5 ms·

One glaring difference between 1948 and 2021 is that distribution is basically free now. Whereas in 1948, one's ability to consume media was dictated by their p

by bhupy 5y ago

One glaring difference between 1948 and 2021 is that distribution is basically free now. Whereas in 1948, one's ability to consume media was dictated by their physical location, today there is close to zero marginal cost to deliver digital media and low barriers to entry for new entrants. Just consider how many streaming services there were 10 years ago vs today. No human consumes enough TV media to warrant subscribing to every single streaming service at the same time, and there's certainly a lot that can be improved to make the "a la carte" experience of selectively subscribing/unsubscribing to services on demand more seamless — but the way the industry operates across the entire supply chain is dramatically different today.

usrusr 5y ago
The distribution argument would be true if pay per view was the dominant form, but subscriptions are. And in the studio days, how many people didn't have access to at least one theatre of each in range? I might be mistaken but I don't think that limited film choice in rural areas was the main concern back then. Now we have subscriptions. It would be as crazy as it sounds, we are almost at the point where a preference of Picard over Kirk could have an effect on which toilet paper you end up buying. But I agree in so far as that it is far from as bad as it could be if they tightened down on unsubscribe/resubscribe (which I think will inevitably happen one day). Still, I've been to that party that end with one room full of "Amazons", one room full of "Neflixers" and those left over wondering what they all talk about.
- bhupy 5y ago
  > Still, I've been to that party that end with one room full of "Amazons", one room full of "Neflixers" and those left over wondering what they all talk about. I really like what you said here. A familiar analogy that I like to use is cable TV: Netflix and Amazon are just "channels", each with different shows. When one half of the room is full of "Amazons", that's just the half of the room that's interested in some subset of shows not too dissimilar from what it might have been like to be a regular viewer of a serial television series in the days of yore. However, whereas before, you had to subscribe to all of the channels in bulk. Today, you have the option to pick and choose the "channels" you want to pay for on any given month given the TV shows you care about. I think we agree that the experience to do this can be improved, but I think we also agree that it will inevitably happen one day.
  - usrusr 5y ago
    The truth is that "they" (sorry) will do everything they can to extract the highest fraction of consumer income they can. I'm in a market where before streaming it was basically all FTA which means that I have no idea what to expect. In a market where cable fees already meant a subscription to otherwise unavailable content, I'd expect that number to end up a lower bound of typical spending.
- ghaff 5y ago
  If unsubscribe/resubscribe became an issue, what I expect would happen is that they might go to annual plans only or at least make annual a lot more attractive relative monthly. (That said, I expect that most people don't really optimize their monthly subscriptions that way. I will drop things I'm not really using at the moment, but it's usually in the vein of "Hmm. I haven't watched HBO for a couple months."
ghaff 5y ago
At one level, it would be nice if all the subscription streaming services, a la carte content, and live TV could be accessed from a single subscription portal. But I suspect that most people wouldn't be willing to pay the $200 (or whatever) per month that such a service would probably cost. (And that's not an outlandish number; that's only about 2x what cable costs in a lot of places in the US.)
- bhupy 5y ago
  That's not the point that I'm making. You're absolutely right that nobody would ever pay $200 or whatever per month for such a service, but that's because nobody would ever consumer $200 worth of TV series on any given month. It's just not humanly feasible. The average human being consumes 2-3 TV shows at most on any given month. In the absolute worst case, that extends to 2-3 separate streaming subscriptions. The only thing that changes over the course of the year is which 3 TV shows one is watching (and therefore which underlying streaming service they care about). The future isn't a $200 bundle of every streaming service available on-demand; the future is an LRU cache that automatically unsubscribes you from a streaming service if you haven't watched a show on it in the last month, and then re-subscribes you the moment you do. Given the current price of streaming services, it probably works out closer to (at most) $45/month, on average.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    That's probably about the right dollar figure for most people depending upon how you count Amazon Prime and how much a la carte movie purchasing/renting they do. Though I'd add that, if they also have to pay for live TV (for example, if they can't get it over the air) for sports, etc., that brings the total to probably more than $100.
  - com2kid 5y ago
    FWIW I know multiple people with a $200 a month cable TV bill. Per box rental, multiple TVs, and a sports or premium channel package, the bill is easily at $200.
  - usrusr 5y ago

