5 ms·

Apple should buy Netflix and combined they should focus on only few, extremely high quality shows.

ghaff 5y ago
Why would Apple buy Netflix to do a few high quality shows? That's pretty much (to a degree) the strategy Apple is already following.
brimble 5y ago
What should happen, if we're doing "shoulds", is that it shouldn't be permitted for one company to own both distribution and production, nor for such companies to create long-term exclusivity agreements with one another.
- onionisafruit 5y ago
  Is there any country that forbids this?
  - brimble 5y ago
    Until very recently (a year or two ago?), the US didn't allow film studios to own movie theaters. Hadn't for something like 70 years. That was due to antitrust action over a situation pretty similar to what's happening with streaming services.
- bin_bash 5y ago
  it seems to me this market has loads of competition without silly regulation like this getting in the way
  - ss108 5y ago
    Interestingly, competition is worse for consumers in some respects here. It's resulting in fragmentation of the market such that people are too many services for 1-2 shows each
    - brimble 5y ago
      Exactly that. I want to see more competition on price, features, and quality, and less on content availability. It'd also make it easier to enter both parts of that market, as a production company or a distributor, which is currently something that only a company with an enormous pile of cash and/or ownership of an existing large catalog of material, can realistically do.
    - fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
      There’s vastly more high-quality television being produced than any other time in history. From my perspective, subscribing to one of the major services gives me a better experience than cable TV ever did, at a much lower cost. If I run out of stuff to watch I can always switch to another.
    - kaashif 5y ago
      > competition is worse for consumers in some respects here The implicit assumption here is that without competition, we'd have all (or most) of the same shows, just on a single service. I don't think that's true. I think competition between streaming services largely on the basis of original content has produced a lot of good shows that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. It seems to me like there's a lot more variety in things to watch these days, and it's not like I have to pay for every streaming service every month... Would all of the Star Wars content on Disney+ even have been made if Disney couldn't put it on Disney+, for example? Netflix has started and cancelled a ton of original series, but would they have even been tried at all back when cable TV was king? I don't know, maybe there are some statistics on the variety of TV shows being watched and I'm wrong, but I can't find them.
      - brimble 5y ago
        A shift in the competitive landscape might encourage distributors to integrate better with aggregators or meta-interfaces of various sorts. Or directly with one another, in some fashion. > Would all of the Star Wars content on Disney+ even have been made if Disney couldn't put it on Disney+, for example? I think the strongest argument in favor of the current arrangement is that monopolies yield rents, which (might!) mean more money for production. However, I think in a world where no production companies could own streaming platforms, production companies would probably... you know, still produce lots of content, since selling content would be their main way of making money, and you can't sell what you don't have. More importantly than whether Disney would still be OK, I think it would make it easier for indies and startups to participate in the market.
  - bawolff 5y ago
    In certain ways yes, in certain ways no. The monopoly provided by copyright does really hinder effective competition. Requiring non-discriminatory licensing would radically change the competitive landscape in this space.
  - echelon 5y ago
    [edit: yeah, my argument went on a tangent and didn't return back to point. Removed to not distract from the discussion.]
    - RussianCow 5y ago
      I think you may have posted this in the wrong thread.
- usrn 5y ago
  I really think services like YouTube are going to win out. For every hour of video I've watched on Netflix or Hulu I've probably watched 40 on Youtube. The variety of content there is absolutely incredible and so much of it is very deep educational content.
  - brimble 5y ago
    I think people are watching a lot more video in general. There are multiple generations, at this point, that mostly wouldn't pay for cable or even bother with rabbit ears even if TV & movie streaming services didn't exist, but do pay for a streaming service or three. I don't think YouTube's going to beat that entire market, unless they shift tactics pretty substantially. I think they expanded the market, though, grabbing almost all of that new territory for themselves in the process (at least until TikTok came along)
    - InitialLastName 5y ago
      > I think people are watching a lot more video in general My parents, their parents, and many of their peers have TVs on in the background during virtually every waking moment they spend at home, and have done so since at least the 90s. People are watching video differently, but I'm not sure it's "a lot more".
      - skrbjc 5y ago
        My parents and my in-laws (all in their 70s) do this, too, and I'm astounded by it. The TV is just on and playing in the background all the time, even when we visit and are sitting down and talking. It's not enjoyable to me. Come to think of it, my wife often does this as well (she's in her 30s). She'll put something on and then do something completely different, just the other day I came into the room to find her with netflix running on screen, a youtube video playing on another screen and her staring at her phone looking at something else. But I find myself, if I'm going to watch something, sit down and focus on it completely, to the point that I often pause and rewind if I didn't quite catch the phrasing of something. I guess it's just that certain people don't mind passive viewing and can have a lot more inputs without being bothered by it.
