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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

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.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    With a someone, yes. But the role of pop culture has always been to facilitate conversations in group settings, especially groups when not all participants know each other well.
- solipsism 7y ago
  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. Oh come on. Are you really claiming that if you can talk with your friends about Stranger Things, but not Game of Thrones because you don't have HBO, then you face some kind of serious impediment to participating in society? That strikes me as completely ridiculous. Customers don't like a big monolithic bundle because the single bill is too expensive. Customers also don't like a la carte content (which is available on any number of platforms, including Google and Amazon and Apple) because each individual bill is too expensive. Customers also don't like medium sized bundlings, because when things get split up across different bundles then people feel left out, and everyone feels the need to watch everything. So what's your proposal? It's not like the market isn't trying to cater to customers here. Do you propose we pass laws that restrict companies from creating exclusive content? Or should we pass laws that restrict content from costing more than a specific amount? Will we also have to pass laws to keep the quality up in that case? Why? Just because customers insatiably want and want and want? There are lots of real problems in the world for us to solve. This is not one of them.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    1. If cultural works are important, it's important that people can access them. 2. If they aren't, let's get rid of them and reallocate resources to more important things. 3. If allocating resources is the job of the market, then the market has decided that these cultural works are important. GOTO 1.
    - solipsism 7y ago
      Who's talking about cultural works that people can't access? What we're talking about is how much money they can access them for, and how many services they have to sign up to access them, and whether every single person needs access to every single work. Your analysis is way too simplistic for this conversation.
      - anoncake 7y ago
        For everyone who doesn't have infinite money, cultural works costing money means they can't access (some of) them.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    > Oh come on. Are you really claiming that if you can talk with your friends about Stranger Things, but not Game of Thrones because you don't have HBO, then you face some kind of serious impediment to participating in society? That strikes me as completely ridiculous. Perhaps not serious, but an impediment, yes. Stranger Things is not for everyone, but Game of Thrones actually was the #1 topic in the office at previous workplace for almost the entire time I've been there. But I have an even better example: Chernobyl. My wife and I were to Chernobyl, so we didn't feel in a particular hurry to watch the TV portrayal. But once everyone on our Facebook feeds - and I mean everyone, including people who can't spell "nuclear" half the time - started talking about the show, and started bringing it up in meatspace meetings, we kind of felt left out, so we sat down and just watched it. That's how the popular culture rolls. You can't be in sync with it all the time, but you have to stay in sync with hit some of the time, if you want to participate in group conversations. > Customers don't like a big monolithic bundle because the single bill is too expensive. > Customers also don't like a la carte content (...) because each individual bill is too expensive. You've just identified the problem with these two options :). Remember that video is one of few cases when people are just being nice by offering to subscribe to these streaming services. They always have the option of getting that content for free, or at a fraction of the price. > So what's your proposal? It's not like the market isn't trying to cater to customers here. I believe it isn't. The market is trying to gouge customers, and currently is in the state of balkanizing. > Do you propose we pass laws that restrict companies from creating exclusive content? That would be a start. But the emphasis is on "exclusive", not "creating" - an equivalent way of putting is would be a law restricting companies from exclusively licensing the content. So for starters, streaming services should get unbundled from the shows they carry and compete on the actual value they provide - UI and curation (i.e. categorization, sorting order; though honestly, that should be a separate, orthogonal service). (You'll note I'm only talking about exclusivity here, not IP ownership. The money for streaming, say, GoT would still go to HBO regardless of where they were streamed, but HBO shouldn't be able to refuse to license other platforms to steal it.) > Or should we pass laws that restrict content from costing more than a specific amount? Nah, competition - actual competition - between streaming platforms would do the rest. Movies and TV shows are non-substitutable goods, so exclusive deals prevent competition from happening. > Why? Just because customers insatiably want and want and want? So the industry spends billions on brainwashing[0] people into wanting more and more, plays off the FOMO, and you're surprised "customers insatiably want and want and want"? Maybe they should stop hooking them on hard drugs. With companies telling people to consume more and more, giving them more and more stuff to consume, and with politicians and economists saying this is good, because our economy needs to grow exponentially - I find it funny... no, disingenuous, to see customers being blamed. -- [0] - I'm past calling marketing and advertising anything less than that.
- beyourself911 7y ago
  If you sold your TV I bet you’d have something to talk about.

