10 ms·

>why do I have to pay for 250 channels when I only watch 5 of them? Let me pay only for what I watch. But that is still the case. If I could only pay for the s

>why do I have to pay for 250 channels when I only watch 5 of them? Let me pay only for what I watch. But that is still the case. If I could only pay for the shows I watch, I would not complain. But if I watch one Netflix show, I can't just subscribe to that show, I must pay for a ton of stuff I'm not remotely interested in. You still have Netflix, Disney+ and all the cable channels you need to subscribe to if you want their shows, how is this better for the consumer ? An actual 'A la carte' situation is that of the consumer being able to actually handpick the shows they want and only pay for those. This will never happen due to the industry being absolutely hostile to the idea, second best from a consumer standpoint is a single huge distributor like Netflix where you would pay larger fee but have access to practically everything you want, that is now pretty much a pipe dream since every major player wants to run their own streaming platform. This is not the way to beat piracy.

CivBase 7y ago
> But if I watch one Netflix show, I can't just subscribe to that show, I must pay for a ton of stuff I'm not remotely interested in. When I want a song, I've always just bought it. I still do. I can do basically anything with the file other than redistribute it. I can even play music while offline! I only use streaming services like Spotify and YouTube for songs I don't regularly play. I'm very frustrated I don't have the same option for movies and TV. Sure, I can buy the physical media, but there's all sorts of legal shinanigans when it comes to ripping blurays and such. My ideal solution isn't one big streaming service that has everything. I want an "iTunes for movies".
- chipotle_coyote 7y ago
  > I want an "iTunes for movies". You... know that iTunes sells movies, right?
  - ce4 7y ago
    This is probaby not what he meant, movies on iTunes, Google movies, etc all have DRM while music doesn't. He just wants to "do basically anything with the file other than redistribute it."
    - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
      That's fair, although with the current state of things it's a tougher ask. Even so, the iTunes for movies is, arguably, iTunes -- or Amazon's equivalent. (I do wonder whether DRM-free videos would have followed in the same way DRM-free music did if that market had taken off and streaming hadn't; at this point there's probably little commercial motivation to studios to make that change, as they'll just say "instead of buying that, subscribe to [insert video service here].")
- parasubvert 7y ago
  There... is an iTunes for movies. I mean, I own hundreds of iTunes movies, some of which I purchased 13 years ago. Microsoft, Google, and Sony all have equivalents.
  - ce4 7y ago
    You're not owning them. You own a license to watch on Apple's terms and as long as iTunes is around. Microsoft shut down the drm servers and killed their clients' ebooks in April: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20318852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20318852
    - feu 7y ago
      Microsoft gave their customers a full refund, what's the problem?
      - michaelt 7y ago
        As a purely practical matter: maybe your ebook reader only supports the format that was discontinued; maybe the ebook has gone out of print or has a change you don't like; or maybe you brought it when there was a big discount and to re-purchase elsewhere will cost you more. As a broader matter of principle, it proves your property rights over a DRMed ebook are weak compared to a regular physical book; if you had a physical book, the seller couldn't barge into your home and remove it, refund or no.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      That’s not strictly true. If the movie you purchased was from one of the five major studios that support Movies Anywhere, you can link your Amazon Prime, Google, iTunes, or Vudu account (along with others) and any movie purchased on one can be transferred to the other services. https://moviesanywhere.com/welcome https://moviesanywhere.com/welcome
      - ericd 7y ago
        And if I want a DRM free copy so that I don’t have to ever keep track of this landscape of shifting alliances? This is way more mental overhead than I want to devote to movies.
chipotle_coyote 7y ago
> An actual 'A la carte' situation is that of the consumer being able to actually handpick the shows they want and only pay for those. This will never happen due to the industry being absolutely hostile to the idea... We've been able to do this with a substantial number of shows for years, though, by buying individual episodes or "season passes" on Amazon and iTunes. Maybe people just don't know, maybe people think the prices are too high, but more than likely the market has just largely moved on from this model for much the same reason that it moved on from CDs: the rise of streaming. (But put a pin in that for a second...) > ...second best from a consumer standpoint is a single huge distributor like Netflix where you would pay larger fee but have access to practically everything you want... This is what we all want price-wise, but would we really, truly want to turn Netflix into the equivalent of the iOS App Store for essentially all legal streaming movies and television? Everyone blames the proliferation of streaming services on rapacious greed, and, I mean, sure, the profit motive is mighty. But it's also a matter of keeping control. Broadcast networks and cable companies are middlemen who not only take a cut of the profit but who also act as gatekeepers; it's a little mad to think that producers would want to free themselves from that system only to rebuild it with a single all-powerful company in the command seat. Sure, not all the streaming services will survive, especially at the prices Netflix is currently charging. But I'm not convinced that the world is really going to rise up and rebel against having to pay $50 or $60 a month total to a half-dozen providers for commercial-free, on-demand access to hundreds of thousand of shows versus paying $100+ a month to a single provider.
- paranoidrobot 7y ago
  The problem with buying Season Passes is that they're usually a terrible option for many reasons. They're usually not available until well after the season premiered (12+ months later), roughly at the same time that the DVD/Bluray comes out. The quality of them is iffy, at best - SD or HD at poor bitrates. Fine for watching on a tablet or laptop, marginal at best on a TV/Surround system. They're tied to watching on that specific platform, and you're fucked if you wanted to watch on another platform, and if that platform goes away so do all your purchases. They're region locked, so if you went overseas for a bit, you can't access them. They're often either as expensive, or more, than the physical Bluray.
parasubvert 7y ago
A la carte TV/Movies have existed for longer than Netflix has been streaming. Google Play, Apple TV, Sony PlayStation store and Microsoft Xbox store all sell seasons and/or episodes and/or full movies. And you can often rent movies for cheaper. Overall, consumers preferred the subscriptions. They’re a better deal if you watch more than 5-10 hours a month. Though there are some things you can only purchase a la carte.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  It costs more to buy four episodes of a single show than an entire month of a typical streaming service. That is not the "let me pick my channels" service that people often ask for.
  - Mindwipe 7y ago
    It is, because a la carte is always significantly more expensive. It results in higher transaction cost overhead, more risk, more cash flow volatility etc. A la carte is significantly more expensive in literally every industry, globally, for a reason.
    - ulucs 7y ago
      Human behavior does not (and should not) care about the cost structure. As binge watching is popular, having digital content priced over 15$ (or whatever the monthly price of the streaming service that also hosts the content) limits the sales to an incredibly niche audience.
      - parasubvert 7y ago
        Incredibly niche is an exaggeration. People will spend the dough to watch what they want to watch. The vast majority of movies aren’t on Netflix!
    - Goladus 7y ago
      > a la carte is always significantly more expensive True, but clearly not the case with most TV shows. It's not an a la carte premium. It's either targeting a niche market like collectors, or there's just no attempt to set a market price whatsoever as the example here demonstrates: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21682892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21682892
CJefferson 7y ago
There is no reason for an 'a la carte' system to be cheaper. Actually transmitting channels is basically free. So, assuming there is 250 channels, and everyone watches 5, but a different 5, it costs the same to let everyone watch all 250, or exactly 5 of them.
__alias 7y ago
um, Youtube does this. you can buy movies/series for a one time viewing. If you don't watch too many it works out pretty cheap
v7p1Qbt1im 7y ago
I can only speak for myself. But I, and I believe many others, actually prefer a subscription. To be fair. I probably watch more content than the average person. So for me it‘s absolutely worth it. I know and used pretty much every modern pirating technique known to man. While you can get incredibly sophisticated with automation and ease of use. It‘s still not as easy or convenient as Netflix for example. Also, no Dolby Vision in piracy atm. Obviously cost is a factor. But more important for me is ease of access and best possible quality. Let‘s take Disney+. In my market it‘s not available yet. I will absolutely pirate The Mandalorian. The fact that it would surprise anyone that it would be a heavily pirated show is laughable. It‘s 2019 and you expect people to wait on a show that‘s available elsewhere? I would pay for it. But they won‘t let me. Their fault for not launching globally .

