7 ms·

People seem to forget how bad things used to be. We are extremely fortunate with the ability to watch what we want, when we want, without being interrupted by c

by II2II 5y ago

People seem to forget how bad things used to be. We are extremely fortunate with the ability to watch what we want, when we want, without being interrupted by commercials, for an extremely low cost. There also appears to be a great deal of progress with respect to being able to view programs/movies produced for foreign markets. But the best thing is: > you can bounce between streaming services at will, and they're all still far easier to cancel than cable. Add to that cheaper, since you don't have to deal with connection fees. If you know that you're not going to have the time to use the service for a couple of months because you're too busy with work, you don't have to pay for it. If you have decided that you are going to spend most of your summer pursuing outdoor recreational activities, you don't have to pay for it. If you're going on the road for a few weeks (vacation or business), you don't have to pay for it. If you decide that you want to watch programming on two different streaming services, you can simply rotate through the services on a monthly basis and only pay for one service at a time. Why do I bring all of this up when it's not directly related to the article: it's because these articles reek of entitlement. Yes, there are times when licensing causes shows or movies to fall through the cracks. On the other hand, the situation is also far better than it used to be when using the same metrics. Not only that, but it can be a heck of a lot less expensive even when factoring in the cost of an Internet connection.

citizenkeen 5y ago
On the one hand, we got what we asked for: _a la carte_. I think what makes people frustrated is that cable channels were _themed_. I was frustrated that I was paying for TLC and Bravo because I didn't watch reality tv. I was paying for Discovery even though I didn't watch nature shows. I was paying for Lifetime even though I didn't watch cheap shows for women. I was paying for ESPN even though I didn't watch sports. I wanted to pay for the comedy, the scifi/syfy, the cartoons, and the kids programming. That was, like, five or six channels. Which streaming service do I go to now for the science fiction? Which streaming service do I go to now for the horror or the feel-good sitcoms? Streaming arose during the collapse of genre channels. There are now three genres of programming: prestige, drek, and children's.
- mortenjorck 5y ago
  > There are now three genres of programming: prestige, drek, and children's. This is something I've been feeling for awhile but haven't managed to articulate this clearly. All new programming is either a mega-budget tentpole or it's something to fill out the menus.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    I think of that as "Look at all the new shows Netflix has" -> "95% of new Netflix shows wouldn't have been funded under the old model, because they're bad"
    - jfengel 5y ago
      Most of them aren't so much "bad" as "of narrow taste". They certainly look awful to me, but Netflix isn't just throwing money away. They've got a ton of data on what people want to watch. Somebody is watching this dreck. Some of it is genuinely a failure. Funding an entertainment project is always a pig in a poke. Even promising things sometimes just flop. But streaming makes it possible to lower the opportunity costs of those flops, so they can take bigger chances.
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        I say "bad" in the sense that Transformers is bad. In the sense that an F-22 is used for CAS / bombing in The Tomorrow War (which I'd assume was one of Amazon's better funded efforts). A lot of them just feel like "Oh, you just gave some money to people, removed the usual checks and balances that exist in filming, and told them to deliver a movie ASAP." It'd be one thing if they were making niche or more interesting content, but it feels like they're mostly just making more action movies and baking shows... faster and at lower quality.
        kyriakos 5y ago
        > A lot of them just feel like "Oh, you just gave some money to people, removed the usual checks and balances that exist in filming, and told them to deliver a movie ASAP." Describes Red Notice by Netflix
nvarsj 5y ago
Is that true? I remember most people, including myself, would get the full DirectTV/Cable subscription, hook up TiVo, and just record/watch on demand whatever you want. Those days seem impossible now. It certainly feels like things have regressed.
- jjav 5y ago
  Indeed. I used to have cable, over 100 channels for $30 and MythTV hooked up to record whatever I wanted. To replicate that today I'd need to subscribe to many different services all with separate monthly fees and way less conveniece (a single unified interface through MythTV was magical). So I don't watch any TV anymore, oh well. More time to code.
  - patrickk 5y ago
    > To replicate that today I'd need to subscribe to many different services all with separate monthly fees and way less conveniece (a single unified interface through MythTV was magical) Plex shares or even Pseudo TV Live partially could replicate this. But it’s a grey area obviously.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Well, anything that was part of the cable package--which increasingly was not where a significant amount of top TV (and certainly films) were available from, especially without adding on a lot of premium content like HBO. I canceled my cable TV as I increasingly realized I simply was watching either live or recorded on my TiVo stuff once in a blue moon.
maxerickson 5y ago
My internet provider is the cable monopoly, so they win anyway. I could get DSL, but it's shit here and anyway only ~$25 cheaper than the cable (which is 5x faster...). For $15, I could get cable tv, apparently diverting what I currently pay for internet away from profit and over towards channel fees. I've never fully digested them, but Michigan seems to have shitty franchise laws written in service of the large cable companies.
nahkoots 5y ago
Correct, things used to be worse than they are now. Does that mean that the automatic rebuttal to any complaint with anything remotely modern is that at least we're not still living in mud huts and writing on sheepskins? Nobody's forgotten that things were worse, we're just not willing to let that hold us back from making them better. To claim the article "reeks of entitlement" is unnecessarily dismissive of the (in my experience) entirely accurate claims the author makes about the current state of on-demand television.

