19 ms·

Amazon, Apple, Disney, HBO Max, Hulu, Peacock, ..., oh, and Netflix. How many monthly memberships are people going to want to pay for, especially when there is

Amazon, Apple, Disney, HBO Max, Hulu, Peacock, ..., oh, and Netflix. How many monthly memberships are people going to want to pay for, especially when there is already a huge library of free content on YouTube? Interesting times...

cobbzilla 7y ago
Their customers are also paying for curation and safety.
brogrammernot 7y ago
Amazon doesn’t really count as it’s an added benefit of Prime. However, all of those you listed are cheaper than adding cable to my bill. I pay for Netflix, Hulu and YoutubeTV. It’s cheaper than adding cable to my bill & that’s just absurd to me.
- aarpmcgee 7y ago
  Are you suggesting that it doesn’t count because you assume everyone has a Prime subscription?
  - Skunkleton 7y ago
    This isn't the point OP was making, but I don't think Amazon counts. Not because "everyone has prime", but because you can pay them extra money to add content to their platform. For example, you can pay to add British content, CBS, or HBO. Amazon is doing streaming right.
    - skinnymuch 7y ago
      I don’t think that’s a good reason. HBO will likely not be an add-on in near future. Hulu allows you to add Showtime too. CBS or Showtime have a good chance of not remaining with both products. Once CBS merges with Viacom [again]. Showtime and CBS’s new parent company will have to decide what to do about their streaming future. Edit: Hulu has add-one for HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, and Starz. Hulu obviously counts so then Amazon should count too.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    It’s estimated that 62% of households in the US have Prime subscriptions. https://www.geekwire.com/2019/new-survey-estimates-amazon-prime-membership-u-s-exceeds-100m/ https://www.geekwire.com/2019/new-survey-estimates-amazon-pr...
    - Supermancho 7y ago
      Amazon Prime Video is not the same as Amazon Prime and Amazon Prime has nowhere near 62% (since 101m is less than 1/3 of the US population). If we're talking "households", that doesn't pan out either since the average US household has 2.6 people, right now. I would be willing to say these numbers aren't concrete, but they are closer to the ballpark of reality than a 62% market penetration when I can ask all my coworkers at a well-known company and 25% have Amazon Prime...and these are people with disposable income that allows for it as opposed to people working out of an airport in Minnesota.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        Everyone who had Amazon Prime has Amazon Prime video. Should we base how many people who have Amazon Prime on your anecdotal experience at “the company you work for”? Do you have a better citation? We also don’t have to guess the number of households in the US. We have the Census. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/HSD410217 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/HSD410217 Around 119 million.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Any of them individually, or all of them together? If the latter, then wherever it is you live, you have some ridiculous places for cable TV there.
  - brogrammernot 7y ago
    Together, the cheapest plan I could add that would actually give me the shows I watch is around ~$50 additional, so it’s about even. Not taking Prime into account cause I use other prime features more-so
- wolco 7y ago
  You are paying for it with Amazon just bundled into the overall price. Probably 10% more. That's why cable costs so much the bundling of various properties adds up. For now streaming inventors are eating the cost but they expect that to change by 2024.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    It’s easy to put a nominal value on Amazon Prime Video. Amazon sells it separately for $6.99 a month. Whether it’s worth that is an exercise for the reader.
- wincy 7y ago
  I just cancelled my Prime subscription since it’s $120 and it seems to just be increasing so they can make more tv shows. Super annoying.
friedman23 7y ago
Disney owns ESPN, a controlling stake in Hulu, Marvel, Lucas Films, Pixar, Disney Animation, and 20th century fox (FX, fox searchlight, many classic movie franchises, X-Men, Fantastic 4, etc). I'm probably missing something. I imagine that Disney will eventually sell a mega subscription service that bundles all of their media. HBO Max will have all HBO content (obviously), all Warner Bros content, the CW (you know all of those teen dramas people love to watch on netflix like Riverdale, Supernatural, the Flash), Cartoon Network and a bunch of other subsidiaries that I can't name off the top of my head. Amazon people will have prime subscriptions which gives them access for free. I don't know why anyone would keep a lifetime subscription for any of the rest. Maybe only subscribe when your favorite shows are on? Anyway, I think the future of streaming will be interesting to watch. I've made a fairly large bet on Disney stock and I would have bought Warner bros stock if it wasn't owned by ATT (I like Warner bros, I don't like the rest of their business).
