23 ms·

It's hard to say who's winning the streaming wars, but customers are losing

261 points by apitman 5y ago

PaulHoule 5y ago
I got interested in the show Alter Ego on Fox and wanted to catch up on what I'd missed. Fox let me watch one episode before registering (and paying?) but I was able to watch it all on Youtube. Odds are better that you find anything on Youtube than any place else unless it is a Chinese TV series that shouldn't be obscure but practically is. (Like how I had to get a bootleg of Three Kingdoms from Singapore.)
- tyingq 5y ago
  Did a few searches, and YouTube does seem to have great access for a lot of titles. It's not always real economical though. One season of the Handmaid's Tale is only available to buy, not rent. And it's $25. I could pay for 2 months of "no ads" Hulu and get that season and everything else they have, for less. So fragmentation is still an issue.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    > So fragmentation is still an issue. Maybe Apple is doing the right thing by forcing everything to go through the App Store on iOS.
    - tyingq 5y ago
      Not fragmentation of payment, fragmentation of streaming rights across Netflix, Hulu, Disney, Prime, etc. I don't see the two as particularly related.
  - PaulHoule 5y ago
    I think many of the things you find on Youtube aren't supposed to be there but they get uploaded anyway.
    - skinnymuch 5y ago
      Yeah Alter Ego isn’t. I think parent was looking at officially available paid offerings only. Not pirated streaming which the grandparent/OP is referring to. Content creators don’t get anything in that case though.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    I believe the OP meant bootleg uploaded copies. Otherwise like you said. Many streaming services have it: Hulu, Fubo. Even Fox’s subsidiary Tubi has it. Which is free streaming I believe with ads. A one month subscription will usually be cheaper then buying.
paconbork 5y ago
I'm just waiting until we come full circle and can purchase a bundle of streaming services. Maybe it will come with phone and internet
- yellow_postit 5y ago
  This is happening already — with some T Mobile packages I get Netflix and Spotify included.
zibzab 5y ago
I think pirates are winning.
- bobsmooth 5y ago
  With Everything, I can access any episode of whatever tv show I want instantly in full resolution. With Emby it takes a few extra seconds. I don't see how streaming can compete with local files.
- threevox 5y ago
  Only viable solution
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  Yup. That's me to an extent. I subscribe to Netflix, HBO, and Disney. If what I want to watch isn't on either of those three, it's getting pirated.
  - handrous 5y ago
    I sometimes pirate things that are on services I'm paying for just because I don't want to have to remember which one has the thing I want to watch, every time I go to watch it, or switch between apps if watching multiple shows, or whatever.
    - jasomill 5y ago
      The only thing that really tempts me to piracy are shows only available for streaming via iOS apps that disable picture-in-picture viewing during commercial breaks. This particular behavior should really be banned by App Store guidelines, as it generates no revenue for Apple, and I can't imagine a single provider willing to forgo ad revenue from iOS users as a whole over such a rule. Show commercials, if you must, but trying to force me to pay attention to commercials via technological means is where I draw the line. Instead of actually bothering to pirate the show, however, I generally just do something else. I'm honestly curious why (AFAIK) major content producers haven't looked beyond existing revenue streams and experimented with freemium (or at least "low-costium") models, along the lines of Microsoft studios releasing current AAA titles through Game Pass — which, while not free, is arguably inexpensive — but charging extra for optional in-game purchases and DLC. In other words, make base versions of shows available for free or at a low cost, then charge a few bucks per season for premium features like early access to episodes, 4K/HDR, and bonus content. For major franchises, at least, I imagine there are at least enough fans willing to pay, say, $10-20 per season for such features to make such a venture worthwhile.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
I went to the TV app on my iPhone, searched for Survivor, scrolled to season 41 episode 9, and saw I could watch it for $3, or you can sign up for Paramount+.
- sakopov 5y ago
  Is that $3 on top of 4 streaming subscriptions you're already paying for?
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    It is $3 to instantly watch it as long as Apple decides to keep serving it and/or does not ban you from their services. Presumably, if you subscribe to Paramount+, then you can also watch it as long as you are paying the monthly fee. My point is I got to the media I was looking for rather quick. I would never spend my time watching Survivor for free, much less pay for it, but my opinion of the experience of trying to watch it was quick and easy.
- yellow_postit 5y ago
  Searching across multiple services is a key feature I have yet to find a reliable option for. For syndicated shows I want to see if they exist on a service I already pay for and if not, price shop. CanIStreamIt used to fill this gap but no longer.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    The TV app on macOS and iOS does this. Except for Netflix stuff, but that is because Netflix does not want to participate.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    Justwatch and reelgood are reliable enough. I usually use justwatch through https://Trakt.tv https://Trakt.tv
  - readflaggedcomm 5y ago
    Rokus do that for any of their channels that supports it, which are a whole lot. You can use it on the web, too, and it shows which channels require a subscription: https://www.roku.com/whats-on/search https://www.roku.com/whats-on/search I assume it's accurate for those services across other platforms than just Roku.
wccrawford 5y ago
The predicted fracture has started, with different networks starting their own streaming services. Luckily, there seems to be an acceptable minimum level of quality in the UI and service so far, which was one of my fears. We subscribe to a number of the services, but it's still cheaper than cable TV and there are no commercials, and it's all "on demand" which still seems to be pretty iffy on cable directly. I feel like it's going to be a constant struggle to only subscribe to the ones that we're actually using, but it isn't as bad as I feared yet. I'm still predicting that they'll get ridiculously fractured, and then realize their mistake and start bundling together again. It has kind of already happened with Paramount+ and Showtime's bundle, and I think some of the others were doing it before them even. But these bundles are just a bandaid. You still need to actually use 2 different sites/apps to view your TV, and it's hard to get a list of what shows have new episodes across all the sites/apps. We end up just starting up each app and checking until we find something we want to watch right then.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  > The predicted fracture has started, with different networks starting their own streaming services. I do not understand why anyone would have expected any different. Is that not the beauty of the internet? That you can consume the content from anyone, regardless of the owner of the wire coming into your house? (which should not be a private entity in the first place, but that is a different topic)
  - Raidion 5y ago
    I think people clearly want something like a Spotify or YouTube music, but for video content. You can host videos all you want on the internet, but YouTube and Spotify are popular because of it's aggregation and suggestions. I want to watch shows that I'd like, I don't care who makes them. Finding good stuff to watch is harder than watching it, and people would clearly pay for a unified service that recommended you (and enabled 1 click viewing) of content regardless of license holder. You can clearly see why content owners wouldn't want to do it, you lose the "stickiness" of your product, and have to compete with other shows for eyes, without the friction of "exit the app, open another app, find what you manually have discovered". There's probably a 9 figure startup idea in there if you can figure out how to do it without getting sued.
drewg123 5y ago
I was kind of agreeing with the author, right up until he talked about setting up a pipeline involving Plex to have a good UX. Maybe I'm in the minority, and maybe I'll get downvoted, but to me, Plex has a horrific UX. 1) If I import something its scanners cant' scrape metadata for, it might as well not even exist. Its not displayed to me at all. I have to fiddle with title and re-scan until its metatdata scraper finally realizes what it is. 2) They've gone to some dark patterns to convince you to make a plex account and log in, just to talk to a server on the same LAN. 3) They now hide your content and promote their own streaming content in a tv-channels like grid. I don't want any of that, I just want my movie library, don't make me scroll for it. There are other frustrations, but these are the high points. I need to find time to setup kodi again..
- AndroidKitKat 5y ago
  Have you looked into Jellyfin? It's not got quite the same polish, but I've been using it pretty happily for about 7 months now.
  - handrous 5y ago
    Seconded. Happily running it in a Docker container on an old Linux box. Set-up took minutes and it's been working, through occasional upgrades, for something like two years now without a hiccup. I mostly use the Roku and Web clients. I spent years trying to get Kodi how I wanted it and it just never worked out. Between the jank and the way they've chosen to structure the UI, I don't think I'll ever like Kodi. Jellyfin is a much better fit for me, with no tweaking at all.
- jjulius 5y ago
