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Disney Bans Netflix Ads as Streaming’s Marketing Wars Intensify

226 points by AznHisoka 7y ago

gardnr 7y ago
I predict that as content producers attempt to exert more control over how people consume media they will be met with a new "cord cutting" movement that will circumvent the systems put in place to exert such power. We will eventually settle on slow burn for everything with a value added fee on a per-show basis. A mix of the Spotify and the iTunes model, if you will. Unless, everyone gets so used to pirating things that they ignore the evolutions in pricing models and find it easier to just pirate content.
- LocalH 7y ago
 Piracy is the ultimate cord cutting method
 - retbull 7y ago
 Getting more and more tempting over here. I am tired of my monthly video bills going higher and higher just to watch a couple of shows I like.
 - WilliamEdward 7y ago
 I've been pirating since age 11. You can have it set up so that it is essentially as easy as streaming netflix.
 - WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
 I used to pirate a lot but I just ended up finding a streaming site to watch the 5 or so movies that I like to watch. Just make sure to wear your internet condoms (VPN, Ublock, Ghostery)
 - dspillett 7y ago
 That is still piracy: you are knowingly taking part in unlicensed distribution. The networks don't care if you are downloading for later watching or streaming live, they just care if you are paying or not.
 CameronNemo 7y ago
 Uploading is a criminal offense. Downloading is just civil (for now, that is).
 - petepete 7y ago
 When the product is better (easier, cheaper, higher quality) it's bound to happen. When Netflix streaming (and Spotify, Steam) became popular it made consuming your favourite content easy, cheap and decent quality. Now, with so many competing platforms, watching your favourite shows is more expensive and more difficult (having to have loads of accounts and remember which show is where, etc). Piracy will bloom.
 - jkoudys 7y ago
 As a Canadian, it's definitely hte "remember which show is where" part that has me really disliking where streaming has gone in the past year. Time was I'd open Netflix and my shows were there. Now I have Netflix, Prime, and Crave, and sometimes I'll have the same show on two of them, but different seasons. Maybe I'll start using an aggregator that will launch the streaming service that has my show, which seems like what Netflix was originally supposed to be.
 - projproj 7y ago
 https://www.justwatch.com https://www.justwatch.com may be close to what you are imagining, though it's a bandaid over the problem you describe.
 - paulddraper 7y ago
 Pirating is possible, but IMO takes a bit of work. Out of curiosity I looked to see if there were any bootlegged Beauty and the Beast (original) available for my kids to watch. Couldn't find anything that (1) worked and (2) worked with Chromecast.
- Pxtl 7y ago
 I wouldn't mind going back to buying stuff a la cart if it weren't for the fact that buying access to an individual season of an individual show costs more than an entire month of service at the buffet.
- distances 7y ago
 I'm myself going back in time and just last week got my first Blu-ray player. They, and the discs, are quite well priced now, often below streaming prices. I'll keep Netflix though, but won't be getting another service.
- laumars 7y ago
 These days it seems people are doing one of two things: 1. Sharing account details. eg four people in a circle of friends, one will have Netflix, another Prime Video, someone else will have Now TV and so on. And each of them will use the others account so all of them get access to all of the services. 2. Some of the more well off individuals or less socially connected will sign up to two or three services and pirate everything else. Whichever way you look at it, basically consumers have gotten fed up with the vendor lock ins and have gone back to sharing content. It has always been this way though. Even when VHS's were a thing, you'd get families which would share videos with each other. Sometimes those films and TV shows were just recorded straight off the TV. This is also why I think there is a culture where people don't care about downloading content because there has always been an understanding that it was fine to record stuff on the TV and radio for personal consumption back before the internet was in every home. The daft thing is the TV and film industry had a massive opportunity to disrupt this culture but instead their own greed has just encouraged people back into old habits. I know regulation isn't a popular topic on here but I do wonder if it's time someone stepped in and said "You guys need to start cooperating together!"
 - derekp7 7y ago
 I have a couple primary services (Netflix, Hulu), then I will cycle through something else to binge-watch a season, cancel it and sign on to another service for other content one month at a time).
 - Cd00d 7y ago
 How does one share Prime Video credentials without giving blanket access to one's Amazon account? Asking for a friend.
 - scarface74 7y ago
 You can add a “child” to your account and set it so you have to approve all purchases.
 - kuschku 7y ago
 > 1. Sharing account details. eg four people in a circle of friends, one will have Netflix, another Prime Video, someone else will have Now TV and so on. And each of them will use the others account so all of them get access to all of the services. Sadly Disney is now lobbying to make that a crime
- wayneftw 7y ago
 Here's my reaction: I just stopped watching for the most part and started doing other things instead. If I'm not doing something active now and I just want to sit - I read the funny pages (reddit), I read hacker news, I find questions in my mind to research, I play video games, read a book, start a side-project and/or listen to some music. My wife still watches all sorts of garbage TV and if not for her I'd have cancelled cable a long time ago.
 - RodgerTheGreat 7y ago
 I made a tool which wraps around youtube-dl to manage fine-grained subscription and automatic downloading of various youtube channels. When I want passive entertainment, I have a directory full of interesting, high-quality videos that cater to specific niches I like. The end result is much better than TV ever was- no ads, access whenever I want- even offline- and content made by passionate hobbyists rather than mass marketers. I feel much happier paying a handful of content creators via Patreon than spending money on a cable or streaming service subscription.
 - justsubmit 7y ago
 That sounds really interesting. How do you manage the library, especially in regard to storage limits, expiring old content, etc?
 - RodgerTheGreat 7y ago
 So far I just handle it manually. I've dialed in pretty good preferences for incoming content, (for example, using regex-based whitelists and blacklists to weed out material I'm not interested in from channels that aren't already organized into appropriate playlists) and when I browse the videos directory to find something to watch I delete things that have been sitting there a while which I don't expect to get around to. There would be a lot more work to do if I wanted to "product-ize" the tool, and periodically youtube breaks it by adding a new feature or moving something around. For personal use, though, it's very needs-suiting. The whole approach is also less of a tempting distraction than browsing youtube itself, so it's easier to manage how much time I spend watching videos. If I ever run out of content, I just go for a walk, or read a book!
- deleted 7y ago
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- krisgee 7y ago
 We'll have another "piracy epidemic" where streaming services have hysterics and try to ban piracy. This will predictably not work as it hasn't the last few times. Someone will make purchasing content easy again and everyone will use that. Corporations will get involved, jack the prices up, throw in ads and try to invent cable again. Repeat.
- subpixel 7y ago