- dawnerd 7y ago
  Disney+ already will have espn and Hulu bundled (for a great price to boot).
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- skinnymuch 7y ago
  Disney controls 100% of Hulu now and can own the entire stake by 2024 when their deal with Comcast comes up for decision. Disney is already doing a bundle for ESPN+, Hulu, Disney+. The Hulu is the lower priced ad one, but still, they’re already mostly there with an ultimate streaming bundle.
echelon 7y ago
This is strictly worse than cable. Streaming in the 2010s was a breath of fresh air. You could find everything on one platform, watch it at your leisure, and pay way less than cable. Now we're going to have to pay more AND switch between nine different apps with broken UIs. This is god awful. All of this because of greed and a lack of regulation. We need to campaign for limited copyright (20 years), and build services like Spotify that have everything and merely pay the rights holders. Disney needs to be broken up. They own 90% of American pop culture. They're going to begin protection racketing theaters and dumbing down everything to appease the masses (and foreign governments). God, I hate what the Internet is becoming.
- solipsism 7y ago
  You don't have to do anything. You just feel the need to watch everything that can be watched. If you don't want to pay for every service, you should just reset your expectations.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    That's not how it works. For one, it's the age-old anticonsumer situation, but a fully distributed edition. People value movies and shows by title, not by distributor. Platforms aggregate orthogonally to that. The end result is, even if you ranked all the movies/shows by how much you wanted to that and restricted yourself to top 10, you'll likely end up having to subscribe to all the mainstream platforms to get them. Secondly, wrt. not having to watch anything, you sort-of do. Popular entertainment becomes popular culture, and if you want to participate in the society and build relationships with other people, you kind of have to be at least aware of some of the current offerings of that popular culture.
    - zzzcpan 7y ago
      Entertainment is not really pop culture and is diverse enough these days, thanks to the internet, that you can easily not find a single tv show or a movie to talk about with someone.
basch 7y ago
CBS/Viacom/Paramount/Nickelodeon/Showtime. Sony. Disney/Hulu/ESPN count as one, though you can buy smaller packages. ViacomCBS, NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia, and Disney will still be the big 4 of all the ones you listed. Amazon, Apple, and Netflix have minuscule content libraries by comparison. After people binge through new shows, the big 4 will be the ones holding all the old content. Netflix cant afford to produce content fast enough to backfill all their soon to expire licenses. Warner/Turner, Disney/ESPN, NBCSports also own a lot of sports coverage (CBS has a play as well) while Amazon, Apple, and Netflix barely have any coverage. People are underestimating the play ViacomCBS will be able to make against NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia, and Disney now that they are united. CBS All Access and Pluto will be a killer combo, if they so choose to venture that route AND they own Philo to compete with Sling, Vue, ATT, Hulu, Youtube. CBSAA/Pluto/Philo is absolutely a threat to Disney/ESPN/Hulu's attempt at dominance; NBCUniversal(XfinityComcast), WarnerMedia(DirecTV/ATT/HBO whatever its named this week) wont go down with a fight either. Discovery, Sinclair, AMC Networks all still exist as well. Verizon is making a bad play not gobbling up whats left. At some point there will be a race to the bottom on price, and ad supported Pluto(CBS)/Hulu(Disney) like products will be dirt cheat to get people in the door. The extra money will come from people not wanting to watch ads.
- megaremote 7y ago
  > After people binge through new shows, the big 4 will be the ones holding all the old content. Do most people really want that old content? Apart from a few shows, I say no.
  - prepend 7y ago
    I stopped watching real time stuff (news, local, etc) and like watching old series an episode or two a day. TNG was great and it took a few months.
  - raverbashing 7y ago
    Actually, I do think there is a market for that. Like the "catalog" section of the old rental places, it surely would be interesting to watch an "old" movie sometimes (which by today's measure could be something like >3yrs)
SN76477 7y ago
I will pay for several, lets just keep it under $40 a month. right now we have netflix, hulu, amazon prime and will get disney+ in our home. This along with youtube keeps us satisfied with almost anything we want to watch.

