3 ms·

Sling TV rolls out free streaming to U.S. consumers stuck at home

21 points by vo2maxer 7y ago

shakna 7y ago
Sling's interspersal of free and paid-only content works. It's the same setup that a lot of streaming services end up with, because at some point, if you keep the free user, they end up saying "Why not?" because they're comfortable with your service. But you need to give them that level of comfort first for the tactic to work, otherwise they get irritated and leave. --- Shameless side of things follows. I considered interspersal when I was putting together the free access part of my own streaming service [0], but though I know the tactic works, it doesn't fit with everything else I was doing. (Reduced cognitive load, no DRM, etc.) I ended up with a place which is clearly free [1], and then everything else in its normal places. It isn't as effective. I don't get as many conversions as I would, otherwise. But I do know that the customers I do have, feel like they're still people to me, and that they feel free to reach out to me to talk about aspects of the site. Ideas, movies they would like to see, offers for help in translating subtitles, etc. I would rather have customers willing to have a relationship, then endless numbers of unknown that I need to manipulate into staying with varying tactics that must continually change. [0] https://sixteenmm.org https://sixteenmm.org [1] https://sixteenmm.org/category/free https://sixteenmm.org/category/free
thekevan 7y ago
I tried this and the free content was very sparse and mixed right in with "subscribe to view" content. It was very cumbersome and I uninstalled the app after 15 minutes of testing. It very much felt like they gave you a clunky trial version with the explicit purpose of getting you to buy the paid version, not a "limited resource for this tough time."
- kls 7y ago
  I am pretty pleased with PlutoTV, it's ad based but it does not bother me to watch ads to not pay a TV subscription. It's not live TV but between it and Prime Video I get as much TV as a want to watch. Which is limited I will admit.

21 points by vo2maxer 7y ago

Sling's interspersal of free and paid-only content works. It's the same setup that a lot of streaming services end up with, because at some point, if you keep the free user, they end up saying "Why not?" because they're comfortable with your service. But you need to give them that level of comfort first for the tactic to work, otherwise they get irritated and leave. --- Shameless side of things follows. I considered interspersal when I was putting together the free access part of my own streaming service [0], but though I know the tactic works, it doesn't fit with everything else I was doing. (Reduced cognitive load, no DRM, etc.) I ended up with a place which is clearly free [1], and then everything else in its normal places. It isn't as effective. I don't get as many conversions as I would, otherwise. But I do know that the customers I do have, feel like they're still people to me, and that they feel free to reach out to me to talk about aspects of the site. Ideas, movies they would like to see, offers for help in translating subtitles, etc. I would rather have customers willing to have a relationship, then endless numbers of unknown that I need to manipulate into staying with varying tactics that must continually change. [0] https://sixteenmm.org https://sixteenmm.org [1] https://sixteenmm.org/category/free https://sixteenmm.org/category/free

thekevan 7y ago

I tried this and the free content was very sparse and mixed right in with "subscribe to view" content. It was very cumbersome and I uninstalled the app after 15 minutes of testing. It very much felt like they gave you a clunky trial version with the explicit purpose of getting you to buy the paid version, not a "limited resource for this tough time."

kls 7y ago
I am pretty pleased with PlutoTV, it's ad based but it does not bother me to watch ads to not pay a TV subscription. It's not live TV but between it and Prime Video I get as much TV as a want to watch. Which is limited I will admit.