 Content producers have no voice, unless they are the owner which in many cases they are not. Case in point: all I want right now is to stream the award-winning film “Give me Liberty”. It is over a year old and available precisely nowhere. And when it comes available, the chances are high it’s not on one of the several competing services I pay for on a monthly basis.
- tcbawo 7y ago
 The movement towards streaming exclusively is probably intended to eliminate ambiguity and traceability from the pirated sources. I wouldn't be surprised if PII is/will be encoded into the content. Once media ownership has been phased out, content owners will start going after infringers.
stefan_ 7y ago
Can they spell "anti-trust violation"?
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  They don't need to; they already know how to buy congressfolk.
  - journalctl 7y ago
    You don’t even need to buy them anymore. The current Senate would block anti-puppy murdering legislation if it suited their agenda. I mean, truly, I have no faith that any sensible regulation for this would make it through Congress. It’s inconceivable, and that’s sad.
    - jimbob45 7y ago
      On the other hand, we don't allow radical legislation to go through and that's a huge positive in some cases. We would never let a Brexit/secession go through because we'd never be able to agree on it.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Tangent: Why do we value dogs and cats more than pigs and cows?
- rapsey 7y ago
  How many politicians have the balls to go after Disney? Not many.
- jfengel 7y ago
  I don't see the trust issue here. Indeed, upthread I saw somebody complaining about there being too many services, which would seem to be the opposite of a monopoly (to my not-legally-trained mind).
- heisenbit 7y ago
  Good point if they had a dominant market position. According to https://csimarket.com/stocks/competitionSEG2.php?code=DIS https://csimarket.com/stocks/competitionSEG2.php?code=DIS their share is around 10% which I don't thinks qualifies as dominant.
thismyrealone 7y ago
It just feels like the various streaming services are morphing into everything that we hated about cable television.
- fullshark 7y ago
  The difference this time is that there's no artificial limit on content volume. In other words a tv channel can only deliver 24 hours of content a day, a streaming service can deliver an unbounded amount. This is going to change the dynamics severely I think.
  - josefresco 7y ago
    With Comcast cable TV we had a rather large "on demand" library of content. Almost every network offered their content in this manor.
- 1123581321 7y ago
  There are differences: no commercials, shows on demand, more shows, and higher quality (arguably) shows. Additionally, it’s possible to just subscribe to the one service you really like because they all have a lot of content.
  - jasonjayr 7y ago
    Hulu shows commercials even if you pay. I'm sure Netflix will start once revenue starts slipping.
    - excalibur 7y ago
      Hulu does offer an ad-free tier, it's like double the cost of the basic plan. I haven't sprung for it yet, but I'm sorely tempted. I can see Netflix looking to a similar model in the future. What are they at now, $12.99? I can see the current base subscription going to $14.99, while simultaneously launching an ad-supported version priced around $7.99. Edit: Netflix actually DOES offer a cheaper $8.99 plan currently. This one is restricted to one screen at a time, and does not offer content in HD. So if they stuck ads on it, maybe they could bring the price down to like $5.99.
thinkingkong 7y ago
Ultimately we’ll end up at “choose your own channels” but at the cost of 15$ per channel. If you subscribed to all of them you’d be right back at cable prices again, minus sports content.
- nickthegreek 7y ago
  Then ultimately piracy will once again proliferate.
- jfengel 7y ago
  Why minus sports content?
  - nordsieck 7y ago
    > Why minus sports content? For some reason, people really care about live sports. It doesn't really fit the streaming model.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      It does, it just exposes how expensive it is and the sellers don’t like that because it will reduce the number of viewers, and then that starts lowering the value of the ads that are paid for, hence lowering the value of the sports teams themselves. Bundling sports with other media allowed for price obfuscation.
      - kkarakk 7y ago
        yup, a lot of sports streaming companies have gone on a anti-piracy bend recently. a couple of sport streaming subreddits got the ban hammer for eg. RIP r/nbastreams https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/nba-streams-reddit-banned https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/nba-streams-reddit-banne...
echelon 7y ago
Oh boy, I can't wait for regulation here. This is strictly worse than cable (with on demand) now. We went so far we slid backwards! I don't care what company made what thing. I just want to be able to consume the content in an easy way, not have go juggle five different apps. We need multiple providers that have all the content and that you pay a simple flat rate. They should be indistinguishable commodities like Spotify, Google Play, etc.
- jfengel 7y ago
  It amuses me to hear you say that, since for years people complained about bundling from the cable companies. They wanted to pay a la carte for exactly the channels they'd consume, in the belief that the price would be lower by removing the channels that they didn't want. The situations aren't exactly parallel, but in a lot of ways we got what many people always wanted, but that doesn't make everybody happy. I draw no conclusion from that observation, other than to note it.
  - pyronik19 7y ago
    This is the exact opposite of what I want. I want to watch Star trek and on CBS and not pay for 500 CSI like crime dramas, but here I am paying for all the BS again.
  - mrep 7y ago
    They almost certainly would be lower as the aggregate demand curve for individual products is lower than the aggregate demand for a bundled group of products [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_bundling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_bundling
  - soneca 7y ago
    I think that is the problem with using "the people want X". I always complained about bundling, and I am very happy with the current situation (yes, even considering that in the next years I will have about 10 services that I could subscribe to). I would assume that GP might not have complaining at all about bundling and is now unhappy with the current situation where they would have to subscribe to a lot more channels to have the same value for him.
cjrp 7y ago
Cancel your $100/m cable service, and replace it with 10 different $10/m streaming services. Progress.
- devoply 7y ago
  or don't. decisions decisions. if netflix can get a few good shows every month or a few movies... that's enough value for what they are charging and about the amount of free time i have to invest in watching tv.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- bhearsum_ 7y ago
  It is if you're someone that only wants 1 or 2 of the services.
- jacobkg 7y ago
  Do/did people regularly pay that much for cable without live sports? My understanding is that it’s usually the live sports channels (or HBO, etc) that would bump the cost into the higher tiers.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Assuming you’re writing sarcastically, I don’t understand how that isn’t improvement.
- recursive 7y ago
  Watching the content on 10 different services sounds like a full-time job. Who could possibly have time for that?
  - kshacker 7y ago
    For a family of 5, it is just 2 services each.
    - recursive 7y ago
MAGZine 7y ago
I think the copyright lobby is too strong, but it would be a very positive move to change tv/film licensing to mirror radio's royalty model. Let the best service provider win, with a (more or less) complete catalog.
- scarface74 7y ago