  I use Plex (I don't pay for a Plex Pass) too, and I don't have the same issues. 1.) This only happens for me if, say, I use youtube-dl to download a music performance and then drop it in. Every time I've gone outside of my Sonarr/Radarr setup to manually add a TV show or movie, it's always handled the metadata just fine. It's when I throw it a curveball (that, tbh, I expected) that it doesn't handle it for me. Maybe I've just been lucky? 2.) Completely agree with you here. I'd love to know if there's a workaround, though I haven't spent any time looking into it. 3.) Not the case for me. My home page goes Recently Watched -> Recently Added Movies -> Recently Added TV -> the streaming bullshit you mentioned. The UI loads with the left menu open, and all I need to do is hit "down" one for TV, twice for movies; no scrolling necessary. To your point, I wish that it didn't show those extra streaming options at all.
majormajor 5y ago
If you look at twenty years ago, there's far more content available now, for far less money. Your minimum cable outlay back then would still cover the cost of a couple streaming services. What there isn't is a good way to get a single subscription to watch anything you want. The cable bundle was close to that for TV content, but very lacking for movies. So if you want to watch a really wide sampling of TV content, it can feel like we're going backward, since there's no more one-stop-shop. Careful what you wish for? The big desire then was a la carte, and right now you can bounce between streaming services at will, and they're all still far easier to cancel than cable. Some things have fallen through the cracks, particularly long-running (going back to the pre-streaming era) major-network content like the aforementioned Survivor (a random missing episode seems like a weird problem, would love to know what was going on). And getting US content stuff internationally is often sub-par, although... I don't recall stories of this being easy at all two decades ago. So consumers are overall definitely winning, but it's not a perfect victory for everyone.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
  > Survivor (a random missing episode seems like a weird problem, would love to know what was going on) Music licensing?
  - majormajor 5y ago
    I think that's pretty unlikely for something made this year. YoutubeTV and other Cable co's should be pretty similar in that regard. Buying the music for availability on "cable cable" and "CBS's own app" but not "streaming cable" would be baffling.
  - stubish 5y ago
    Yeah, I hear their account got disabled by an automatic copyright violation notice and are trying to find a support contact to appeal.
- margalabargala 5y ago
  > Your minimum cable outlay back then would still cover the cost of a couple streaming services. It would not cover a typical US internet bill with speeds to support streaming, plus a couple streaming services.
jedberg 5y ago
What we need is a company to come together and make deals with all the different streaming services and put them into one interface. The could charge like $100/mo and share the fees with all the other companies. This is obviously a joke, but honestly, it seems like the direction we are heading -- cable V2. I really wish streaming video had a similar licensing model to audio -- pay a central licensing authority for the content, and it's the same price for everyone. Then the streaming services could compete on their UI and the content creators will compete on making popular content.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  That is not cable v2. The distinguishing feature of cable (and satellite) was that you had no option to instantly play what you want when you want where you want. And no option to instantly watch from the media owner and cut out middlemen. And no option to watch select episodes or subscribe for only 1 month.
  - jedberg 5y ago
    No, that was the distinguishing feature of linear TV. You can tell because cable has those features now too, for the content that is already in their system. They are now trying to get more content in to their system. What cable did was bring multiple networks together into a single interface which had never been done before.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      A TV antenna plugged into a TV that can change channels brings multiple networks together in a single interface. But the point is all those bundles were only necessary due to lack of technology that could connect content owners directly to content viewers. We even have search engines that, theoretically, you should be able to search the content’s name, get to the content owner’s website, and be presented with the options of how you can watch it. Edit: I think I get your point, that bundling might be more economical for content owners. And that cable facilitated that by subsidizing less watched content with more watched content. But I guess in that case, I am guessing the cable company just becomes the content owner (like Comcast) and the various content owners get big and produce a variety of media.
lapetitejort 5y ago
Quick, find me the 90's era SNL character movie Bob Roberts, starring Tim Robbins, Giancarlo Esposito, and Gore Vidal. It's not available anywhere. Until obscure movies like this are a few taps away, streaming services will have not met their true potential.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  Lately none of the movies I am looking for are available. I've been starting to think of classics I should watch with my kids. Ruefully buying DVDs again.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    The Critereon Collection might be able to handle a lot of classics. I’ve never checked it out personally. Only heard about it.
  - capitainenemo 5y ago
    Netflix DVD service does in fact still exist... They even have an android app.
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
      Interesting. I'm in Germany, will see what I can find.
- nickthegreek 5y ago
  googled it to find the whole thing is on vimeo. So... technically its on a streaming service.
- abruzzi 5y ago
  I have a huge list of movies (and a few TV shows) that don't seem to have made the jump. Some are great (the BBC series of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People), some of them are very cult (Meet the Feebles), and some are just bad (Poor White Trash II, originally titled Scum of the Earth). Everyone said that streaming would make the "long tail" accessible because the costs to transfer and distribute would be so low, but that doesn't seem to have happened, at least to the extent that I'd like. (I've had the same issue with music--my MP3 collection consists of a few dozen LPs that I've ripped because they were never digitized and added to the different services.)
shoto_io 5y ago
Star Trek new season got canceled just recently, because Paramount pulled it off Netflix. It was due to start coming days. Now people have ti wait until 2022 and get the then available paramount subscription on top of Netflix, Disney, and A+. Who is willing to do that? I bet many people will opt for illegal downloads again.
- comeonseriously 5y ago
  The only winning move is not to play. I think a lot of people will just do without.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  I thought Paramount didn't put any of their new Star Trek shows on Netflix.
  - easton 5y ago
    They only did that in the US, Netflix had international distribution rights.
- criddell 5y ago
  If it's easy enough to start and stop a subscription, lots of people will do it. My family wanted to watch Mandalorian so we subscribed to Disney+. It took us two months to get through the series so it only cost $15 or so which seems like a pretty good deal for that many hours of TV. Since I subscribed via Apple, cancelling was painless. We did the same with Peacock for a different show. HBO, Hulu, and Netflix seem to have enough stuff that we watch that we've stayed subscribed to those for years now.
- ChrisLTD 5y ago
  Which Star Trek season was cancelled? I can't find any news on it.
  - timbit42 5y ago
    It wasn't canceled. It not available to stream outside the US anymore.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tamaharbor 5y ago
Thepiratebay and a good VPN should solve a lot of your problems.
- anothernewdude 5y ago
  What's the VPN for?
  - tamaharbor 5y ago
    It seems to have stopped those annoying piracy letters from my internet provider.
    - bobsmooth 5y ago
      I haven't seen one of those in years. But I get most of my stuff from a private tracker.
    - anothernewdude 5y ago
      I'd just change providers in that case.
  - vkou 5y ago
    While it's plausible to believe that all VPNs are actually honeypots for the police to catch criminals, getting sued over torrenting something is a civil case. In this case, the hope is that your VPN won't accept money from media rights holders, in exchange for your data.
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      If you don't want to trust or pay for a VPN, set up your own: https://github.com/trailofbits/algo https://github.com/trailofbits/algo
  - comeonseriously 5y ago
    Are you saying something without actually saying something?
Mikeb85 5y ago
Meh, I'm much happier with internet + paying for individual streaming services than I ever was with a full cable TV package. Plus Netflix and Amazon are actually creating some decent content.
bikeshaving 5y ago
I think not being subjected to terrible, emotionally manipulative ads for 1/3 of the time you’re watching TV/Movies is the actual win for consumers in the streaming era.
- pavel_lishin 5y ago
  We were at an AirBNB with cable, and let our kid watch a bit of children's cable content. My god, the ads. So many. So flashy. After every single one, she was convinced she needed whatever toy was being peddled. Never again.
  - switch007 5y ago
    Cable has been "adverts with a bit of content" for a long time !
  - vel0city 5y ago
    Every now and then I browse the OTA channels (>50 tunable channels in my area). It always impresses me how much I can channel surf and hit ad after ad after ad. Sometimes I can tune through 8 or 9 channels in a row without hitting any actual content.
- thrower123 5y ago
  It's a little thing, but given the choice of watching something on a streaming app versus watching the same show on the cable DVR and having to fast-forward through the commercials, even with smart-resume, it's kind of a no-brainer.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  I moved to the USA in 1989, and after 24 years in the UK, found trying to watch TV in the US totally unbearable. I thought it was because (a) the shows were so bad (b) the ads were terrible. Netflix has made it clear to me that although many of the shows were awful, not all of them were, and that being able to see them without ads gave me a totally different appreciation for what (some) people were trying to do on TV over the last 3 decades.