by bhupy 5y ago

usrusr 5y ago

The distribution argument would be true if pay per view was the dominant form, but subscriptions are. And in the studio days, how many people didn't have access to at least one theatre of each in range? I might be mistaken but I don't think that limited film choice in rural areas was the main concern back then. Now we have subscriptions. It would be as crazy as it sounds, we are almost at the point where a preference of Picard over Kirk could have an effect on which toilet paper you end up buying. But I agree in so far as that it is far from as bad as it could be if they tightened down on unsubscribe/resubscribe (which I think will inevitably happen one day). Still, I've been to that party that end with one room full of "Amazons", one room full of "Neflixers" and those left over wondering what they all talk about.

bhupy 5y ago
> Still, I've been to that party that end with one room full of "Amazons", one room full of "Neflixers" and those left over wondering what they all talk about. I really like what you said here. A familiar analogy that I like to use is cable TV: Netflix and Amazon are just "channels", each with different shows. When one half of the room is full of "Amazons", that's just the half of the room that's interested in some subset of shows not too dissimilar from what it might have been like to be a regular viewer of a serial television series in the days of yore. However, whereas before, you had to subscribe to all of the channels in bulk. Today, you have the option to pick and choose the "channels" you want to pay for on any given month given the TV shows you care about. I think we agree that the experience to do this can be improved, but I think we also agree that it will inevitably happen one day.
- usrusr 5y ago
  The truth is that "they" (sorry) will do everything they can to extract the highest fraction of consumer income they can. I'm in a market where before streaming it was basically all FTA which means that I have no idea what to expect. In a market where cable fees already meant a subscription to otherwise unavailable content, I'd expect that number to end up a lower bound of typical spending.
ghaff 5y ago
If unsubscribe/resubscribe became an issue, what I expect would happen is that they might go to annual plans only or at least make annual a lot more attractive relative monthly. (That said, I expect that most people don't really optimize their monthly subscriptions that way. I will drop things I'm not really using at the moment, but it's usually in the vein of "Hmm. I haven't watched HBO for a couple months."

ghaff 5y ago

At one level, it would be nice if all the subscription streaming services, a la carte content, and live TV could be accessed from a single subscription portal. But I suspect that most people wouldn't be willing to pay the $200 (or whatever) per month that such a service would probably cost. (And that's not an outlandish number; that's only about 2x what cable costs in a lot of places in the US.)

bhupy 5y ago
That's not the point that I'm making. You're absolutely right that nobody would ever pay $200 or whatever per month for such a service, but that's because nobody would ever consumer $200 worth of TV series on any given month. It's just not humanly feasible. The average human being consumes 2-3 TV shows at most on any given month. In the absolute worst case, that extends to 2-3 separate streaming subscriptions. The only thing that changes over the course of the year is which 3 TV shows one is watching (and therefore which underlying streaming service they care about). The future isn't a $200 bundle of every streaming service available on-demand; the future is an LRU cache that automatically unsubscribes you from a streaming service if you haven't watched a show on it in the last month, and then re-subscribes you the moment you do. Given the current price of streaming services, it probably works out closer to (at most) $45/month, on average.
- ghaff 5y ago
  That's probably about the right dollar figure for most people depending upon how you count Amazon Prime and how much a la carte movie purchasing/renting they do. Though I'd add that, if they also have to pay for live TV (for example, if they can't get it over the air) for sports, etc., that brings the total to probably more than $100.
- com2kid 5y ago
  FWIW I know multiple people with a $200 a month cable TV bill. Per box rental, multiple TVs, and a sports or premium channel package, the bill is easily at $200.
- usrusr 5y ago