  The “radio royalty model” doesn’t pay singers but does pay writers. Also, it’s only for non on demand music. There is a similar model for programmatic internet streaming like Pandora that doesn’t apply where you get to choose your music like Spotify. Even with that model, the government decides how much is paid and every song costs the same amount. Should studios be forced to license a movie that cost $120 million as one that costs $3 million. Also, in that case should software developers be forced to sell their software at one government regulated price? Why stop there? Why shouldn’t we just let the government set all prices?
  - MAGZine 7y ago
    that's a slippery slope fallacy but movies are generally all priced the same and make up the difference in volume. Nobody pays different ticket prices at the box office for blockbusters.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      They charge the distributors more at both the theaters and for streaming. Also, you didn’t answer the question. Are you okay with the government mandating how other products are distributed?
      - MAGZine 7y ago
        like alcohol, pharmaceuticals, weapons, etc? or like copyrighted works, perhaps? Generally I support a free market approach except for where it's been proven that a free market approach alone won't suffice.
whoisjuan 7y ago
This has been said many times but it's worth repeating it. Piracy is coming back and is coming back hard. The last piracy boom didn't have highly scalable clouds, gigabit download connections, mobile, commercial VPN services, mainstream machine learning, etc. This fragmentation is going to lead to a situation with a high demand for pirated shows and movies and there are plenty of folks in this world willing to capitalize on that.
- berbec 7y ago
  I know a friend who pirates movies they physically own because it's easier to download a torrent than to wait 2 hours for Handbrake to do a rip that won't be as good quality.
panpanna 7y ago
This could backfire spectacularly if Netflix retains enough content to remain a viable option for most parents with small children. But what do I know, I prefer Shaun the Sheep to Mickey Mouse so don't listen to me.
- pacomerh 7y ago
  that's the problem, I'm not sure I'm finding Netflix interesting these days. I've been finding more variety @ Hulu
quirkafleeg3 7y ago
Lots of people saying about moving away from regular TV to streaming, but it depends how I want to watch. Sometimes I want to select an episode and sit down to watch it properly, which streaming is good for. But sometimes normal TV fulfils my needs to drunkenly half-watch a random Top Gear.
- rchaud 7y ago
  Agreed. There's something to be said for coming home from work and just doing random channel surfing where you stumble upon a show 15 minutes into a Season 4 episode. With the streaming services, there's no such equivalent, so if you want to watch something new, you have to start at Season 1, Episode 1. It feels like too heavy of a commitment. In my experience, many shows don't get good until after 6-7 episodes, and I will often start at Season 2 just so I can skip the "character development" arcs and go right into the plotline.
6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
Google shows gmail at the top. Lawsuits! Disney won't show competitors ads at all. Meh. These cases aren't identical, but the difference still feels weird.
- tschellenbach 7y ago
  Yes, it's almost as though the traditional media likes to paint a bad picture of tech companies specifically.
deanmoriarty 7y ago
Or, you know, just don't waste your time/money subscribing to any service at all. I don't have a TV and have never subscribed to a streaming service. My life is perfectly happy and full of entertainment outside work, and my wallet says thanks.
Deadsunrise 7y ago
Makes sense. Broadcasters don't allow ads from their competitors on their networks (you would never see an ad for a CBS show on Freeform),so idk why they would allow ads from streamers. Probably thought it was incremental dollars when it just basically meant Netflix was stealing subscribes away from them. At the end of the day, Disney is still gonna sell that inventory (maybe at a slightly lower premium). So I would see it's worth it to lose $5-10MM a year if it means slightly cutting off the reach of one of your biggest competitors.
NotSammyHagar 7y ago
This has completely obvious anti-trust implications. How many major networks are there - 4. And all of them except fox either have streaming services or will have them soon (nbc's peacock, disney/abc whatever its called, cbs has streaming, and fox will have one I'm sure).
nickthemagicman 7y ago
This is a perfect sweet spot at the moment where I will happily pay for Netflix at 15 bucks a month and Spotify for 10 and not pirate anything. The issue with the large congolmerates like Disney taking over is that I worry they're going to return to the 'Cable pricing model' except delivered via internet, and consumers will be back to being exploited for as much as possible with as many Ad's crammed into the content as possible. Then we'll start pirating again and have to listen to the big conglomerates complain about how much piracy is hurting their business...
- asdff 7y ago
  It's already happening. Office being pulled from netflix is the most recent victim of corporations realizing it's not hard to just clone netflix in house and keep all the profit.
  - nirvdrum 7y ago
    I'm not really sure what's going on with Netflix and DreamWorks, but Netflix has a new kids show that looks oddly like the "How to Train Your Dragon" shows that recently weren't renewed.
neonate 7y ago
http://archive.is/xvHsX http://archive.is/xvHsX
tombert 7y ago
What I find especially annoying nowadays is that a lot of shows simply aren't releasing on DVD or Blu-Ray anymore, or if they do, it's in laughably small quantities. For example; I wanted to buy "Final Space" on Blu-Ray, and it doesn't appear to exist. I then look for DVD, and the only place to purchase that is on TBS's website, and it's been sold out for quite awhile. I really don't want to have to sign up for another streaming service, I just want to buy the damn show, rip it myself, and watch it on my server; sadly it looks like I'm somewhat in the minority on this, and I suppose I get it, but it does upset me that soon the only way to guarantee that I get to have something forever is via piracy. EDIT: I just checked, apparently the DVD for Final Space is back in stock. I think my point still stands, and I think that it's weird that a show that was broadcast in 1080p isn't available on blu-ray.
- ex3ndr 7y ago
  Isn't iTunes and friends is more convenient and there are no subscription.
  - J5892 7y ago
    Are you able to stream videos from any of those services on Plex, or similar servers? And if so, is it hassle-free?
    - jacobush 7y ago
      No.
  - nirvdrum 7y ago
    Regardless of your feelings on DRM or access on preferred devices, I think another issue that often gets overlooked (or people just don't know about it) is that you end up forfeiting a pretty nice consumer protection. One of the benefits of a credit card is if a charge is made in error and the company doesn't want to make good on it, you can issue a chargeback and your credit card issuer will intervene and either side with you or the seller. You might not win, but at least you get a chance to make your case. With many (all?) of these services, the moment you issue a chargeback you lose access to all your legitimately purchased (actually, licensed) content. And since what they really do is ban your account, if you have a balance from one of their gift cards, you lose all of that as well.
tempsy 7y ago
I would short Netflix at this market cap... Even if you don't think Disney is a serious threat, they are losing at their own game to Amazon, which is producing objectively better quality content given their dominance at the Emmys over Netflix (which was nearly shut out). They have resorted to overpaying billions for old reruns like Seinfeld. At some point people will wake up and wonder why they're paying $15/month to watch reruns and return to actually buying content again for things like that.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- paulddraper 7y ago
  I use Netflix for my Office player and that's about it.
- dmarlow 7y ago