- 5y ago
Brendinooo 5y ago
This isn't a very strong post. Customers are losing because you can't access an episode of a show you like? Difficulty in watching some things has been present from the earliest days of streaming, and has only been less of a pain as the world has moved away from cable. (I never had DVR, so the pre-streaming world for me meant either watch it live, record it to VHS, or maybe catch it "On Demand".) I know what it's like to be in your situation (usually when trying to stream live sports), but the remedy is almost always to do a bit of research and decide if you want to take the path they want you to take. I'm very happy with the streaming landscape right now, and I think it's way better than it was five years ago.
- CyanLite4 5y ago
  It’s a little more complicated than “an episode”. For instance, the most popular cable program “Yellowstone” is on the Paramount Network. New episodes are shown there for a few days, but prior episodes are on NBC’s Peacock network. Many other popular shows are that way—new episodes on one platform (Chicago Med on Hulu), prior episodes on another platform (earlier eps in Netflix). The Star Trek franchise is a grab bag between Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu and Paramount+.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    TV app on macOS and iOS solves this problem, outside of stuff on Netflix. I know it is a solution only for Apple users, but if a content owner does not want to make it easy for people, then that is the content owner’s problem.
  - LanceH 5y ago
    There are some college sports that are maddening. Need cable type subscription to get the Big Ten Network, but some of the games appear on the subscription service B1G. Their presence on one or the other is mutually exclusive. Then some matches will appear on ESPN, or if somehow popular enough on an actual network. And that's just to follow a single team. The thing is that everything is sliced up and packaged not to present a single package of what the customer wants. Rather, it is packaged so that what the customer wants is distributed across multiple packages which must all be purchased separately. Look at the NFL - Monday night football ESPN, Thursday Amazon Prime, Sunday Night - NBC, Sunday Day - various. I'm just done chasing. Bring me my entire team's season or get no money from me at all. I can understand the odd game out, but this has been deliberate.
threevox 5y ago
There's no point in paying for essentially any streaming service these days. Piracy legitimately provides a better user experience for free if you know how to do it right
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I disagree. I want to support the content I like. So I type it into my browser, find the content owner, see if they have a quick and easy way to buy it directly from them, and then watch it. If that takes more than a few seconds, I open up TV app on my phone, search it, and decide if it is worth buying. If it is any more difficult than that, I spend my time doing something else. The situation is much better than the old days of relying on Comcast.
  - cardanome 5y ago
    > I disagree. I want to support the content I like. So I type it into my browser, find the content owner, see if they have a quick and easy way to buy it directly from them, and then watch it. How often can you just buy the content? There are many movies that I would love to buy and own but there is no option. It is either lend them for streaming or buy a super expensive blue ray which I don't get to own because of DRM. I wish there was a gog.com kind of solution. The only way I can truly own a movie is to pirate it. I get wanting to help content creators but I think it is fine to help just some of them (especially the smaller ones). There is no reason to feel bad about not helping all of them. Pirating something can still help the creators buy creating more attention. You might not pay for it but the friend you are telling about it, might. Or you might pay later after having more money.
  - threevox 5y ago
    Dude just pirate it and then if you really want send a donation directly to the content creator so you're not sending part of the money to Disney/Comcast/etc lol
- post_break 5y ago
  I used to pirate everything. Now it's easier to just pay for a subscription and get what I want in the highest quality ever. I will say though, I will never "buy" something digitally like on iTunes or whatever.
softwaredoug 5y ago
Pre-streaming watching episode 9 looked like waiting and hoping the DVDs would come out for this show. They’d cost about $50 for a season. Pre-DVD you’d just be screwed. Your show would be episodic (much of Star Trek TNG) and you’d hope to catch as much as you can on syndication or reruns.
- lapetitejort 5y ago
  Shows on VHS existed. I watched all of Twin Peaks Season 2 that way before it released on DVD.
  - majormajor 5y ago
    It was very sparse. "Episode bundles" were common, like "here's two TNG episodes" that might be thematically but not necessarily chronologically linked, more like "best of" releases. Getting complete sets of many shows meant recording them yourselves.
lordnacho 5y ago
As a father my guess is Disney is winning. They'd get 2X my money if they had fine print that said "You have to pay again for Frozen". Basically they just have to hook your kid on one thing and then they're getting your subscription. The number of rewatches of the same content has got to be through the roof for them. All the other streaming services are fighting over your remaining 1-3 slots in your household. Of them it would seem Amazon looks good because they make you think you're getting a deal with Prime, but it doesn't seem to have the same pull as a 5 year old who needs to watch Disney. The others also have the disadvantage that adults are going to know how to share an account. With kids you don't want to be coordinating it. As for UX, I don't quite understand why anything is ever taken off the streaming service. Isn't it one of the things that makes it better than a Blockbuster? Every movie you've ever had on can be left there. There's gotta be a way to shove the long tail content on some slower/less replicated infrastructure, but maybe it isn't a technical consideration.
- arnvald 5y ago
  Disney should easily be winning globally, but outside of America they're failing to launch their service in new countries. I have friends in Europe who'd pay for Disney+ to be able to watch Star Wars and Marvel series but they can't, because the launch is postponed until mid-2022. I'm quite surprised they haven't tried to launch faster, seeing that we have more lockdowns coming and people will be spending more time in front of tv again
- baby 5y ago
  Really? I don’t know anyone with Disney and everyone I know has netflix. Maybe for families with kids.
- vlovich123 5y ago
  It’s complex licensing deals and other revenue streams (hotels, airplanes, foreign broadcasts, regional monopolies etc) that are the reason. You accessing some cold content is not an issue for them. They have enough spare capacity to handle small volume requests like that easily.
- judge2020 5y ago
avalys 5y ago
You know, you don’t need to watch any TV at all.
- anothernewdude 5y ago
  Honestly one thing netflix has done for me: I'm watching far less.
oxymoran 5y ago
1) eww, too many Google products 2) you can’t go camping without watching movies??? Maybe you need a little tech break…
mgaunard 5y ago
Why would you try to watch a TV show on your phone? Is that a zoomer thing? Can you not just download stuff from NZB and use whatever open-source software you like to stream and play it on your computer device of choice?
- smugglerFlynn 5y ago
  Sure grandpa let’s get you to bed
- ericmay 5y ago
  > Why would you try to watch a TV show on your phone? Is that a zoomer thing? Maybe you're at the airport or on a plane/train/car, maybe you don't own a laptop, maybe you're traveling for work and just brought your work laptop, maybe someone else is using the TV, maybe... Plenty of reasons you might watch a TV show on your phone lol...
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    I am surprised it’s questioned. If you’re watching something like reality tv, big screen isn’t needed. I watch all my TV while walking usually. Trying to lose some gained weight. iPad/tablet can work too if I’d want to.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  I watch stuff on my phone, my brother does it all the time, a friend in their 40s does too. We are all the two generations after Zoomers. Unless it’s an action thing, a bigger screen isn’t needed. Phone is on me and quicker. I’m not sure what NZB is. I just want to quickly watch something usually.
- robbyking 5y ago
  I very very rarely watch TV, but when I do it's usually on my phone. I don't have a television, so when my wife and I watch a movie together it's on our laptop, but when I'm by myself I prefer my phone.
- spideymans 5y ago
baby 5y ago
Competition is giving us better and more content.
spicyramen 5y ago
Quality content: HBO > Disney+ > Amazon Prime > Netflix
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  Interesting. I haven’t had a reason to open Disney+ up after the first day. Is Disney+ relevant if you don’t enjoy Marvel or Star Wars, nor children’s shows? I know it has Simpsons, Pixar, and more. That’s pretty slim pickings compared to any other service though if you care for the three major categories above. I did watch some of the Marvel tv content as it got a lot of hype. I don’t get it. The production quality is insanely high, but the shows and pacing seemed pretty tame. If that sort of action isn’t your thing, Netflix stuff blows it out of the water in my opinion.
- tpmx 5y ago
  Disney+ is mostly for kids and Star Wars remake fans, right? HBO, Apple TV+ and Netflix have all mostly fallen into this trap of producing really elaborate, super expensive drama shows that are mostly really depressing, boring and dystopic. Fantastic HDR cinematography though.
blfr 5y ago