cobbzilla 7y ago

Their customers are also paying for curation and safety.

brogrammernot 7y ago

Amazon doesn’t really count as it’s an added benefit of Prime. However, all of those you listed are cheaper than adding cable to my bill. I pay for Netflix, Hulu and YoutubeTV. It’s cheaper than adding cable to my bill & that’s just absurd to me.

aarpmcgee 7y ago
Are you suggesting that it doesn’t count because you assume everyone has a Prime subscription?
- Skunkleton 7y ago
  This isn't the point OP was making, but I don't think Amazon counts. Not because "everyone has prime", but because you can pay them extra money to add content to their platform. For example, you can pay to add British content, CBS, or HBO. Amazon is doing streaming right.
  - skinnymuch 7y ago
    I don’t think that’s a good reason. HBO will likely not be an add-on in near future. Hulu allows you to add Showtime too. CBS or Showtime have a good chance of not remaining with both products. Once CBS merges with Viacom [again]. Showtime and CBS’s new parent company will have to decide what to do about their streaming future. Edit: Hulu has add-one for HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, and Starz. Hulu obviously counts so then Amazon should count too.
- scarface74 7y ago
  It’s estimated that 62% of households in the US have Prime subscriptions. https://www.geekwire.com/2019/new-survey-estimates-amazon-prime-membership-u-s-exceeds-100m/ https://www.geekwire.com/2019/new-survey-estimates-amazon-pr...
  - Supermancho 7y ago
    Amazon Prime Video is not the same as Amazon Prime and Amazon Prime has nowhere near 62% (since 101m is less than 1/3 of the US population). If we're talking "households", that doesn't pan out either since the average US household has 2.6 people, right now. I would be willing to say these numbers aren't concrete, but they are closer to the ballpark of reality than a 62% market penetration when I can ask all my coworkers at a well-known company and 25% have Amazon Prime...and these are people with disposable income that allows for it as opposed to people working out of an airport in Minnesota.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Everyone who had Amazon Prime has Amazon Prime video. Should we base how many people who have Amazon Prime on your anecdotal experience at “the company you work for”? Do you have a better citation? We also don’t have to guess the number of households in the US. We have the Census. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/HSD410217 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/HSD410217 Around 119 million.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Any of them individually, or all of them together? If the latter, then wherever it is you live, you have some ridiculous places for cable TV there.
- brogrammernot 7y ago
  Together, the cheapest plan I could add that would actually give me the shows I watch is around ~$50 additional, so it’s about even. Not taking Prime into account cause I use other prime features more-so
wolco 7y ago
You are paying for it with Amazon just bundled into the overall price. Probably 10% more. That's why cable costs so much the bundling of various properties adds up. For now streaming inventors are eating the cost but they expect that to change by 2024.
- scarface74 7y ago
  It’s easy to put a nominal value on Amazon Prime Video. Amazon sells it separately for $6.99 a month. Whether it’s worth that is an exercise for the reader.
wincy 7y ago
I just cancelled my Prime subscription since it’s $120 and it seems to just be increasing so they can make more tv shows. Super annoying.

friedman23 7y ago

Disney owns ESPN, a controlling stake in Hulu, Marvel, Lucas Films, Pixar, Disney Animation, and 20th century fox (FX, fox searchlight, many classic movie franchises, X-Men, Fantastic 4, etc). I'm probably missing something. I imagine that Disney will eventually sell a mega subscription service that bundles all of their media. HBO Max will have all HBO content (obviously), all Warner Bros content, the CW (you know all of those teen dramas people love to watch on netflix like Riverdale, Supernatural, the Flash), Cartoon Network and a bunch of other subsidiaries that I can't name off the top of my head. Amazon people will have prime subscriptions which gives them access for free. I don't know why anyone would keep a lifetime subscription for any of the rest. Maybe only subscribe when your favorite shows are on? Anyway, I think the future of streaming will be interesting to watch. I've made a fairly large bet on Disney stock and I would have bought Warner bros stock if it wasn't owned by ATT (I like Warner bros, I don't like the rest of their business).