  Ya, but $15/m isn't a whole lot. I hardly watch Netflix anymore, and there are certainly bigger fish to fry when it comes to saving money or maybe spend more time trying to make more money.
  - tempsy 7y ago
    It adds up when people start having to choose among Netflix, Disney, Hulu, HBO, Apple, Amazon, etc. When it was just Netflix agreed it's not a lot, but the big threat of the existence of these competing services is that it forces people to budget.
    - pmart123 7y ago
      Right now, it still falls under the typical cable bundle pricing. However, there is definitely a finite supply of good actors, writers, and directors in Hollywood (demonstrated by the quality of recent releases). Netflix is also competing with gathering attention as a whole, so the growth of podcasts, Instagram, YouTube, or Twitch eat at the value of Netflix's all you can eat buffet style approach. The two wildcards are Apple and Amazon. I don't see either company competing directly, but they could lower the cost of customer acquisition (especially internationally) for HBO Max, Comcast, etc. and take a cut of the subscription. If that doesn't work, I think these other services will have a hard time competing internationally outside of Disney. I don't think many people will cancel Netflix, but right now, it seems the content needs and costs scale in proportion to subscribers, which isn't ideal for them. I could see Netflix struggling over the next couple of years, but Comcast and AT&T struggling, even more, to get their services off the ground. At that point, perhaps AT&T and Comcast go back to selling content to Netflix, or perhaps Amazon buys up the content rights cheaply after everyone else is decimated.
awinder 7y ago
It’s pretty impressive that Disney would make a pretty penny off their Netflix deal, while Netflix did (IMO) an admirable job with the Marvel IP, and even then at the end the relationship gets described as “adversarial” — by Disney, not netflix. Don’t get me wrong I’m gonna watch the shows, but this is some cutthroat stuff.
myrandomcomment 7y ago
If this is over public airways (like ABC) then Disney should loose their rights to that public space. Netflix should be in court yesterday over this. And the public should be up in arms over this as they are using our PUBLIC airways. For steaming fine but not on PUBLIC spectrum.
- crazygringo 7y ago
  Wait... is it normal for TV channels to show ads for competitors? (Not owned by the same conglomerate?) Like... I've never seen an ad for Fox on CBS, or for ABC on NBC. Same as I don't think I've ever seen ads for the NYT inside of the WSJ. I don't have a strong opinion on the matter... but is a policy against Netflix ads on Disney properties really something new and newsworthy, or just par for the course for companies in the US which compete generally?
  - myrandomcomment 7y ago
    So lets say you have a public airway to provide TV on and let's say you also own a cable company. Should you be allowed to show ads for that cable company and block ads for commercials at the same rate you charge some soda company for the same time slot for an ad from the satellite company that happens to compete with the cable company you own? Your method of broadcast is over a public owned spectrum. That is the issue. Even for cable, the rights for you to deliver that service is over public land.
    - crazygringo 7y ago
      Honestly, I don't see what public transmission has to do with it. Either "advertising" should be considered a "free speech" issue from the point of view of the broadcaster -- that they have the "free speech" to allow/disallow whatever ads they want -- whether because of vulgarity, quality, competition, political alignment, whatever they want, including charging different ads different rates if they so choose. Or we consider advertising space a "free speech" issue from the point of view of advertisers, that any and all advertising on TV, cable, newspapers, magazines, etc. should be equally available to the highest bidder. Thus a newspaper should not be able to discriminate against an advertiser because of vulgarity, competition, quality, brand alignment, etc. It's actually a really thorny issue because there are really good arguments on both sides.
pontifier 7y ago
It seems strange that all these streaming services are spending so much on advertising.
cwkoss 7y ago
Why would Netflix even need to advertise? Everyone knows about them. I'll be pirating any Disney movies that I need to watch, Disney is behind the vast over-expansion of copyright law in the US, and I believe it's unethical to fund their lobbyists.
- thrower123 7y ago
  I'm pretty down on Disney, seeing what they have done to Star Wars, and how they are so imaginatively bankrupt that all they can do is mine their successful animated legacy by reworking live-action/cgi remakes. They have also driven ESPN straight into the ground, relegating the flagship sports station a hotbed of woke nonsense and grievance politics.
  - cwkoss 7y ago
    Much of Disney's most valuable IP was taken from the public domain and privatized. They've never been good at creating original stories.
- paxys 7y ago
  Everyone knows about them because they advertise. Same as Apple and every other brand in the world.
linuxhansl 7y ago
I didn't have cable TV for the past 15 years or so. Just didn't need that all that garbage for the occasional thing I really wanted to see. Netflix was the simple aggregator through which I could watch what I liked. Hasn't been for a while, though. There are better things to do with my life anyway than consuming movies and shows.
gigatexal 7y ago
I wish that Netflix was the sole dominant market player in this space such that for all intents and purposes it was the place to get streaming content so that I didn’t have a hodgepodge of services to subscribe to with different interfaces and user experiences and content. As the silos of content increase piracy will as well. I’m tired of my favorite shows being kicked off of Netflix for seemingly arbitrary reasons so I keep local copies around or buy shows on iTunes but as costs rise to own instead of stream I think piracy will increase instead of decrease as it has in the heyday of Netflix.
nstart 7y ago
The one thing I enjoyed with Netflix's original shows was that they weren't held back by these archaic regional deals. A show released by them releases globally. Netflix going global was the moment I jumped on. It still irritates me that the major film studios lag in releasing stuff on Netflix worldwide. There's no regional advertising deals to cut. What's the hold up?? Amazon has a similar problem of having a worthless catalogue where I live. Every movie I clicked on during my prime trial said "not available in your region". HBO was possibly the biggest disappointment where despite not having to cut deals for ads in their shows, their steaming service is still not available globally. With Disney talking ads in their offering, I have zero hope that they will launch worldwide at the scale of Netflix, and certainly not in Sri Lanka. Maybe India. But not Sri Lanka. Funnily enough, google play has been the best option for me. I have various networks' TV series purchased on it. And movie night usually means renting the major movie studio produced stuff from Google play. I hope they stick around for a long time to come because they somehow seem to be the one globally available neutral ground left. Weird how that works.
- toper-centage 7y ago
  Amazon prime in Germany has many movies where the only available option is dubbed. The original audio is literally impossible to watch. And this together with Germans' total aversion to subtitles, makes amazon prime almost worthless for non German speaking residents.
tibbydudeza 7y ago
I dunno why they just can't follow the music streaming model and put all of their content on the different streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Tidal and let the market decide on the differing features. I guess Hollywood and the movie/tv studios need to have their own Napster moment.
jaimex2 7y ago
Fantastic way to bring back piracy, they really don't learn do they.