It's hilarious that after a decade of explosion in streaming the corps still can't (don't want to) beat the experience of torrents + mpv. The latter is particularly interesting since there are no licensing issues. Every professional streaming service should have a better player than mpv. None actually do. You could say that it's always like that because pirates get their content for free. However, Spotify and others managed just fine with music which used to be even more widely pirated than tv shows and movies. (Survivor.S41E09.Whos.Who.in.the.Zoo is available on torrents in 1080p.)
- judge2020 5y ago
  Let me know when mpv can run on a smart TV. Most people watch via smart tv/streaming box (roku, google tv, etc), so the players work for them there. The real competition is Plex/Emby/Jellyfin allowing access to people's media libraries in a way that's mostly on-par with existing services, and the added benefit of having all content truly in one place. The issue is that there isn't a completely legal way to get media content as unencrypted files (since ripping blu-rays is legal, but breaking the software protections to do it isn't).
  - asdff 5y ago
    If you know how to install mpv you know how to hook up a laptop to a TV.
  - Arrath 5y ago
    VLC can stream the playback to my chromecast plugged into the tv perfectly. Streaming to the smart tv device itself is more hit or miss.
  - hatsuseno 5y ago
    Isn't that kind of exactly the complaint of ../../.? The fact that none of these smart tv options are actually better than mpv, in their eyes?
- JakeAl 5y ago
  This isn't entirely the corps fault, but legacy legal licensing agreements on each. and every. piece. of content. Not to mention all the unions you ave to deal with to make sure all the talent in the content gets paid. Clearances AND tracking can be a nightmare. A lot of that has improved in the pat decade as digital/streaming agreements are now standard, but getting content (like the music in a show for example) cleared for all territories can still be a headache.
iso1210 5y ago
Meh, I'm winning, at least here in the UK. I have Disney, Apple, Netflix, Amazon and BBC, including the option to buy/rent new stuff on amazon, giving me massive amounts of choice for less than mother-in-law pays for her Boomer TV package with Sky, and she gets adverts! Apple was 'free' with the last phone I bought, but I'll pay for it when the next season of For All Mankind is on. Still have to torrent stuff. Paramount literally won't let me buy the latest version of Discovery after their shocking "fuck you" to the world this week.
Futurebot 5y ago
Licensing, copyright takedowns, and partnership agreements make things that appear seemingly simple in fact quite complicated. That, and supporting a myriad of devices (plus different versions of those devices with different capabilities, plus all the different store integrations and their quirks) make for a very complicated set of organizational requirements. There's no good answer here in markets this complicated
pazurduy 5y ago
The problem relies on the vertical integration (streaming and production), this is no a new problem, actually it's the same problem as it was with movie theaters back in 1948 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc.#:~:text=Paramount%20Pictures%2C%20Inc.%2C%20334,theatres%20and%20holding%20exclusivity%20rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic...), I've remember watched a video about it a few years ago (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDF-S68kx5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDF-S68kx5o)
xhevahir 5y ago
This person goes to great lengths to catch an episode of Survivor. They worry about how they're going to watch movies during a camping trip. I know it's not the point of the article, but maybe this problem would be less onerous if one could just unplug, and do something else for fun.
Shadonototra 5y ago
i still torrent my media consumption not because it's free, but because it's hassle free, it works the same way it worked decades ago
jeroenhd 5y ago
Star Trek Discovery started a new season this week. Usually here in the Netherlands episodes come out a day later, so I thought I'd watch the last season finale the day before it came out so I was up to speed. Turns out Paramount pulled the show from Netflix to put it on Paramount+ As a Star Trek fan, j thought what the heck, let's see how expensive a subscription to that is. Turns out it's not available in this country. It'll launch as part of something called SkyShowtime, a separate service including multiple American streaming platforms, somewhere in 2022. So I shrugged and added the show to Sonarr. Within minutes, I had all the episodes available for my viewing pleasure. It's like these companies don't want my business. They pull content from my existing subscription, make it impossible for me to buy their service and then complain about the terrible threat of piracy at the same time. It's time for someone to set up a service that aggregates all other services so viewers can enjoy their content without chasing platforms. I'll pay for the extra services once content isn't being shifted around anymore, which is clearly going to take another decade.
- Oddskar 5y ago
  If anything these media companies should all have learned the obvious lesson from the last 10 years. The lesson that Gabe Newell put so succinctly years and years ago: "Piracy is not a pricing issue, it's a service problem." And yet they keep making this mistake over and over again. They have to make it convenient. Because what they're really competing against is a ~3 USD/month VPN subscription that lets me watch anything I want in HD quality.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    In the 90s in the UK we couldn't watch DS9 at the same time as the US. The Season 7 finale was June 1999 for example, but the earliest we could watch in the UK was November, by buying the episodes on tape. After that they came out on Sky ("cable tv"), and eventually reached normal TV about 4 years later. I bought the entire of season 7 and most of season 6, at the (inflation adjusted) price of $16 per episode, or about $400 per season. I have no problem with paying, but Paramount don't want my money. As such I watched Discovery Season 4 Episode 1 thanks to piratebay, which meant having to work out how to watch that on my TV. That minor hurdle has now been surpassed, lowering the barrier to acquiring any episode or film without cost.
deleted 5y ago
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anderspitman 5y ago
Apologies if anyone is having issues with my site. It was down for a bit while I was on the road earlier, but seems to be working now. Here's an archive just in case it happens again: https://web.archive.org/web/20211119221003/https://apitman.com/27/ https://web.archive.org/web/20211119221003/https://apitman.c...
julienb_sea 5y ago
I will say its hard to beat the torrent pipeline. Quality VPNs are dirt cheap, and with a solid connection, you can sequentially download and start watching almost immediately, essentially just like streaming.
bananamerica 5y ago
Why would anyone need TV streaming while camping? Doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose? Just take your PS5 and your workstation and you won't even need to look at the nature?
DangitBobby 5y ago
> But for some reason Chromecast only detected the Roku TV in my roommate's bedroom, not the Roku Ultra. I used to have this problem because my 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz SSIDs had separate LANs. So if Chromecast was connected to 2.4Ghz (as they like to do) and your phone was connected to 5Ghz, your phone won't be able to see the Chromecast. The remedy is to either bridge the networks or connect to the appropriate band.
hh3k0 5y ago
yar har fiddle dee dee…
usaphp 5y ago
I love watching football (soccer), I was so happy when Fubo.tv came out and I was able to watch everything in one place (EPL, La Liga, Champions league, national games etc). Now I have to have Fubo, Paramount+, peacock, ESPN+ and NBC sports streaming subscriptions. Not sure why Fubo decided to focus more on general market vs sport only…
prepend 5y ago
About 15 years ago, the torrent scene perfected the stack from a UX perspective. Everything was automated and xbmc was a player my 5 year old could figure out. The licensing was off (obviously) but everything just keeps getting worse and the pirate setup still works best. Even when I subscribe to these services it’s still better to use Plex to watch all shows together than navigate five different apps looking for new shows.
RickJWagner 5y ago
Former Dish user here. I love streaming. We watch what we want to watch, when we want to watch it. We pay a fraction of what we paid Dish and have a constantly updating list of great content. My family likes older tv series, too. Streaming is advantageous in almost every way.
jollybean 5y ago
The 'no commercials' bit is fundamental. I can hardly watch Cable TV, it seems archaic. They need to change the format.
kwere 5y ago
i believe there ust be crossplatforms interopabililty with access to other catologues by paying the difference cost of subscription/usage between the 2 platforms
DavideNL 5y ago
Another advantage of pirating: If you play 4K you actually get 4K, no throttling for weird reasons while internet speed is fine. On Netflix you can’t even see or verify what quality you’re actually playing (on an iPad.) Also, it still works when crossing borders. I live close to the border between Netherlands/Germany, and moving a few km to the east means i suddenly can’t stream many videos anymore. It’s idiotic. Want to stream while using a VPN? Nope… expect trouble too. So many annoyances. PS. I pirate even though i also pay for the streaming services…
Handytinge 5y ago
20 years ago I pirated because it was difficult to access movies, TV and music I want. I spent the last 10 years paying to stream the majority of it, rarely pirating. Now in Australia there are 7+ streaming services content is split over. I'd be happy to pay, but the differing experiences of player, quality control, user management etc across all, I find myself pirating again for the same reasons as 20 years ago. Sonarr + Radarr + Bazarr + Jellyfin creates a workable solution again.
chkaloon 5y ago
I pay for a Spectrum subscription, and their app for watching TV is pretty good, except that it is severely crippled channel-wise when you're not on your home network. In that case a home VPN server is your friend, but the average person is not going to know how to do that.

