5 ms·

Except watching online is nowhere near as inconvenient as only watching movies from theaters in your area. It will most will likely consolidate to 4 major playe

by mythz 5y ago

Except watching online is nowhere near as inconvenient as only watching movies from theaters in your area. It will most will likely consolidate to 4 major players so we're looking at 4 subscriptions to watch most new content. There's nothing stopping production companies from producing content, if it's compelling enough they'll still be able to license it out to the big players. When everything's online the primary drawcard to different video subscriptions is exclusive content, which the giants are funding the production of themselves. Can't see how you could impose a law banning them from producing their own content, if they did and all content is licensed to everyone, there will be nothing distinguishing the different services.

ssharp 5y ago
> It will most will likely consolidate to 4 major players so we're looking at 4 subscriptions to watch most new content. How do you see this playing out when there have been so many big investments by traditional players to put forward new streaming services? The major players went from Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon and have now added Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, Apple TV+, and Paramount+, with more on the way. Untangling all the licensing deals is quite confusing as well and starts to get into the innards of production. I always associate Friends and Seinfeld with NBC, yet they aren't on Peacock, they're on HBO Max and Hulu, respectively. That and content shifting from one platform to another constantly, makes the web even more confusing and it's hard to determine which services you really want.
- scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
  This kind of confusing experience is certainly advantageous towards extracting more from the viewer. It’s like shopping malls being designed to be difficult to get out of.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    It’s a far less confusing experience than it was pre streaming services. You basically paid for an unknown item - you did not even know which content was going to be available or when it would be available. Now you can search for what you want to watch, follow the prompts, and it shows you the price, and you agree or disagree. And then you cancel if you do not want it anymore. Some of the purchasing flows can surely use more work, but it’s leagues better than it used to be.
    - scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
      Oh yeah definitely. It's all a matter of perspective and possibility enabled by the technology. But it's definitely still structured to kinda slightly force your hand towards a subscribtion, and then towards maybe forgetting to cancel it in a couple weeks etc.
- mythz 5y ago
  Hulu is majority owned by Disney who'll likely want to keep it running as a separate subscription service like ESPN in order to charge multiple content subscriptions. The major players I expect to be around after the streaming wars ends is: Netflix, Amazon, Disney and Apple. I expect most of the other platforms are going to end up as premium channels that you can subscribe to and watch on the other platforms, which you can do already in AppleTV+ and Amazon Prime. HBO and Hulu will be around as long as they have exclusive content they can't stream on other platforms. I don't expect HBO's content & licensing strategy of limiting it to higher margin cable services will last. In Australia you can only watch HBO through Foxtel which I'll never do, basically anything that's not accessible from Netflix, Prime, Disney+ or AppleTV+ doesn't exist for us. If the platforms were banned from producing their own content I expect it would dramatically favor platform owners like AppleTV+ where most iOS users would use to watch their content on as they can do now. Owning the UX would make them like Amazon.com storefront for 3rd party sellers, giving them unilateral power over the discovery of content, e.g. over time they could favor their own content, which is behavior I'd expect from Amazon, for Apple I think they'd be happy to just own the streaming platform as another lock-in & drawcard for iOS users.
ElFitz 5y ago
> if they did and all content is licensed to everyone, there will be nothing distinguishing the different services. Pricing and UX? But even though some companies are incapable of making good UIs, UX isn’t much of a moat. At the same time, differentiation through pricing leads to races to the bottom and unsustainable / worthless markets (and, in our case, probably diminishing content quality).
- cgriswald 5y ago
  Curation, which you may be including in UX. I’d pay $$$ for decent curation. As it stands, I apparently want to watch every low quality period piece known to man because I enjoyed Downton Abbey.
- Joeri 5y ago
  If UX isn’t much of a moat, why do most of the streaming platforms get it wrong? Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime have terrible UX for example. You might argue people don’t care about UX and that’s why it’s not a moat, and maybe they don’t, but personally I wish everyone would just plug their content into netflix and I could use that as the only platform.
  - Nkuna 5y ago
    Can't really vouch for Netflix's UX. I'd believe other platforms are better based on my experience with Netflix. Major personal gripes: 1. No watch history. Have to visit the web, dig into account settings to view it, having to click through 5 items at a time! 2. Content added to your list is displayed randomly, not by date added. No option to sort with various standard parameters such as aforementioned date added, popularity, year released, genre, etc. 3. Licensed content disappearing with not so much as a "we know you saved this to watch at some point but it's no longer available". Instead you're left second guessing yourself as to whether you suffer from dementia or not. (I get the business aspect of this, but still!) 4. Suggests content you've already watched and/or rated multiple times. At times recommends said show or movie immediately after watching/rating it. 5. Originals have trailers. Other content sometimes has trailers but most licensed content does not despite said trailers being available elsewhere for free. Most (all?) content used to show trailers but that's recently changed. (My guess is trailers convert better so you're more likely to watch original content) 6. No ratings history. Tangential to #1 I guess. 7. Can't click through to 'Coming Soon' titles to explore synopsis, trailers, cast, etc. Even for shows with prior seasons available; have to first search to access. To exasperate frustration, releasing soon titles are shown in searches where you can't do anything besides stare at a thumbnail. Pretty sure I have other issues with their UX but these are the most irritating.