226 points by AznHisoka 7y ago

I predict that as content producers attempt to exert more control over how people consume media they will be met with a new "cord cutting" movement that will circumvent the systems put in place to exert such power. We will eventually settle on slow burn for everything with a value added fee on a per-show basis. A mix of the Spotify and the iTunes model, if you will. Unless, everyone gets so used to pirating things that they ignore the evolutions in pricing models and find it easier to just pirate content.

LocalH 7y ago
Piracy is the ultimate cord cutting method
- retbull 7y ago
 Getting more and more tempting over here. I am tired of my monthly video bills going higher and higher just to watch a couple of shows I like.
 - WilliamEdward 7y ago
 I've been pirating since age 11. You can have it set up so that it is essentially as easy as streaming netflix.
 - WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
 I used to pirate a lot but I just ended up finding a streaming site to watch the 5 or so movies that I like to watch. Just make sure to wear your internet condoms (VPN, Ublock, Ghostery)
 - dspillett 7y ago
 That is still piracy: you are knowingly taking part in unlicensed distribution. The networks don't care if you are downloading for later watching or streaming live, they just care if you are paying or not.
 - CameronNemo 7y ago
 Uploading is a criminal offense. Downloading is just civil (for now, that is).
- petepete 7y ago
 When the product is better (easier, cheaper, higher quality) it's bound to happen. When Netflix streaming (and Spotify, Steam) became popular it made consuming your favourite content easy, cheap and decent quality. Now, with so many competing platforms, watching your favourite shows is more expensive and more difficult (having to have loads of accounts and remember which show is where, etc). Piracy will bloom.
 - jkoudys 7y ago
 As a Canadian, it's definitely hte "remember which show is where" part that has me really disliking where streaming has gone in the past year. Time was I'd open Netflix and my shows were there. Now I have Netflix, Prime, and Crave, and sometimes I'll have the same show on two of them, but different seasons. Maybe I'll start using an aggregator that will launch the streaming service that has my show, which seems like what Netflix was originally supposed to be.
 - projproj 7y ago
 https://www.justwatch.com https://www.justwatch.com may be close to what you are imagining, though it's a bandaid over the problem you describe.
- paulddraper 7y ago
 Pirating is possible, but IMO takes a bit of work. Out of curiosity I looked to see if there were any bootlegged Beauty and the Beast (original) available for my kids to watch. Couldn't find anything that (1) worked and (2) worked with Chromecast.
Pxtl 7y ago
I wouldn't mind going back to buying stuff a la cart if it weren't for the fact that buying access to an individual season of an individual show costs more than an entire month of service at the buffet.
distances 7y ago
I'm myself going back in time and just last week got my first Blu-ray player. They, and the discs, are quite well priced now, often below streaming prices. I'll keep Netflix though, but won't be getting another service.
laumars 7y ago
These days it seems people are doing one of two things: 1. Sharing account details. eg four people in a circle of friends, one will have Netflix, another Prime Video, someone else will have Now TV and so on. And each of them will use the others account so all of them get access to all of the services. 2. Some of the more well off individuals or less socially connected will sign up to two or three services and pirate everything else. Whichever way you look at it, basically consumers have gotten fed up with the vendor lock ins and have gone back to sharing content. It has always been this way though. Even when VHS's were a thing, you'd get families which would share videos with each other. Sometimes those films and TV shows were just recorded straight off the TV. This is also why I think there is a culture where people don't care about downloading content because there has always been an understanding that it was fine to record stuff on the TV and radio for personal consumption back before the internet was in every home. The daft thing is the TV and film industry had a massive opportunity to disrupt this culture but instead their own greed has just encouraged people back into old habits. I know regulation isn't a popular topic on here but I do wonder if it's time someone stepped in and said "You guys need to start cooperating together!"
- derekp7 7y ago
  I have a couple primary services (Netflix, Hulu), then I will cycle through something else to binge-watch a season, cancel it and sign on to another service for other content one month at a time).
- Cd00d 7y ago
  How does one share Prime Video credentials without giving blanket access to one's Amazon account? Asking for a friend.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    You can add a “child” to your account and set it so you have to approve all purchases.
- kuschku 7y ago
  > 1. Sharing account details. eg four people in a circle of friends, one will have Netflix, another Prime Video, someone else will have Now TV and so on. And each of them will use the others account so all of them get access to all of the services. Sadly Disney is now lobbying to make that a crime
wayneftw 7y ago
Here's my reaction: I just stopped watching for the most part and started doing other things instead. If I'm not doing something active now and I just want to sit - I read the funny pages (reddit), I read hacker news, I find questions in my mind to research, I play video games, read a book, start a side-project and/or listen to some music. My wife still watches all sorts of garbage TV and if not for her I'd have cancelled cable a long time ago.
- RodgerTheGreat 7y ago
  I made a tool which wraps around youtube-dl to manage fine-grained subscription and automatic downloading of various youtube channels. When I want passive entertainment, I have a directory full of interesting, high-quality videos that cater to specific niches I like. The end result is much better than TV ever was- no ads, access whenever I want- even offline- and content made by passionate hobbyists rather than mass marketers. I feel much happier paying a handful of content creators via Patreon than spending money on a cable or streaming service subscription.
  - justsubmit 7y ago
    That sounds really interesting. How do you manage the library, especially in regard to storage limits, expiring old content, etc?
    - RodgerTheGreat 7y ago
      So far I just handle it manually. I've dialed in pretty good preferences for incoming content, (for example, using regex-based whitelists and blacklists to weed out material I'm not interested in from channels that aren't already organized into appropriate playlists) and when I browse the videos directory to find something to watch I delete things that have been sitting there a while which I don't expect to get around to. There would be a lot more work to do if I wanted to "product-ize" the tool, and periodically youtube breaks it by adding a new feature or moving something around. For personal use, though, it's very needs-suiting. The whole approach is also less of a tempting distraction than browsing youtube itself, so it's easier to manage how much time I spend watching videos. If I ever run out of content, I just go for a walk, or read a book!
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krisgee 7y ago
We'll have another "piracy epidemic" where streaming services have hysterics and try to ban piracy. This will predictably not work as it hasn't the last few times. Someone will make purchasing content easy again and everyone will use that. Corporations will get involved, jack the prices up, throw in ads and try to invent cable again. Repeat.
subpixel 7y ago
Content producers have no voice, unless they are the owner which in many cases they are not. Case in point: all I want right now is to stream the award-winning film “Give me Liberty”. It is over a year old and available precisely nowhere. And when it comes available, the chances are high it’s not on one of the several competing services I pay for on a monthly basis.
tcbawo 7y ago
The movement towards streaming exclusively is probably intended to eliminate ambiguity and traceability from the pirated sources. I wouldn't be surprised if PII is/will be encoded into the content. Once media ownership has been phased out, content owners will start going after infringers.

