot of things I was interested in too. At their peak, they had about every other thing I wanted to watch (or rewatch). Then, the shows and movies started disappearing. This is what annoyed me most - I wanted to rewatch something I've seen few months earlier, or to show it to my SO, and suddenly it isn't there. This became a regular occurence, and I think this is where people started noticing something is wrong.
- matwood 7y ago
  > There must have been a brief “monopoly period” when Netflix had all of the content, but I don’t remember it. I think it's important to segment the content into movies and TV shows. At one point Netflix did have a lot of popular TV shows, and new seasons seem to show up pretty quickly. Netflix never really had a huge selection of popular movies. Some here and there, but never a deep catalog.
  - mattkrause 7y ago
    Streaming didn't, but the DVD service had an absurdly deep catalog.
- Mindwipe 7y ago
  > There must have been a brief “monopoly period” when Netflix had all of the content, but I don’t remember it. It literally never happened except in the collective desperation of certain HN posters to justify piracy to themselves.
teeray 7y ago
> hybrid approach where you pay for a number of monthly credits We can call this the Audible model if you like
- therealdrag0 7y ago
  Woah. Never thought about that for TV, but I think it'd work well for me at least!
macspoofing 7y ago
>No surprise. Even we (HN) predicted this the moment the first content company withdrew their content from Netflix. Did you need to predict anything? Why would you think that Netflix would get to be a monopoly for all content delivery?

jfim 7y ago

Pay per view has the drawback of requiring too many decisions, leading to decision fatigue. Subscribing to a service for $20/mo is a one time decision, whereas figuring out if the show you're about to watch is worth $0.30 gets tiring really quickly. Monthly credits works a bit better, but the all you can eat model completely avoids this.

bob_theslob646 7y ago
>Subscribing to a service for $20/mo is a one time decision, whereas figuring out if the show you're about to watch is worth $0.30 gets tiring really quickly. "figuring out if the show you're about to watch is worth $0.30 gets tiring really quickly." This is the biggest problem in the industry that no one wants to talk about. Valuing content aka how much is x show worth. The monthly premiums actually kill or put as strong fixed upper bound on what the content is actually worth. It also brings up another argument on whether or not valuing content ( how much is x show worth) is even worth talking about and talking about how you got your show on x platform because that means 100x more people will see your stuff vs if you are not on x platform.
roland35 7y ago
That is a good point, I have a harder time deciding if I want to spend $3-4 to rent a movie on Amazon than just pulling up Netflix and browsing around! Plus I don't feel like I wasted money if I don't enjoy a movie and stop watching (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs sorry!). On the other hand I don't mind buying music, since I basically know the entire song ahead of time, and I don't think I ever buy more than $10 worth of music a month.
- matwood 7y ago
  > That is a good point, I have a harder time deciding if I want to spend $3-4 to rent a movie on Amazon than just pulling up Netflix and browsing around! I'm the opposite. It's easier to spend money on something I'll probably like vs. spending time on something that's likely mediocre. What normally happens is I browse around Netflix watching previews for an hour, get bored, and go do something else.
  - em-bee 7y ago
    i solved this problem by setting a clear goal in what i am interested in. anything that doesn't fit my interest gets discarded easily. i will occasionally watch stuff that doesn't fit my definition, but i never need to search for something because i can always pick from my list. and if the list is empty i will spend an hour deliberately looking for things to add to that list.

akhilcacharya 7y ago

I remember the days (circa 2009/2010) where the main complaint about streaming Netflix was that there was nothing on it compared to the disk collection. When exactly did that change? There must have been a brief “monopoly period” when Netflix had all of the content, but I don’t remember it.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Maybe there wasn't. Maybe they just had enough stuff. I started using it when they added Star Trek: TNG, later on they added quite a lot of things I was interested in too. At their peak, they had about every other thing I wanted to watch (or rewatch). Then, the shows and movies started disappearing. This is what annoyed me most - I wanted to rewatch something I've seen few months earlier, or to show it to my SO, and suddenly it isn't there. This became a regular occurence, and I think this is where people started noticing something is wrong.
matwood 7y ago
> There must have been a brief “monopoly period” when Netflix had all of the content, but I don’t remember it. I think it's important to segment the content into movies and TV shows. At one point Netflix did have a lot of popular TV shows, and new seasons seem to show up pretty quickly. Netflix never really had a huge selection of popular movies. Some here and there, but never a deep catalog.
- mattkrause 7y ago
  Streaming didn't, but the DVD service had an absurdly deep catalog.
Mindwipe 7y ago
> There must have been a brief “monopoly period” when Netflix had all of the content, but I don’t remember it. It literally never happened except in the collective desperation of certain HN posters to justify piracy to themselves.

teeray 7y ago

> hybrid approach where you pay for a number of monthly credits We can call this the Audible model if you like

therealdrag0 7y ago
Woah. Never thought about that for TV, but I think it'd work well for me at least!

macspoofing 7y ago

>No surprise. Even we (HN) predicted this the moment the first content company withdrew their content from Netflix. Did you need to predict anything? Why would you think that Netflix would get to be a monopoly for all content delivery?