by II2II 5y ago

citizenkeen 5y ago

On the one hand, we got what we asked for: _a la carte_. I think what makes people frustrated is that cable channels were _themed_. I was frustrated that I was paying for TLC and Bravo because I didn't watch reality tv. I was paying for Discovery even though I didn't watch nature shows. I was paying for Lifetime even though I didn't watch cheap shows for women. I was paying for ESPN even though I didn't watch sports. I wanted to pay for the comedy, the scifi/syfy, the cartoons, and the kids programming. That was, like, five or six channels. Which streaming service do I go to now for the science fiction? Which streaming service do I go to now for the horror or the feel-good sitcoms? Streaming arose during the collapse of genre channels. There are now three genres of programming: prestige, drek, and children's.

mortenjorck 5y ago
> There are now three genres of programming: prestige, drek, and children's. This is something I've been feeling for awhile but haven't managed to articulate this clearly. All new programming is either a mega-budget tentpole or it's something to fill out the menus.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  I think of that as "Look at all the new shows Netflix has" -> "95% of new Netflix shows wouldn't have been funded under the old model, because they're bad"
  - jfengel 5y ago
    Most of them aren't so much "bad" as "of narrow taste". They certainly look awful to me, but Netflix isn't just throwing money away. They've got a ton of data on what people want to watch. Somebody is watching this dreck. Some of it is genuinely a failure. Funding an entertainment project is always a pig in a poke. Even promising things sometimes just flop. But streaming makes it possible to lower the opportunity costs of those flops, so they can take bigger chances.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      I say "bad" in the sense that Transformers is bad. In the sense that an F-22 is used for CAS / bombing in The Tomorrow War (which I'd assume was one of Amazon's better funded efforts). A lot of them just feel like "Oh, you just gave some money to people, removed the usual checks and balances that exist in filming, and told them to deliver a movie ASAP." It'd be one thing if they were making niche or more interesting content, but it feels like they're mostly just making more action movies and baking shows... faster and at lower quality.
      - kyriakos 5y ago
        > A lot of them just feel like "Oh, you just gave some money to people, removed the usual checks and balances that exist in filming, and told them to deliver a movie ASAP." Describes Red Notice by Netflix

nvarsj 5y ago

Is that true? I remember most people, including myself, would get the full DirectTV/Cable subscription, hook up TiVo, and just record/watch on demand whatever you want. Those days seem impossible now. It certainly feels like things have regressed.

jjav 5y ago
Indeed. I used to have cable, over 100 channels for $30 and MythTV hooked up to record whatever I wanted. To replicate that today I'd need to subscribe to many different services all with separate monthly fees and way less conveniece (a single unified interface through MythTV was magical). So I don't watch any TV anymore, oh well. More time to code.
- patrickk 5y ago
  > To replicate that today I'd need to subscribe to many different services all with separate monthly fees and way less conveniece (a single unified interface through MythTV was magical) Plex shares or even Pseudo TV Live partially could replicate this. But it’s a grey area obviously.
ghaff 5y ago
Well, anything that was part of the cable package--which increasingly was not where a significant amount of top TV (and certainly films) were available from, especially without adding on a lot of premium content like HBO. I canceled my cable TV as I increasingly realized I simply was watching either live or recorded on my TiVo stuff once in a blue moon.

maxerickson 5y ago

My internet provider is the cable monopoly, so they win anyway. I could get DSL, but it's shit here and anyway only ~$25 cheaper than the cable (which is 5x faster...). For $15, I could get cable tv, apparently diverting what I currently pay for internet away from profit and over towards channel fees. I've never fully digested them, but Michigan seems to have shitty franchise laws written in service of the large cable companies.

nahkoots 5y ago

Correct, things used to be worse than they are now. Does that mean that the automatic rebuttal to any complaint with anything remotely modern is that at least we're not still living in mud huts and writing on sheepskins? Nobody's forgotten that things were worse, we're just not willing to let that hold us back from making them better. To claim the article "reeks of entitlement" is unnecessarily dismissive of the (in my experience) entirely accurate claims the author makes about the current state of on-demand television.