stefan_ 7y ago

Can they spell "anti-trust violation"?

logfromblammo 7y ago
They don't need to; they already know how to buy congressfolk.
- journalctl 7y ago
  You don’t even need to buy them anymore. The current Senate would block anti-puppy murdering legislation if it suited their agenda. I mean, truly, I have no faith that any sensible regulation for this would make it through Congress. It’s inconceivable, and that’s sad.
  - jimbob45 7y ago
    On the other hand, we don't allow radical legislation to go through and that's a huge positive in some cases. We would never let a Brexit/secession go through because we'd never be able to agree on it.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Tangent: Why do we value dogs and cats more than pigs and cows?
rapsey 7y ago
How many politicians have the balls to go after Disney? Not many.
jfengel 7y ago
I don't see the trust issue here. Indeed, upthread I saw somebody complaining about there being too many services, which would seem to be the opposite of a monopoly (to my not-legally-trained mind).
heisenbit 7y ago
Good point if they had a dominant market position. According to https://csimarket.com/stocks/competitionSEG2.php?code=DIS https://csimarket.com/stocks/competitionSEG2.php?code=DIS their share is around 10% which I don't thinks qualifies as dominant.

thismyrealone 7y ago

It just feels like the various streaming services are morphing into everything that we hated about cable television.

fullshark 7y ago
The difference this time is that there's no artificial limit on content volume. In other words a tv channel can only deliver 24 hours of content a day, a streaming service can deliver an unbounded amount. This is going to change the dynamics severely I think.
- josefresco 7y ago
  With Comcast cable TV we had a rather large "on demand" library of content. Almost every network offered their content in this manor.
1123581321 7y ago
There are differences: no commercials, shows on demand, more shows, and higher quality (arguably) shows. Additionally, it’s possible to just subscribe to the one service you really like because they all have a lot of content.
- jasonjayr 7y ago
  Hulu shows commercials even if you pay. I'm sure Netflix will start once revenue starts slipping.
  - excalibur 7y ago
    Hulu does offer an ad-free tier, it's like double the cost of the basic plan. I haven't sprung for it yet, but I'm sorely tempted. I can see Netflix looking to a similar model in the future. What are they at now, $12.99? I can see the current base subscription going to $14.99, while simultaneously launching an ad-supported version priced around $7.99. Edit: Netflix actually DOES offer a cheaper $8.99 plan currently. This one is restricted to one screen at a time, and does not offer content in HD. So if they stuck ads on it, maybe they could bring the price down to like $5.99.

thinkingkong 7y ago

Ultimately we’ll end up at “choose your own channels” but at the cost of 15$ per channel. If you subscribed to all of them you’d be right back at cable prices again, minus sports content.

nickthegreek 7y ago
Then ultimately piracy will once again proliferate.
jfengel 7y ago
Why minus sports content?
- nordsieck 7y ago
  > Why minus sports content? For some reason, people really care about live sports. It doesn't really fit the streaming model.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    It does, it just exposes how expensive it is and the sellers don’t like that because it will reduce the number of viewers, and then that starts lowering the value of the ads that are paid for, hence lowering the value of the sports teams themselves. Bundling sports with other media allowed for price obfuscation.
    - kkarakk 7y ago
      yup, a lot of sports streaming companies have gone on a anti-piracy bend recently. a couple of sport streaming subreddits got the ban hammer for eg. RIP r/nbastreams https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/nba-streams-reddit-banned https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/nba-streams-reddit-banne...

echelon 7y ago

Oh boy, I can't wait for regulation here. This is strictly worse than cable (with on demand) now. We went so far we slid backwards! I don't care what company made what thing. I just want to be able to consume the content in an easy way, not have go juggle five different apps. We need multiple providers that have all the content and that you pay a simple flat rate. They should be indistinguishable commodities like Spotify, Google Play, etc.

jfengel 7y ago
It amuses me to hear you say that, since for years people complained about bundling from the cable companies. They wanted to pay a la carte for exactly the channels they'd consume, in the belief that the price would be lower by removing the channels that they didn't want. The situations aren't exactly parallel, but in a lot of ways we got what many people always wanted, but that doesn't make everybody happy. I draw no conclusion from that observation, other than to note it.
- pyronik19 7y ago
  This is the exact opposite of what I want. I want to watch Star trek and on CBS and not pay for 500 CSI like crime dramas, but here I am paying for all the BS again.
- mrep 7y ago
  They almost certainly would be lower as the aggregate demand curve for individual products is lower than the aggregate demand for a bundled group of products [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_bundling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_bundling
- soneca 7y ago
  I think that is the problem with using "the people want X". I always complained about bundling, and I am very happy with the current situation (yes, even considering that in the next years I will have about 10 services that I could subscribe to). I would assume that GP might not have complaining at all about bundling and is now unhappy with the current situation where they would have to subscribe to a lot more channels to have the same value for him.

cjrp 7y ago

Cancel your $100/m cable service, and replace it with 10 different $10/m streaming services. Progress.

devoply 7y ago
or don't. decisions decisions. if netflix can get a few good shows every month or a few movies... that's enough value for what they are charging and about the amount of free time i have to invest in watching tv.
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bhearsum_ 7y ago
It is if you're someone that only wants 1 or 2 of the services.
jacobkg 7y ago
Do/did people regularly pay that much for cable without live sports? My understanding is that it’s usually the live sports channels (or HBO, etc) that would bump the cost into the higher tiers.
lotsofpulp 7y ago
Assuming you’re writing sarcastically, I don’t understand how that isn’t improvement.
recursive 7y ago
Watching the content on 10 different services sounds like a full-time job. Who could possibly have time for that?
- kshacker 7y ago
  For a family of 5, it is just 2 services each.
  - recursive 7y ago

MAGZine 7y ago

I think the copyright lobby is too strong, but it would be a very positive move to change tv/film licensing to mirror radio's royalty model. Let the best service provider win, with a (more or less) complete catalog.