CivBase 7y ago

> But if I watch one Netflix show, I can't just subscribe to that show, I must pay for a ton of stuff I'm not remotely interested in. When I want a song, I've always just bought it. I still do. I can do basically anything with the file other than redistribute it. I can even play music while offline! I only use streaming services like Spotify and YouTube for songs I don't regularly play. I'm very frustrated I don't have the same option for movies and TV. Sure, I can buy the physical media, but there's all sorts of legal shinanigans when it comes to ripping blurays and such. My ideal solution isn't one big streaming service that has everything. I want an "iTunes for movies".

chipotle_coyote 7y ago
> I want an "iTunes for movies". You... know that iTunes sells movies, right?
- ce4 7y ago
  This is probaby not what he meant, movies on iTunes, Google movies, etc all have DRM while music doesn't. He just wants to "do basically anything with the file other than redistribute it."
  - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
    That's fair, although with the current state of things it's a tougher ask. Even so, the iTunes for movies is, arguably, iTunes -- or Amazon's equivalent. (I do wonder whether DRM-free videos would have followed in the same way DRM-free music did if that market had taken off and streaming hadn't; at this point there's probably little commercial motivation to studios to make that change, as they'll just say "instead of buying that, subscribe to [insert video service here].")
parasubvert 7y ago
There... is an iTunes for movies. I mean, I own hundreds of iTunes movies, some of which I purchased 13 years ago. Microsoft, Google, and Sony all have equivalents.
- ce4 7y ago
  You're not owning them. You own a license to watch on Apple's terms and as long as iTunes is around. Microsoft shut down the drm servers and killed their clients' ebooks in April: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20318852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20318852
  - feu 7y ago
    Microsoft gave their customers a full refund, what's the problem?
    - michaelt 7y ago
      As a purely practical matter: maybe your ebook reader only supports the format that was discontinued; maybe the ebook has gone out of print or has a change you don't like; or maybe you brought it when there was a big discount and to re-purchase elsewhere will cost you more. As a broader matter of principle, it proves your property rights over a DRMed ebook are weak compared to a regular physical book; if you had a physical book, the seller couldn't barge into your home and remove it, refund or no.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    That’s not strictly true. If the movie you purchased was from one of the five major studios that support Movies Anywhere, you can link your Amazon Prime, Google, iTunes, or Vudu account (along with others) and any movie purchased on one can be transferred to the other services. https://moviesanywhere.com/welcome https://moviesanywhere.com/welcome
    - ericd 7y ago
      And if I want a DRM free copy so that I don’t have to ever keep track of this landscape of shifting alliances? This is way more mental overhead than I want to devote to movies.