261 points by apitman 5y ago

I got interested in the show Alter Ego on Fox and wanted to catch up on what I'd missed. Fox let me watch one episode before registering (and paying?) but I was able to watch it all on Youtube. Odds are better that you find anything on Youtube than any place else unless it is a Chinese TV series that shouldn't be obscure but practically is. (Like how I had to get a bootleg of Three Kingdoms from Singapore.)

tyingq 5y ago
Did a few searches, and YouTube does seem to have great access for a lot of titles. It's not always real economical though. One season of the Handmaid's Tale is only available to buy, not rent. And it's $25. I could pay for 2 months of "no ads" Hulu and get that season and everything else they have, for less. So fragmentation is still an issue.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  > So fragmentation is still an issue. Maybe Apple is doing the right thing by forcing everything to go through the App Store on iOS.
  - tyingq 5y ago
    Not fragmentation of payment, fragmentation of streaming rights across Netflix, Hulu, Disney, Prime, etc. I don't see the two as particularly related.
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  I think many of the things you find on Youtube aren't supposed to be there but they get uploaded anyway.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    Yeah Alter Ego isn’t. I think parent was looking at officially available paid offerings only. Not pirated streaming which the grandparent/OP is referring to. Content creators don’t get anything in that case though.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  I believe the OP meant bootleg uploaded copies. Otherwise like you said. Many streaming services have it: Hulu, Fubo. Even Fox’s subsidiary Tubi has it. Which is free streaming I believe with ads. A one month subscription will usually be cheaper then buying.

paconbork 5y ago

I'm just waiting until we come full circle and can purchase a bundle of streaming services. Maybe it will come with phone and internet

yellow_postit 5y ago
This is happening already — with some T Mobile packages I get Netflix and Spotify included.

zibzab 5y ago

I think pirates are winning.

bobsmooth 5y ago
With Everything, I can access any episode of whatever tv show I want instantly in full resolution. With Emby it takes a few extra seconds. I don't see how streaming can compete with local files.
threevox 5y ago
Only viable solution
Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
Yup. That's me to an extent. I subscribe to Netflix, HBO, and Disney. If what I want to watch isn't on either of those three, it's getting pirated.
- handrous 5y ago
  I sometimes pirate things that are on services I'm paying for just because I don't want to have to remember which one has the thing I want to watch, every time I go to watch it, or switch between apps if watching multiple shows, or whatever.
  - jasomill 5y ago
    The only thing that really tempts me to piracy are shows only available for streaming via iOS apps that disable picture-in-picture viewing during commercial breaks. This particular behavior should really be banned by App Store guidelines, as it generates no revenue for Apple, and I can't imagine a single provider willing to forgo ad revenue from iOS users as a whole over such a rule. Show commercials, if you must, but trying to force me to pay attention to commercials via technological means is where I draw the line. Instead of actually bothering to pirate the show, however, I generally just do something else. I'm honestly curious why (AFAIK) major content producers haven't looked beyond existing revenue streams and experimented with freemium (or at least "low-costium") models, along the lines of Microsoft studios releasing current AAA titles through Game Pass — which, while not free, is arguably inexpensive — but charging extra for optional in-game purchases and DLC. In other words, make base versions of shows available for free or at a low cost, then charge a few bucks per season for premium features like early access to episodes, 4K/HDR, and bonus content. For major franchises, at least, I imagine there are at least enough fans willing to pay, say, $10-20 per season for such features to make such a venture worthwhile.

lotsofpulp 5y ago

I went to the TV app on my iPhone, searched for Survivor, scrolled to season 41 episode 9, and saw I could watch it for $3, or you can sign up for Paramount+.

sakopov 5y ago
Is that $3 on top of 4 streaming subscriptions you're already paying for?
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  It is $3 to instantly watch it as long as Apple decides to keep serving it and/or does not ban you from their services. Presumably, if you subscribe to Paramount+, then you can also watch it as long as you are paying the monthly fee. My point is I got to the media I was looking for rather quick. I would never spend my time watching Survivor for free, much less pay for it, but my opinion of the experience of trying to watch it was quick and easy.
yellow_postit 5y ago
Searching across multiple services is a key feature I have yet to find a reliable option for. For syndicated shows I want to see if they exist on a service I already pay for and if not, price shop. CanIStreamIt used to fill this gap but no longer.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  The TV app on macOS and iOS does this. Except for Netflix stuff, but that is because Netflix does not want to participate.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  Justwatch and reelgood are reliable enough. I usually use justwatch through https://Trakt.tv https://Trakt.tv
- readflaggedcomm 5y ago
  Rokus do that for any of their channels that supports it, which are a whole lot. You can use it on the web, too, and it shows which channels require a subscription: https://www.roku.com/whats-on/search https://www.roku.com/whats-on/search I assume it's accurate for those services across other platforms than just Roku.

wccrawford 5y ago

The predicted fracture has started, with different networks starting their own streaming services. Luckily, there seems to be an acceptable minimum level of quality in the UI and service so far, which was one of my fears. We subscribe to a number of the services, but it's still cheaper than cable TV and there are no commercials, and it's all "on demand" which still seems to be pretty iffy on cable directly. I feel like it's going to be a constant struggle to only subscribe to the ones that we're actually using, but it isn't as bad as I feared yet. I'm still predicting that they'll get ridiculously fractured, and then realize their mistake and start bundling together again. It has kind of already happened with Paramount+ and Showtime's bundle, and I think some of the others were doing it before them even. But these bundles are just a bandaid. You still need to actually use 2 different sites/apps to view your TV, and it's hard to get a list of what shows have new episodes across all the sites/apps. We end up just starting up each app and checking until we find something we want to watch right then.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
> The predicted fracture has started, with different networks starting their own streaming services. I do not understand why anyone would have expected any different. Is that not the beauty of the internet? That you can consume the content from anyone, regardless of the owner of the wire coming into your house? (which should not be a private entity in the first place, but that is a different topic)
- Raidion 5y ago
  I think people clearly want something like a Spotify or YouTube music, but for video content. You can host videos all you want on the internet, but YouTube and Spotify are popular because of it's aggregation and suggestions. I want to watch shows that I'd like, I don't care who makes them. Finding good stuff to watch is harder than watching it, and people would clearly pay for a unified service that recommended you (and enabled 1 click viewing) of content regardless of license holder. You can clearly see why content owners wouldn't want to do it, you lose the "stickiness" of your product, and have to compete with other shows for eyes, without the friction of "exit the app, open another app, find what you manually have discovered". There's probably a 9 figure startup idea in there if you can figure out how to do it without getting sued.

drewg123 5y ago

I was kind of agreeing with the author, right up until he talked about setting up a pipeline involving Plex to have a good UX. Maybe I'm in the minority, and maybe I'll get downvoted, but to me, Plex has a horrific UX. 1) If I import something its scanners cant' scrape metadata for, it might as well not even exist. Its not displayed to me at all. I have to fiddle with title and re-scan until its metatdata scraper finally realizes what it is. 2) They've gone to some dark patterns to convince you to make a plex account and log in, just to talk to a server on the same LAN. 3) They now hide your content and promote their own streaming content in a tv-channels like grid. I don't want any of that, I just want my movie library, don't make me scroll for it. There are other frustrations, but these are the high points. I need to find time to setup kodi again..