by mythz 5y ago

ssharp 5y ago

> It will most will likely consolidate to 4 major players so we're looking at 4 subscriptions to watch most new content. How do you see this playing out when there have been so many big investments by traditional players to put forward new streaming services? The major players went from Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon and have now added Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, Apple TV+, and Paramount+, with more on the way. Untangling all the licensing deals is quite confusing as well and starts to get into the innards of production. I always associate Friends and Seinfeld with NBC, yet they aren't on Peacock, they're on HBO Max and Hulu, respectively. That and content shifting from one platform to another constantly, makes the web even more confusing and it's hard to determine which services you really want.

scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
This kind of confusing experience is certainly advantageous towards extracting more from the viewer. It’s like shopping malls being designed to be difficult to get out of.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  It’s a far less confusing experience than it was pre streaming services. You basically paid for an unknown item - you did not even know which content was going to be available or when it would be available. Now you can search for what you want to watch, follow the prompts, and it shows you the price, and you agree or disagree. And then you cancel if you do not want it anymore. Some of the purchasing flows can surely use more work, but it’s leagues better than it used to be.
  - scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
    Oh yeah definitely. It's all a matter of perspective and possibility enabled by the technology. But it's definitely still structured to kinda slightly force your hand towards a subscribtion, and then towards maybe forgetting to cancel it in a couple weeks etc.
mythz 5y ago
Hulu is majority owned by Disney who'll likely want to keep it running as a separate subscription service like ESPN in order to charge multiple content subscriptions. The major players I expect to be around after the streaming wars ends is: Netflix, Amazon, Disney and Apple. I expect most of the other platforms are going to end up as premium channels that you can subscribe to and watch on the other platforms, which you can do already in AppleTV+ and Amazon Prime. HBO and Hulu will be around as long as they have exclusive content they can't stream on other platforms. I don't expect HBO's content & licensing strategy of limiting it to higher margin cable services will last. In Australia you can only watch HBO through Foxtel which I'll never do, basically anything that's not accessible from Netflix, Prime, Disney+ or AppleTV+ doesn't exist for us. If the platforms were banned from producing their own content I expect it would dramatically favor platform owners like AppleTV+ where most iOS users would use to watch their content on as they can do now. Owning the UX would make them like Amazon.com storefront for 3rd party sellers, giving them unilateral power over the discovery of content, e.g. over time they could favor their own content, which is behavior I'd expect from Amazon, for Apple I think they'd be happy to just own the streaming platform as another lock-in & drawcard for iOS users.

ElFitz 5y ago

> if they did and all content is licensed to everyone, there will be nothing distinguishing the different services. Pricing and UX? But even though some companies are incapable of making good UIs, UX isn’t much of a moat. At the same time, differentiation through pricing leads to races to the bottom and unsustainable / worthless markets (and, in our case, probably diminishing content quality).

cgriswald 5y ago
Curation, which you may be including in UX. I’d pay $$$ for decent curation. As it stands, I apparently want to watch every low quality period piece known to man because I enjoyed Downton Abbey.
Joeri 5y ago
If UX isn’t much of a moat, why do most of the streaming platforms get it wrong? Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime have terrible UX for example. You might argue people don’t care about UX and that’s why it’s not a moat, and maybe they don’t, but personally I wish everyone would just plug their content into netflix and I could use that as the only platform.
- Nkuna 5y ago
  Can't really vouch for Netflix's UX. I'd believe other platforms are better based on my experience with Netflix. Major personal gripes: 1. No watch history. Have to visit the web, dig into account settings to view it, having to click through 5 items at a time! 2. Content added to your list is displayed randomly, not by date added. No option to sort with various standard parameters such as aforementioned date added, popularity, year released, genre, etc. 3. Licensed content disappearing with not so much as a "we know you saved this to watch at some point but it's no longer available". Instead you're left second guessing yourself as to whether you suffer from dementia or not. (I get the business aspect of this, but still!) 4. Suggests content you've already watched and/or rated multiple times. At times recommends said show or movie immediately after watching/rating it. 5. Originals have trailers. Other content sometimes has trailers but most licensed content does not despite said trailers being available elsewhere for free. Most (all?) content used to show trailers but that's recently changed. (My guess is trailers convert better so you're more likely to watch original content) 6. No ratings history. Tangential to #1 I guess. 7. Can't click through to 'Coming Soon' titles to explore synopsis, trailers, cast, etc. Even for shows with prior seasons available; have to first search to access. To exasperate frustration, releasing soon titles are shown in searches where you can't do anything besides stare at a thumbnail. Pretty sure I have other issues with their UX but these are the most irritating.