chipotle_coyote 7y ago

> An actual 'A la carte' situation is that of the consumer being able to actually handpick the shows they want and only pay for those. This will never happen due to the industry being absolutely hostile to the idea... We've been able to do this with a substantial number of shows for years, though, by buying individual episodes or "season passes" on Amazon and iTunes. Maybe people just don't know, maybe people think the prices are too high, but more than likely the market has just largely moved on from this model for much the same reason that it moved on from CDs: the rise of streaming. (But put a pin in that for a second...) > ...second best from a consumer standpoint is a single huge distributor like Netflix where you would pay larger fee but have access to practically everything you want... This is what we all want price-wise, but would we really, truly want to turn Netflix into the equivalent of the iOS App Store for essentially all legal streaming movies and television? Everyone blames the proliferation of streaming services on rapacious greed, and, I mean, sure, the profit motive is mighty. But it's also a matter of keeping control. Broadcast networks and cable companies are middlemen who not only take a cut of the profit but who also act as gatekeepers; it's a little mad to think that producers would want to free themselves from that system only to rebuild it with a single all-powerful company in the command seat. Sure, not all the streaming services will survive, especially at the prices Netflix is currently charging. But I'm not convinced that the world is really going to rise up and rebel against having to pay $50 or $60 a month total to a half-dozen providers for commercial-free, on-demand access to hundreds of thousand of shows versus paying $100+ a month to a single provider.

paranoidrobot 7y ago
The problem with buying Season Passes is that they're usually a terrible option for many reasons. They're usually not available until well after the season premiered (12+ months later), roughly at the same time that the DVD/Bluray comes out. The quality of them is iffy, at best - SD or HD at poor bitrates. Fine for watching on a tablet or laptop, marginal at best on a TV/Surround system. They're tied to watching on that specific platform, and you're fucked if you wanted to watch on another platform, and if that platform goes away so do all your purchases. They're region locked, so if you went overseas for a bit, you can't access them. They're often either as expensive, or more, than the physical Bluray.

parasubvert 7y ago

A la carte TV/Movies have existed for longer than Netflix has been streaming. Google Play, Apple TV, Sony PlayStation store and Microsoft Xbox store all sell seasons and/or episodes and/or full movies. And you can often rent movies for cheaper. Overall, consumers preferred the subscriptions. They’re a better deal if you watch more than 5-10 hours a month. Though there are some things you can only purchase a la carte.

Dylan16807 7y ago
It costs more to buy four episodes of a single show than an entire month of a typical streaming service. That is not the "let me pick my channels" service that people often ask for.
- Mindwipe 7y ago
  It is, because a la carte is always significantly more expensive. It results in higher transaction cost overhead, more risk, more cash flow volatility etc. A la carte is significantly more expensive in literally every industry, globally, for a reason.
  - ulucs 7y ago
    Human behavior does not (and should not) care about the cost structure. As binge watching is popular, having digital content priced over 15$ (or whatever the monthly price of the streaming service that also hosts the content) limits the sales to an incredibly niche audience.
    - parasubvert 7y ago
      Incredibly niche is an exaggeration. People will spend the dough to watch what they want to watch. The vast majority of movies aren’t on Netflix!
  - Goladus 7y ago
    > a la carte is always significantly more expensive True, but clearly not the case with most TV shows. It's not an a la carte premium. It's either targeting a niche market like collectors, or there's just no attempt to set a market price whatsoever as the example here demonstrates: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21682892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21682892

CJefferson 7y ago

There is no reason for an 'a la carte' system to be cheaper. Actually transmitting channels is basically free. So, assuming there is 250 channels, and everyone watches 5, but a different 5, it costs the same to let everyone watch all 250, or exactly 5 of them.

__alias 7y ago

um, Youtube does this. you can buy movies/series for a one time viewing. If you don't watch too many it works out pretty cheap

v7p1Qbt1im 7y ago

I can only speak for myself. But I, and I believe many others, actually prefer a subscription. To be fair. I probably watch more content than the average person. So for me it‘s absolutely worth it. I know and used pretty much every modern pirating technique known to man. While you can get incredibly sophisticated with automation and ease of use. It‘s still not as easy or convenient as Netflix for example. Also, no Dolby Vision in piracy atm. Obviously cost is a factor. But more important for me is ease of access and best possible quality. Let‘s take Disney+. In my market it‘s not available yet. I will absolutely pirate The Mandalorian. The fact that it would surprise anyone that it would be a heavily pirated show is laughable. It‘s 2019 and you expect people to wait on a show that‘s available elsewhere? I would pay for it. But they won‘t let me. Their fault for not launching globally .