AndroidKitKat 5y ago
Have you looked into Jellyfin? It's not got quite the same polish, but I've been using it pretty happily for about 7 months now.
- handrous 5y ago
  Seconded. Happily running it in a Docker container on an old Linux box. Set-up took minutes and it's been working, through occasional upgrades, for something like two years now without a hiccup. I mostly use the Roku and Web clients. I spent years trying to get Kodi how I wanted it and it just never worked out. Between the jank and the way they've chosen to structure the UI, I don't think I'll ever like Kodi. Jellyfin is a much better fit for me, with no tweaking at all.
jjulius 5y ago
I use Plex (I don't pay for a Plex Pass) too, and I don't have the same issues. 1.) This only happens for me if, say, I use youtube-dl to download a music performance and then drop it in. Every time I've gone outside of my Sonarr/Radarr setup to manually add a TV show or movie, it's always handled the metadata just fine. It's when I throw it a curveball (that, tbh, I expected) that it doesn't handle it for me. Maybe I've just been lucky? 2.) Completely agree with you here. I'd love to know if there's a workaround, though I haven't spent any time looking into it. 3.) Not the case for me. My home page goes Recently Watched -> Recently Added Movies -> Recently Added TV -> the streaming bullshit you mentioned. The UI loads with the left menu open, and all I need to do is hit "down" one for TV, twice for movies; no scrolling necessary. To your point, I wish that it didn't show those extra streaming options at all.

majormajor 5y ago

If you look at twenty years ago, there's far more content available now, for far less money. Your minimum cable outlay back then would still cover the cost of a couple streaming services. What there isn't is a good way to get a single subscription to watch anything you want. The cable bundle was close to that for TV content, but very lacking for movies. So if you want to watch a really wide sampling of TV content, it can feel like we're going backward, since there's no more one-stop-shop. Careful what you wish for? The big desire then was a la carte, and right now you can bounce between streaming services at will, and they're all still far easier to cancel than cable. Some things have fallen through the cracks, particularly long-running (going back to the pre-streaming era) major-network content like the aforementioned Survivor (a random missing episode seems like a weird problem, would love to know what was going on). And getting US content stuff internationally is often sub-par, although... I don't recall stories of this being easy at all two decades ago. So consumers are overall definitely winning, but it's not a perfect victory for everyone.

fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
> Survivor (a random missing episode seems like a weird problem, would love to know what was going on) Music licensing?
- majormajor 5y ago
  I think that's pretty unlikely for something made this year. YoutubeTV and other Cable co's should be pretty similar in that regard. Buying the music for availability on "cable cable" and "CBS's own app" but not "streaming cable" would be baffling.
- stubish 5y ago
  Yeah, I hear their account got disabled by an automatic copyright violation notice and are trying to find a support contact to appeal.
margalabargala 5y ago
> Your minimum cable outlay back then would still cover the cost of a couple streaming services. It would not cover a typical US internet bill with speeds to support streaming, plus a couple streaming services.

jedberg 5y ago

What we need is a company to come together and make deals with all the different streaming services and put them into one interface. The could charge like $100/mo and share the fees with all the other companies. This is obviously a joke, but honestly, it seems like the direction we are heading -- cable V2. I really wish streaming video had a similar licensing model to audio -- pay a central licensing authority for the content, and it's the same price for everyone. Then the streaming services could compete on their UI and the content creators will compete on making popular content.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
That is not cable v2. The distinguishing feature of cable (and satellite) was that you had no option to instantly play what you want when you want where you want. And no option to instantly watch from the media owner and cut out middlemen. And no option to watch select episodes or subscribe for only 1 month.
- jedberg 5y ago
  No, that was the distinguishing feature of linear TV. You can tell because cable has those features now too, for the content that is already in their system. They are now trying to get more content in to their system. What cable did was bring multiple networks together into a single interface which had never been done before.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    A TV antenna plugged into a TV that can change channels brings multiple networks together in a single interface. But the point is all those bundles were only necessary due to lack of technology that could connect content owners directly to content viewers. We even have search engines that, theoretically, you should be able to search the content’s name, get to the content owner’s website, and be presented with the options of how you can watch it. Edit: I think I get your point, that bundling might be more economical for content owners. And that cable facilitated that by subsidizing less watched content with more watched content. But I guess in that case, I am guessing the cable company just becomes the content owner (like Comcast) and the various content owners get big and produce a variety of media.

lapetitejort 5y ago

Quick, find me the 90's era SNL character movie Bob Roberts, starring Tim Robbins, Giancarlo Esposito, and Gore Vidal. It's not available anywhere. Until obscure movies like this are a few taps away, streaming services will have not met their true potential.

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
Lately none of the movies I am looking for are available. I've been starting to think of classics I should watch with my kids. Ruefully buying DVDs again.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  The Critereon Collection might be able to handle a lot of classics. I’ve never checked it out personally. Only heard about it.
- capitainenemo 5y ago
  Netflix DVD service does in fact still exist... They even have an android app.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    Interesting. I'm in Germany, will see what I can find.
nickthegreek 5y ago
googled it to find the whole thing is on vimeo. So... technically its on a streaming service.
abruzzi 5y ago
I have a huge list of movies (and a few TV shows) that don't seem to have made the jump. Some are great (the BBC series of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People), some of them are very cult (Meet the Feebles), and some are just bad (Poor White Trash II, originally titled Scum of the Earth). Everyone said that streaming would make the "long tail" accessible because the costs to transfer and distribute would be so low, but that doesn't seem to have happened, at least to the extent that I'd like. (I've had the same issue with music--my MP3 collection consists of a few dozen LPs that I've ripped because they were never digitized and added to the different services.)

shoto_io 5y ago

Star Trek new season got canceled just recently, because Paramount pulled it off Netflix. It was due to start coming days. Now people have ti wait until 2022 and get the then available paramount subscription on top of Netflix, Disney, and A+. Who is willing to do that? I bet many people will opt for illegal downloads again.

comeonseriously 5y ago
The only winning move is not to play. I think a lot of people will just do without.
HWR_14 5y ago
I thought Paramount didn't put any of their new Star Trek shows on Netflix.
- easton 5y ago
  They only did that in the US, Netflix had international distribution rights.
criddell 5y ago
If it's easy enough to start and stop a subscription, lots of people will do it. My family wanted to watch Mandalorian so we subscribed to Disney+. It took us two months to get through the series so it only cost $15 or so which seems like a pretty good deal for that many hours of TV. Since I subscribed via Apple, cancelling was painless. We did the same with Peacock for a different show. HBO, Hulu, and Netflix seem to have enough stuff that we watch that we've stayed subscribed to those for years now.
ChrisLTD 5y ago
Which Star Trek season was cancelled? I can't find any news on it.
- timbit42 5y ago
  It wasn't canceled. It not available to stream outside the US anymore.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

tamaharbor 5y ago

Thepiratebay and a good VPN should solve a lot of your problems.

anothernewdude 5y ago
What's the VPN for?
- tamaharbor 5y ago
  It seems to have stopped those annoying piracy letters from my internet provider.
  - bobsmooth 5y ago
    I haven't seen one of those in years. But I get most of my stuff from a private tracker.
  - anothernewdude 5y ago
    I'd just change providers in that case.
- vkou 5y ago
  While it's plausible to believe that all VPNs are actually honeypots for the police to catch criminals, getting sued over torrenting something is a civil case. In this case, the hope is that your VPN won't accept money from media rights holders, in exchange for your data.
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    If you don't want to trust or pay for a VPN, set up your own: https://github.com/trailofbits/algo https://github.com/trailofbits/algo
- comeonseriously 5y ago
  Are you saying something without actually saying something?

Mikeb85 5y ago

Meh, I'm much happier with internet + paying for individual streaming services than I ever was with a full cable TV package. Plus Netflix and Amazon are actually creating some decent content.

bikeshaving 5y ago

I think not being subjected to terrible, emotionally manipulative ads for 1/3 of the time you’re watching TV/Movies is the actual win for consumers in the streaming era.

pavel_lishin 5y ago
We were at an AirBNB with cable, and let our kid watch a bit of children's cable content. My god, the ads. So many. So flashy. After every single one, she was convinced she needed whatever toy was being peddled. Never again.
- switch007 5y ago
  Cable has been "adverts with a bit of content" for a long time !
- vel0city 5y ago
  Every now and then I browse the OTA channels (>50 tunable channels in my area). It always impresses me how much I can channel surf and hit ad after ad after ad. Sometimes I can tune through 8 or 9 channels in a row without hitting any actual content.
thrower123 5y ago
It's a little thing, but given the choice of watching something on a streaming app versus watching the same show on the cable DVR and having to fast-forward through the commercials, even with smart-resume, it's kind of a no-brainer.
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
I moved to the USA in 1989, and after 24 years in the UK, found trying to watch TV in the US totally unbearable. I thought it was because (a) the shows were so bad (b) the ads were terrible. Netflix has made it clear to me that although many of the shows were awful, not all of them were, and that being able to see them without ads gave me a totally different appreciation for what (some) people were trying to do on TV over the last 3 decades.
5y ago

Brendinooo 5y ago

This isn't a very strong post. Customers are losing because you can't access an episode of a show you like? Difficulty in watching some things has been present from the earliest days of streaming, and has only been less of a pain as the world has moved away from cable. (I never had DVR, so the pre-streaming world for me meant either watch it live, record it to VHS, or maybe catch it "On Demand".) I know what it's like to be in your situation (usually when trying to stream live sports), but the remedy is almost always to do a bit of research and decide if you want to take the path they want you to take. I'm very happy with the streaming landscape right now, and I think it's way better than it was five years ago.