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.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  With a someone, yes. But the role of pop culture has always been to facilitate conversations in group settings, especially groups when not all participants know each other well.
solipsism 7y ago
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. Oh come on. Are you really claiming that if you can talk with your friends about Stranger Things, but not Game of Thrones because you don't have HBO, then you face some kind of serious impediment to participating in society? That strikes me as completely ridiculous. Customers don't like a big monolithic bundle because the single bill is too expensive. Customers also don't like a la carte content (which is available on any number of platforms, including Google and Amazon and Apple) because each individual bill is too expensive. Customers also don't like medium sized bundlings, because when things get split up across different bundles then people feel left out, and everyone feels the need to watch everything. So what's your proposal? It's not like the market isn't trying to cater to customers here. Do you propose we pass laws that restrict companies from creating exclusive content? Or should we pass laws that restrict content from costing more than a specific amount? Will we also have to pass laws to keep the quality up in that case? Why? Just because customers insatiably want and want and want? There are lots of real problems in the world for us to solve. This is not one of them.
- anoncake 7y ago
  1. If cultural works are important, it's important that people can access them. 2. If they aren't, let's get rid of them and reallocate resources to more important things. 3. If allocating resources is the job of the market, then the market has decided that these cultural works are important. GOTO 1.
  - solipsism 7y ago
    Who's talking about cultural works that people can't access? What we're talking about is how much money they can access them for, and how many services they have to sign up to access them, and whether every single person needs access to every single work. Your analysis is way too simplistic for this conversation.
    - anoncake 7y ago
      For everyone who doesn't have infinite money, cultural works costing money means they can't access (some of) them.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > Oh come on. Are you really claiming that if you can talk with your friends about Stranger Things, but not Game of Thrones because you don't have HBO, then you face some kind of serious impediment to participating in society? That strikes me as completely ridiculous. Perhaps not serious, but an impediment, yes. Stranger Things is not for everyone, but Game of Thrones actually was the #1 topic in the office at previous workplace for almost the entire time I've been there. But I have an even better example: Chernobyl. My wife and I were to Chernobyl, so we didn't feel in a particular hurry to watch the TV portrayal. But once everyone on our Facebook feeds - and I mean everyone, including people who can't spell "nuclear" half the time - started talking about the show, and started bringing it up in meatspace meetings, we kind of felt left out, so we sat down and just watched it. That's how the popular culture rolls. You can't be in sync with it all the time, but you have to stay in sync with hit some of the time, if you want to participate in group conversations. > Customers don't like a big monolithic bundle because the single bill is too expensive. > Customers also don't like a la carte content (...) because each individual bill is too expensive. You've just identified the problem with these two options :). Remember that video is one of few cases when people are just being nice by offering to subscribe to these streaming services. They always have the option of getting that content for free, or at a fraction of the price. > So what's your proposal? It's not like the market isn't trying to cater to customers here. I believe it isn't. The market is trying to gouge customers, and currently is in the state of balkanizing. > Do you propose we pass laws that restrict companies from creating exclusive content? That would be a start. But the emphasis is on "exclusive", not "creating" - an equivalent way of putting is would be a law restricting companies from exclusively licensing the content. So for starters, streaming services should get unbundled from the shows they carry and compete on the actual value they provide - UI and curation (i.e. categorization, sorting order; though honestly, that should be a separate, orthogonal service). (You'll note I'm only talking about exclusivity here, not IP ownership. The money for streaming, say, GoT would still go to HBO regardless of where they were streamed, but HBO shouldn't be able to refuse to license other platforms to steal it.) > Or should we pass laws that restrict content from costing more than a specific amount? Nah, competition - actual competition - between streaming platforms would do the rest. Movies and TV shows are non-substitutable goods, so exclusive deals prevent competition from happening. > Why? Just because customers insatiably want and want and want? So the industry spends billions on brainwashing[0] people into wanting more and more, plays off the FOMO, and you're surprised "customers insatiably want and want and want"? Maybe they should stop hooking them on hard drugs. With companies telling people to consume more and more, giving them more and more stuff to consume, and with politicians and economists saying this is good, because our economy needs to grow exponentially - I find it funny... no, disingenuous, to see customers being blamed. -- [0] - I'm past calling marketing and advertising anything less than that.
beyourself911 7y ago
If you sold your TV I bet you’d have something to talk about.