scarface74 7y ago
The “radio royalty model” doesn’t pay singers but does pay writers. Also, it’s only for non on demand music. There is a similar model for programmatic internet streaming like Pandora that doesn’t apply where you get to choose your music like Spotify. Even with that model, the government decides how much is paid and every song costs the same amount. Should studios be forced to license a movie that cost $120 million as one that costs $3 million. Also, in that case should software developers be forced to sell their software at one government regulated price? Why stop there? Why shouldn’t we just let the government set all prices?
- MAGZine 7y ago
  that's a slippery slope fallacy but movies are generally all priced the same and make up the difference in volume. Nobody pays different ticket prices at the box office for blockbusters.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    They charge the distributors more at both the theaters and for streaming. Also, you didn’t answer the question. Are you okay with the government mandating how other products are distributed?
    - MAGZine 7y ago
      like alcohol, pharmaceuticals, weapons, etc? or like copyrighted works, perhaps? Generally I support a free market approach except for where it's been proven that a free market approach alone won't suffice.

whoisjuan 7y ago

This has been said many times but it's worth repeating it. Piracy is coming back and is coming back hard. The last piracy boom didn't have highly scalable clouds, gigabit download connections, mobile, commercial VPN services, mainstream machine learning, etc. This fragmentation is going to lead to a situation with a high demand for pirated shows and movies and there are plenty of folks in this world willing to capitalize on that.

berbec 7y ago
I know a friend who pirates movies they physically own because it's easier to download a torrent than to wait 2 hours for Handbrake to do a rip that won't be as good quality.

panpanna 7y ago

This could backfire spectacularly if Netflix retains enough content to remain a viable option for most parents with small children. But what do I know, I prefer Shaun the Sheep to Mickey Mouse so don't listen to me.

pacomerh 7y ago
that's the problem, I'm not sure I'm finding Netflix interesting these days. I've been finding more variety @ Hulu

quirkafleeg3 7y ago

Lots of people saying about moving away from regular TV to streaming, but it depends how I want to watch. Sometimes I want to select an episode and sit down to watch it properly, which streaming is good for. But sometimes normal TV fulfils my needs to drunkenly half-watch a random Top Gear.

rchaud 7y ago
Agreed. There's something to be said for coming home from work and just doing random channel surfing where you stumble upon a show 15 minutes into a Season 4 episode. With the streaming services, there's no such equivalent, so if you want to watch something new, you have to start at Season 1, Episode 1. It feels like too heavy of a commitment. In my experience, many shows don't get good until after 6-7 episodes, and I will often start at Season 2 just so I can skip the "character development" arcs and go right into the plotline.

6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago

Google shows gmail at the top. Lawsuits! Disney won't show competitors ads at all. Meh. These cases aren't identical, but the difference still feels weird.

tschellenbach 7y ago
Yes, it's almost as though the traditional media likes to paint a bad picture of tech companies specifically.

deanmoriarty 7y ago

Or, you know, just don't waste your time/money subscribing to any service at all. I don't have a TV and have never subscribed to a streaming service. My life is perfectly happy and full of entertainment outside work, and my wallet says thanks.

Deadsunrise 7y ago

Makes sense. Broadcasters don't allow ads from their competitors on their networks (you would never see an ad for a CBS show on Freeform),so idk why they would allow ads from streamers. Probably thought it was incremental dollars when it just basically meant Netflix was stealing subscribes away from them. At the end of the day, Disney is still gonna sell that inventory (maybe at a slightly lower premium). So I would see it's worth it to lose $5-10MM a year if it means slightly cutting off the reach of one of your biggest competitors.

NotSammyHagar 7y ago

This has completely obvious anti-trust implications. How many major networks are there - 4. And all of them except fox either have streaming services or will have them soon (nbc's peacock, disney/abc whatever its called, cbs has streaming, and fox will have one I'm sure).

nickthemagicman 7y ago

This is a perfect sweet spot at the moment where I will happily pay for Netflix at 15 bucks a month and Spotify for 10 and not pirate anything. The issue with the large congolmerates like Disney taking over is that I worry they're going to return to the 'Cable pricing model' except delivered via internet, and consumers will be back to being exploited for as much as possible with as many Ad's crammed into the content as possible. Then we'll start pirating again and have to listen to the big conglomerates complain about how much piracy is hurting their business...

asdff 7y ago
It's already happening. Office being pulled from netflix is the most recent victim of corporations realizing it's not hard to just clone netflix in house and keep all the profit.
- nirvdrum 7y ago
  I'm not really sure what's going on with Netflix and DreamWorks, but Netflix has a new kids show that looks oddly like the "How to Train Your Dragon" shows that recently weren't renewed.

neonate 7y ago

http://archive.is/xvHsX http://archive.is/xvHsX

tombert 7y ago

What I find especially annoying nowadays is that a lot of shows simply aren't releasing on DVD or Blu-Ray anymore, or if they do, it's in laughably small quantities. For example; I wanted to buy "Final Space" on Blu-Ray, and it doesn't appear to exist. I then look for DVD, and the only place to purchase that is on TBS's website, and it's been sold out for quite awhile. I really don't want to have to sign up for another streaming service, I just want to buy the damn show, rip it myself, and watch it on my server; sadly it looks like I'm somewhat in the minority on this, and I suppose I get it, but it does upset me that soon the only way to guarantee that I get to have something forever is via piracy. EDIT: I just checked, apparently the DVD for Final Space is back in stock. I think my point still stands, and I think that it's weird that a show that was broadcast in 1080p isn't available on blu-ray.

ex3ndr 7y ago
Isn't iTunes and friends is more convenient and there are no subscription.
- J5892 7y ago
  Are you able to stream videos from any of those services on Plex, or similar servers? And if so, is it hassle-free?
  - jacobush 7y ago
    No.
- nirvdrum 7y ago
  Regardless of your feelings on DRM or access on preferred devices, I think another issue that often gets overlooked (or people just don't know about it) is that you end up forfeiting a pretty nice consumer protection. One of the benefits of a credit card is if a charge is made in error and the company doesn't want to make good on it, you can issue a chargeback and your credit card issuer will intervene and either side with you or the seller. You might not win, but at least you get a chance to make your case. With many (all?) of these services, the moment you issue a chargeback you lose access to all your legitimately purchased (actually, licensed) content. And since what they really do is ban your account, if you have a balance from one of their gift cards, you lose all of that as well.

tempsy 7y ago

I would short Netflix at this market cap... Even if you don't think Disney is a serious threat, they are losing at their own game to Amazon, which is producing objectively better quality content given their dominance at the Emmys over Netflix (which was nearly shut out). They have resorted to overpaying billions for old reruns like Seinfeld. At some point people will wake up and wonder why they're paying $15/month to watch reruns and return to actually buying content again for things like that.