CyanLite4 5y ago
It’s a little more complicated than “an episode”. For instance, the most popular cable program “Yellowstone” is on the Paramount Network. New episodes are shown there for a few days, but prior episodes are on NBC’s Peacock network. Many other popular shows are that way—new episodes on one platform (Chicago Med on Hulu), prior episodes on another platform (earlier eps in Netflix). The Star Trek franchise is a grab bag between Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu and Paramount+.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  TV app on macOS and iOS solves this problem, outside of stuff on Netflix. I know it is a solution only for Apple users, but if a content owner does not want to make it easy for people, then that is the content owner’s problem.
- LanceH 5y ago
  There are some college sports that are maddening. Need cable type subscription to get the Big Ten Network, but some of the games appear on the subscription service B1G. Their presence on one or the other is mutually exclusive. Then some matches will appear on ESPN, or if somehow popular enough on an actual network. And that's just to follow a single team. The thing is that everything is sliced up and packaged not to present a single package of what the customer wants. Rather, it is packaged so that what the customer wants is distributed across multiple packages which must all be purchased separately. Look at the NFL - Monday night football ESPN, Thursday Amazon Prime, Sunday Night - NBC, Sunday Day - various. I'm just done chasing. Bring me my entire team's season or get no money from me at all. I can understand the odd game out, but this has been deliberate.

threevox 5y ago

There's no point in paying for essentially any streaming service these days. Piracy legitimately provides a better user experience for free if you know how to do it right

lotsofpulp 5y ago
I disagree. I want to support the content I like. So I type it into my browser, find the content owner, see if they have a quick and easy way to buy it directly from them, and then watch it. If that takes more than a few seconds, I open up TV app on my phone, search it, and decide if it is worth buying. If it is any more difficult than that, I spend my time doing something else. The situation is much better than the old days of relying on Comcast.
- cardanome 5y ago
  > I disagree. I want to support the content I like. So I type it into my browser, find the content owner, see if they have a quick and easy way to buy it directly from them, and then watch it. How often can you just buy the content? There are many movies that I would love to buy and own but there is no option. It is either lend them for streaming or buy a super expensive blue ray which I don't get to own because of DRM. I wish there was a gog.com kind of solution. The only way I can truly own a movie is to pirate it. I get wanting to help content creators but I think it is fine to help just some of them (especially the smaller ones). There is no reason to feel bad about not helping all of them. Pirating something can still help the creators buy creating more attention. You might not pay for it but the friend you are telling about it, might. Or you might pay later after having more money.
- threevox 5y ago
  Dude just pirate it and then if you really want send a donation directly to the content creator so you're not sending part of the money to Disney/Comcast/etc lol
post_break 5y ago
I used to pirate everything. Now it's easier to just pay for a subscription and get what I want in the highest quality ever. I will say though, I will never "buy" something digitally like on iTunes or whatever.

softwaredoug 5y ago

Pre-streaming watching episode 9 looked like waiting and hoping the DVDs would come out for this show. They’d cost about $50 for a season. Pre-DVD you’d just be screwed. Your show would be episodic (much of Star Trek TNG) and you’d hope to catch as much as you can on syndication or reruns.

lapetitejort 5y ago
Shows on VHS existed. I watched all of Twin Peaks Season 2 that way before it released on DVD.
- majormajor 5y ago
  It was very sparse. "Episode bundles" were common, like "here's two TNG episodes" that might be thematically but not necessarily chronologically linked, more like "best of" releases. Getting complete sets of many shows meant recording them yourselves.

lordnacho 5y ago

As a father my guess is Disney is winning. They'd get 2X my money if they had fine print that said "You have to pay again for Frozen". Basically they just have to hook your kid on one thing and then they're getting your subscription. The number of rewatches of the same content has got to be through the roof for them. All the other streaming services are fighting over your remaining 1-3 slots in your household. Of them it would seem Amazon looks good because they make you think you're getting a deal with Prime, but it doesn't seem to have the same pull as a 5 year old who needs to watch Disney. The others also have the disadvantage that adults are going to know how to share an account. With kids you don't want to be coordinating it. As for UX, I don't quite understand why anything is ever taken off the streaming service. Isn't it one of the things that makes it better than a Blockbuster? Every movie you've ever had on can be left there. There's gotta be a way to shove the long tail content on some slower/less replicated infrastructure, but maybe it isn't a technical consideration.

arnvald 5y ago
Disney should easily be winning globally, but outside of America they're failing to launch their service in new countries. I have friends in Europe who'd pay for Disney+ to be able to watch Star Wars and Marvel series but they can't, because the launch is postponed until mid-2022. I'm quite surprised they haven't tried to launch faster, seeing that we have more lockdowns coming and people will be spending more time in front of tv again
baby 5y ago
Really? I don’t know anyone with Disney and everyone I know has netflix. Maybe for families with kids.
vlovich123 5y ago
It’s complex licensing deals and other revenue streams (hotels, airplanes, foreign broadcasts, regional monopolies etc) that are the reason. You accessing some cold content is not an issue for them. They have enough spare capacity to handle small volume requests like that easily.
judge2020 5y ago

avalys 5y ago

You know, you don’t need to watch any TV at all.

anothernewdude 5y ago
Honestly one thing netflix has done for me: I'm watching far less.

oxymoran 5y ago

1) eww, too many Google products 2) you can’t go camping without watching movies??? Maybe you need a little tech break…

mgaunard 5y ago

Why would you try to watch a TV show on your phone? Is that a zoomer thing? Can you not just download stuff from NZB and use whatever open-source software you like to stream and play it on your computer device of choice?

smugglerFlynn 5y ago
Sure grandpa let’s get you to bed
ericmay 5y ago
> Why would you try to watch a TV show on your phone? Is that a zoomer thing? Maybe you're at the airport or on a plane/train/car, maybe you don't own a laptop, maybe you're traveling for work and just brought your work laptop, maybe someone else is using the TV, maybe... Plenty of reasons you might watch a TV show on your phone lol...
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  I am surprised it’s questioned. If you’re watching something like reality tv, big screen isn’t needed. I watch all my TV while walking usually. Trying to lose some gained weight. iPad/tablet can work too if I’d want to.
skinnymuch 5y ago
I watch stuff on my phone, my brother does it all the time, a friend in their 40s does too. We are all the two generations after Zoomers. Unless it’s an action thing, a bigger screen isn’t needed. Phone is on me and quicker. I’m not sure what NZB is. I just want to quickly watch something usually.
robbyking 5y ago
I very very rarely watch TV, but when I do it's usually on my phone. I don't have a television, so when my wife and I watch a movie together it's on our laptop, but when I'm by myself I prefer my phone.
spideymans 5y ago

baby 5y ago

Competition is giving us better and more content.

spicyramen 5y ago

Quality content: HBO > Disney+ > Amazon Prime > Netflix

skinnymuch 5y ago
Interesting. I haven’t had a reason to open Disney+ up after the first day. Is Disney+ relevant if you don’t enjoy Marvel or Star Wars, nor children’s shows? I know it has Simpsons, Pixar, and more. That’s pretty slim pickings compared to any other service though if you care for the three major categories above. I did watch some of the Marvel tv content as it got a lot of hype. I don’t get it. The production quality is insanely high, but the shows and pacing seemed pretty tame. If that sort of action isn’t your thing, Netflix stuff blows it out of the water in my opinion.
tpmx 5y ago
Disney+ is mostly for kids and Star Wars remake fans, right? HBO, Apple TV+ and Netflix have all mostly fallen into this trap of producing really elaborate, super expensive drama shows that are mostly really depressing, boring and dystopic. Fantastic HDR cinematography though.

blfr 5y ago

It's hilarious that after a decade of explosion in streaming the corps still can't (don't want to) beat the experience of torrents + mpv. The latter is particularly interesting since there are no licensing issues. Every professional streaming service should have a better player than mpv. None actually do. You could say that it's always like that because pirates get their content for free. However, Spotify and others managed just fine with music which used to be even more widely pirated than tv shows and movies. (Survivor.S41E09.Whos.Who.in.the.Zoo is available on torrents in 1080p.)