dawnerd 7y ago
Disney+ already will have espn and Hulu bundled (for a great price to boot).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
skinnymuch 7y ago
Disney controls 100% of Hulu now and can own the entire stake by 2024 when their deal with Comcast comes up for decision. Disney is already doing a bundle for ESPN+, Hulu, Disney+. The Hulu is the lower priced ad one, but still, they’re already mostly there with an ultimate streaming bundle.

echelon 7y ago

This is strictly worse than cable. Streaming in the 2010s was a breath of fresh air. You could find everything on one platform, watch it at your leisure, and pay way less than cable. Now we're going to have to pay more AND switch between nine different apps with broken UIs. This is god awful. All of this because of greed and a lack of regulation. We need to campaign for limited copyright (20 years), and build services like Spotify that have everything and merely pay the rights holders. Disney needs to be broken up. They own 90% of American pop culture. They're going to begin protection racketing theaters and dumbing down everything to appease the masses (and foreign governments). God, I hate what the Internet is becoming.

solipsism 7y ago
You don't have to do anything. You just feel the need to watch everything that can be watched. If you don't want to pay for every service, you should just reset your expectations.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  That's not how it works. For one, it's the age-old anticonsumer situation, but a fully distributed edition. People value movies and shows by title, not by distributor. Platforms aggregate orthogonally to that. The end result is, even if you ranked all the movies/shows by how much you wanted to that and restricted yourself to top 10, you'll likely end up having to subscribe to all the mainstream platforms to get them. Secondly, wrt. not having to watch anything, you sort-of do. Popular entertainment becomes popular culture, and if you want to participate in the society and build relationships with other people, you kind of have to be at least aware of some of the current offerings of that popular culture.
  - zzzcpan 7y ago
    Entertainment is not really pop culture and is diverse enough these days, thanks to the internet, that you can easily not find a single tv show or a movie to talk about with someone.

basch 7y ago

CBS/Viacom/Paramount/Nickelodeon/Showtime. Sony. Disney/Hulu/ESPN count as one, though you can buy smaller packages. ViacomCBS, NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia, and Disney will still be the big 4 of all the ones you listed. Amazon, Apple, and Netflix have minuscule content libraries by comparison. After people binge through new shows, the big 4 will be the ones holding all the old content. Netflix cant afford to produce content fast enough to backfill all their soon to expire licenses. Warner/Turner, Disney/ESPN, NBCSports also own a lot of sports coverage (CBS has a play as well) while Amazon, Apple, and Netflix barely have any coverage. People are underestimating the play ViacomCBS will be able to make against NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia, and Disney now that they are united. CBS All Access and Pluto will be a killer combo, if they so choose to venture that route AND they own Philo to compete with Sling, Vue, ATT, Hulu, Youtube. CBSAA/Pluto/Philo is absolutely a threat to Disney/ESPN/Hulu's attempt at dominance; NBCUniversal(XfinityComcast), WarnerMedia(DirecTV/ATT/HBO whatever its named this week) wont go down with a fight either. Discovery, Sinclair, AMC Networks all still exist as well. Verizon is making a bad play not gobbling up whats left. At some point there will be a race to the bottom on price, and ad supported Pluto(CBS)/Hulu(Disney) like products will be dirt cheat to get people in the door. The extra money will come from people not wanting to watch ads.

megaremote 7y ago
> After people binge through new shows, the big 4 will be the ones holding all the old content. Do most people really want that old content? Apart from a few shows, I say no.
- prepend 7y ago
  I stopped watching real time stuff (news, local, etc) and like watching old series an episode or two a day. TNG was great and it took a few months.
- raverbashing 7y ago
  Actually, I do think there is a market for that. Like the "catalog" section of the old rental places, it surely would be interesting to watch an "old" movie sometimes (which by today's measure could be something like >3yrs)

SN76477 7y ago

I will pay for several, lets just keep it under $40 a month. right now we have netflix, hulu, amazon prime and will get disney+ in our home. This along with youtube keeps us satisfied with almost anything we want to watch.