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paulddraper 7y ago
I use Netflix for my Office player and that's about it.
dmarlow 7y ago
Ya, but $15/m isn't a whole lot. I hardly watch Netflix anymore, and there are certainly bigger fish to fry when it comes to saving money or maybe spend more time trying to make more money.
- tempsy 7y ago
  It adds up when people start having to choose among Netflix, Disney, Hulu, HBO, Apple, Amazon, etc. When it was just Netflix agreed it's not a lot, but the big threat of the existence of these competing services is that it forces people to budget.
  - pmart123 7y ago
    Right now, it still falls under the typical cable bundle pricing. However, there is definitely a finite supply of good actors, writers, and directors in Hollywood (demonstrated by the quality of recent releases). Netflix is also competing with gathering attention as a whole, so the growth of podcasts, Instagram, YouTube, or Twitch eat at the value of Netflix's all you can eat buffet style approach. The two wildcards are Apple and Amazon. I don't see either company competing directly, but they could lower the cost of customer acquisition (especially internationally) for HBO Max, Comcast, etc. and take a cut of the subscription. If that doesn't work, I think these other services will have a hard time competing internationally outside of Disney. I don't think many people will cancel Netflix, but right now, it seems the content needs and costs scale in proportion to subscribers, which isn't ideal for them. I could see Netflix struggling over the next couple of years, but Comcast and AT&T struggling, even more, to get their services off the ground. At that point, perhaps AT&T and Comcast go back to selling content to Netflix, or perhaps Amazon buys up the content rights cheaply after everyone else is decimated.

awinder 7y ago

It’s pretty impressive that Disney would make a pretty penny off their Netflix deal, while Netflix did (IMO) an admirable job with the Marvel IP, and even then at the end the relationship gets described as “adversarial” — by Disney, not netflix. Don’t get me wrong I’m gonna watch the shows, but this is some cutthroat stuff.

myrandomcomment 7y ago

If this is over public airways (like ABC) then Disney should loose their rights to that public space. Netflix should be in court yesterday over this. And the public should be up in arms over this as they are using our PUBLIC airways. For steaming fine but not on PUBLIC spectrum.

crazygringo 7y ago
Wait... is it normal for TV channels to show ads for competitors? (Not owned by the same conglomerate?) Like... I've never seen an ad for Fox on CBS, or for ABC on NBC. Same as I don't think I've ever seen ads for the NYT inside of the WSJ. I don't have a strong opinion on the matter... but is a policy against Netflix ads on Disney properties really something new and newsworthy, or just par for the course for companies in the US which compete generally?
- myrandomcomment 7y ago
  So lets say you have a public airway to provide TV on and let's say you also own a cable company. Should you be allowed to show ads for that cable company and block ads for commercials at the same rate you charge some soda company for the same time slot for an ad from the satellite company that happens to compete with the cable company you own? Your method of broadcast is over a public owned spectrum. That is the issue. Even for cable, the rights for you to deliver that service is over public land.
  - crazygringo 7y ago
    Honestly, I don't see what public transmission has to do with it. Either "advertising" should be considered a "free speech" issue from the point of view of the broadcaster -- that they have the "free speech" to allow/disallow whatever ads they want -- whether because of vulgarity, quality, competition, political alignment, whatever they want, including charging different ads different rates if they so choose. Or we consider advertising space a "free speech" issue from the point of view of advertisers, that any and all advertising on TV, cable, newspapers, magazines, etc. should be equally available to the highest bidder. Thus a newspaper should not be able to discriminate against an advertiser because of vulgarity, competition, quality, brand alignment, etc. It's actually a really thorny issue because there are really good arguments on both sides.

pontifier 7y ago

It seems strange that all these streaming services are spending so much on advertising.

cwkoss 7y ago

Why would Netflix even need to advertise? Everyone knows about them. I'll be pirating any Disney movies that I need to watch, Disney is behind the vast over-expansion of copyright law in the US, and I believe it's unethical to fund their lobbyists.

thrower123 7y ago
I'm pretty down on Disney, seeing what they have done to Star Wars, and how they are so imaginatively bankrupt that all they can do is mine their successful animated legacy by reworking live-action/cgi remakes. They have also driven ESPN straight into the ground, relegating the flagship sports station a hotbed of woke nonsense and grievance politics.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  Much of Disney's most valuable IP was taken from the public domain and privatized. They've never been good at creating original stories.
paxys 7y ago
Everyone knows about them because they advertise. Same as Apple and every other brand in the world.

linuxhansl 7y ago

I didn't have cable TV for the past 15 years or so. Just didn't need that all that garbage for the occasional thing I really wanted to see. Netflix was the simple aggregator through which I could watch what I liked. Hasn't been for a while, though. There are better things to do with my life anyway than consuming movies and shows.

gigatexal 7y ago

I wish that Netflix was the sole dominant market player in this space such that for all intents and purposes it was the place to get streaming content so that I didn’t have a hodgepodge of services to subscribe to with different interfaces and user experiences and content. As the silos of content increase piracy will as well. I’m tired of my favorite shows being kicked off of Netflix for seemingly arbitrary reasons so I keep local copies around or buy shows on iTunes but as costs rise to own instead of stream I think piracy will increase instead of decrease as it has in the heyday of Netflix.

nstart 7y ago

The one thing I enjoyed with Netflix's original shows was that they weren't held back by these archaic regional deals. A show released by them releases globally. Netflix going global was the moment I jumped on. It still irritates me that the major film studios lag in releasing stuff on Netflix worldwide. There's no regional advertising deals to cut. What's the hold up?? Amazon has a similar problem of having a worthless catalogue where I live. Every movie I clicked on during my prime trial said "not available in your region". HBO was possibly the biggest disappointment where despite not having to cut deals for ads in their shows, their steaming service is still not available globally. With Disney talking ads in their offering, I have zero hope that they will launch worldwide at the scale of Netflix, and certainly not in Sri Lanka. Maybe India. But not Sri Lanka. Funnily enough, google play has been the best option for me. I have various networks' TV series purchased on it. And movie night usually means renting the major movie studio produced stuff from Google play. I hope they stick around for a long time to come because they somehow seem to be the one globally available neutral ground left. Weird how that works.

toper-centage 7y ago
Amazon prime in Germany has many movies where the only available option is dubbed. The original audio is literally impossible to watch. And this together with Germans' total aversion to subtitles, makes amazon prime almost worthless for non German speaking residents.

tibbydudeza 7y ago

I dunno why they just can't follow the music streaming model and put all of their content on the different streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Tidal and let the market decide on the differing features. I guess Hollywood and the movie/tv studios need to have their own Napster moment.

jaimex2 7y ago

Fantastic way to bring back piracy, they really don't learn do they.