judge2020 5y ago
Let me know when mpv can run on a smart TV. Most people watch via smart tv/streaming box (roku, google tv, etc), so the players work for them there. The real competition is Plex/Emby/Jellyfin allowing access to people's media libraries in a way that's mostly on-par with existing services, and the added benefit of having all content truly in one place. The issue is that there isn't a completely legal way to get media content as unencrypted files (since ripping blu-rays is legal, but breaking the software protections to do it isn't).
- asdff 5y ago
  If you know how to install mpv you know how to hook up a laptop to a TV.
- Arrath 5y ago
  VLC can stream the playback to my chromecast plugged into the tv perfectly. Streaming to the smart tv device itself is more hit or miss.
- hatsuseno 5y ago
  Isn't that kind of exactly the complaint of ../../.? The fact that none of these smart tv options are actually better than mpv, in their eyes?
JakeAl 5y ago
This isn't entirely the corps fault, but legacy legal licensing agreements on each. and every. piece. of content. Not to mention all the unions you ave to deal with to make sure all the talent in the content gets paid. Clearances AND tracking can be a nightmare. A lot of that has improved in the pat decade as digital/streaming agreements are now standard, but getting content (like the music in a show for example) cleared for all territories can still be a headache.

iso1210 5y ago

Meh, I'm winning, at least here in the UK. I have Disney, Apple, Netflix, Amazon and BBC, including the option to buy/rent new stuff on amazon, giving me massive amounts of choice for less than mother-in-law pays for her Boomer TV package with Sky, and she gets adverts! Apple was 'free' with the last phone I bought, but I'll pay for it when the next season of For All Mankind is on. Still have to torrent stuff. Paramount literally won't let me buy the latest version of Discovery after their shocking "fuck you" to the world this week.

Futurebot 5y ago

Licensing, copyright takedowns, and partnership agreements make things that appear seemingly simple in fact quite complicated. That, and supporting a myriad of devices (plus different versions of those devices with different capabilities, plus all the different store integrations and their quirks) make for a very complicated set of organizational requirements. There's no good answer here in markets this complicated

pazurduy 5y ago

The problem relies on the vertical integration (streaming and production), this is no a new problem, actually it's the same problem as it was with movie theaters back in 1948 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc.#:~:text=Paramount%20Pictures%2C%20Inc.%2C%20334,theatres%20and%20holding%20exclusivity%20rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic...), I've remember watched a video about it a few years ago (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDF-S68kx5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDF-S68kx5o)

xhevahir 5y ago

This person goes to great lengths to catch an episode of Survivor. They worry about how they're going to watch movies during a camping trip. I know it's not the point of the article, but maybe this problem would be less onerous if one could just unplug, and do something else for fun.

Shadonototra 5y ago

i still torrent my media consumption not because it's free, but because it's hassle free, it works the same way it worked decades ago

jeroenhd 5y ago

Star Trek Discovery started a new season this week. Usually here in the Netherlands episodes come out a day later, so I thought I'd watch the last season finale the day before it came out so I was up to speed. Turns out Paramount pulled the show from Netflix to put it on Paramount+ As a Star Trek fan, j thought what the heck, let's see how expensive a subscription to that is. Turns out it's not available in this country. It'll launch as part of something called SkyShowtime, a separate service including multiple American streaming platforms, somewhere in 2022. So I shrugged and added the show to Sonarr. Within minutes, I had all the episodes available for my viewing pleasure. It's like these companies don't want my business. They pull content from my existing subscription, make it impossible for me to buy their service and then complain about the terrible threat of piracy at the same time. It's time for someone to set up a service that aggregates all other services so viewers can enjoy their content without chasing platforms. I'll pay for the extra services once content isn't being shifted around anymore, which is clearly going to take another decade.

Oddskar 5y ago
If anything these media companies should all have learned the obvious lesson from the last 10 years. The lesson that Gabe Newell put so succinctly years and years ago: "Piracy is not a pricing issue, it's a service problem." And yet they keep making this mistake over and over again. They have to make it convenient. Because what they're really competing against is a ~3 USD/month VPN subscription that lets me watch anything I want in HD quality.
- iso1210 5y ago
  In the 90s in the UK we couldn't watch DS9 at the same time as the US. The Season 7 finale was June 1999 for example, but the earliest we could watch in the UK was November, by buying the episodes on tape. After that they came out on Sky ("cable tv"), and eventually reached normal TV about 4 years later. I bought the entire of season 7 and most of season 6, at the (inflation adjusted) price of $16 per episode, or about $400 per season. I have no problem with paying, but Paramount don't want my money. As such I watched Discovery Season 4 Episode 1 thanks to piratebay, which meant having to work out how to watch that on my TV. That minor hurdle has now been surpassed, lowering the barrier to acquiring any episode or film without cost.

deleted 5y ago

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anderspitman 5y ago

Apologies if anyone is having issues with my site. It was down for a bit while I was on the road earlier, but seems to be working now. Here's an archive just in case it happens again: https://web.archive.org/web/20211119221003/https://apitman.com/27/ https://web.archive.org/web/20211119221003/https://apitman.c...

julienb_sea 5y ago

I will say its hard to beat the torrent pipeline. Quality VPNs are dirt cheap, and with a solid connection, you can sequentially download and start watching almost immediately, essentially just like streaming.

bananamerica 5y ago

Why would anyone need TV streaming while camping? Doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose? Just take your PS5 and your workstation and you won't even need to look at the nature?

DangitBobby 5y ago

> But for some reason Chromecast only detected the Roku TV in my roommate's bedroom, not the Roku Ultra. I used to have this problem because my 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz SSIDs had separate LANs. So if Chromecast was connected to 2.4Ghz (as they like to do) and your phone was connected to 5Ghz, your phone won't be able to see the Chromecast. The remedy is to either bridge the networks or connect to the appropriate band.

hh3k0 5y ago

yar har fiddle dee dee…

usaphp 5y ago

I love watching football (soccer), I was so happy when Fubo.tv came out and I was able to watch everything in one place (EPL, La Liga, Champions league, national games etc). Now I have to have Fubo, Paramount+, peacock, ESPN+ and NBC sports streaming subscriptions. Not sure why Fubo decided to focus more on general market vs sport only…

prepend 5y ago

About 15 years ago, the torrent scene perfected the stack from a UX perspective. Everything was automated and xbmc was a player my 5 year old could figure out. The licensing was off (obviously) but everything just keeps getting worse and the pirate setup still works best. Even when I subscribe to these services it’s still better to use Plex to watch all shows together than navigate five different apps looking for new shows.

RickJWagner 5y ago

Former Dish user here. I love streaming. We watch what we want to watch, when we want to watch it. We pay a fraction of what we paid Dish and have a constantly updating list of great content. My family likes older tv series, too. Streaming is advantageous in almost every way.

jollybean 5y ago

The 'no commercials' bit is fundamental. I can hardly watch Cable TV, it seems archaic. They need to change the format.

kwere 5y ago

i believe there ust be crossplatforms interopabililty with access to other catologues by paying the difference cost of subscription/usage between the 2 platforms

DavideNL 5y ago

Another advantage of pirating: If you play 4K you actually get 4K, no throttling for weird reasons while internet speed is fine. On Netflix you can’t even see or verify what quality you’re actually playing (on an iPad.) Also, it still works when crossing borders. I live close to the border between Netherlands/Germany, and moving a few km to the east means i suddenly can’t stream many videos anymore. It’s idiotic. Want to stream while using a VPN? Nope… expect trouble too. So many annoyances. PS. I pirate even though i also pay for the streaming services…

Handytinge 5y ago

20 years ago I pirated because it was difficult to access movies, TV and music I want. I spent the last 10 years paying to stream the majority of it, rarely pirating. Now in Australia there are 7+ streaming services content is split over. I'd be happy to pay, but the differing experiences of player, quality control, user management etc across all, I find myself pirating again for the same reasons as 20 years ago. Sonarr + Radarr + Bazarr + Jellyfin creates a workable solution again.

chkaloon 5y ago

I pay for a Spectrum subscription, and their app for watching TV is pretty good, except that it is severely crippled channel-wise when you're not on your home network. In that case a home VPN server is your friend, but the average person is not going to know how to do that.