- zbuf 5y ago
  No need to mandate it, Netflix should have realised the end game of competing with their own suppliers.
  - bradstewart 5y ago
    They did realize it. The end game was that their suppliers would stop supplying to take more profit for themselves. So they the only thing they could and started producing content.
- ChrisLomont 5y ago
  >that it shouldn't be permitted ... In other words, we want as many middlemen as possible in the chain?
  - brimble 5y ago
    I think it's a good idea to mitigate the downsides of the monopoly granted by copyright, when possible. We saw similar problems with studio ownership of movie theaters, and solved that by not letting studios own movie theaters (via an antitrust suit). That's only very recently, and in what may be the twilight of the movie theater itself, changed. In the current environment, I suspect we'll see (are already seeing, to some extent) history repeat itself, but not do anything about it this time, because we're so skittish of regulating markets now. I don't think you should have to own an extensive catalog of content to launch a streaming service. Nor that you should effectively have to grovel for the patronage of one of a handful of integrated production+distribution mega corporations to undertake production of new media. But that's rapidly where the market's heading, and I don't see any mechanism to change that course short of anti-trust action. There are, as usual, some benefits to the rents the current monopolistic system produces (extra cash sloshing around to throw at projects, for example—extra R&D money is a typical benefit monopolies produce, and in this case, because the monopolies are on particular content rather than on all content [so far—Disney's getting alarmingly close], there remain incentives to actually spend that money on, if you will, R&D, or the closest thing to it in media production) but at the cost reduced competition on cost & quality, and of making it much harder to enter the market, for new players.
izacus 5y ago
Why would you want even more consolidation? The other content owners (Disney, WB, etc.) have already pulled all their content from 3rd parties (including Netflix) to destroy competition. Why is there so many people on HN that want less market competition and cheer when corporations consolidate?
- sliken 5y ago
  Because people want to watch the leading shows in their area of interest and not have to pay 10+ services $10-$20 a month. As it gets increasingly hard/expensive, not to mention the bickering between services and platforms and services and markets to watch them on, customers are resorting to piracy as a way to get the content they want.
  - francisofascii 5y ago
    Agree with this sentiment, but if they consolidate, the price may go from $10-20/month to $20-40/month. And then we are back to cable.
    - wombatpm 5y ago
      But without the 50 shopping channels
  - mhitza 5y ago
    All these streaming companies battle for long term user acquisition, thus perpetual $10/month subscription per service for X providers is definitely a no-go long term. I think a middle ground would be shareware-like pay-per-view type model. Are you creating a new series? Make the first episode freely watchable, and then don't price excessively the entire season. As a consumer would make sense for me to pay 5$ for a season of show X on Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max/etc. But allow me to watch the thing I payed for perpetually in the future, as long as the show is still on the platform. And when I'm looking for something new to pay for, allow me to see the first episode of existing shows for free. Would that work for all consumers? I don't know, most people I know with streaming subscriptions, barely actively watch shows and very often those are standins for background noise.
micromacrofoot 5y ago
Apple doesn't need to buy Netflix to do this, they're already starting to do it.
runevault 5y ago
We need more companies not less. This is an awful idea. Frankly I wish we'd see what happened theaters back in the day happen and not allowing creators to be their own distributors. Yes Netflix would have to stop creating content, but it would at least somewhat mitigate this current world where everyone creates their own streaming service.

Why would Apple buy Netflix to do a few high quality shows? That's pretty much (to a degree) the strategy Apple is already following.

brimble 5y ago

What should happen, if we're doing "shoulds", is that it shouldn't be permitted for one company to own both distribution and production, nor for such companies to create long-term exclusivity agreements with one another.

onionisafruit 5y ago
Is there any country that forbids this?
- brimble 5y ago
  Until very recently (a year or two ago?), the US didn't allow film studios to own movie theaters. Hadn't for something like 70 years. That was due to antitrust action over a situation pretty similar to what's happening with streaming services.
bin_bash 5y ago
it seems to me this market has loads of competition without silly regulation like this getting in the way
- ss108 5y ago
  Interestingly, competition is worse for consumers in some respects here. It's resulting in fragmentation of the market such that people are too many services for 1-2 shows each
  - brimble 5y ago
    Exactly that. I want to see more competition on price, features, and quality, and less on content availability. It'd also make it easier to enter both parts of that market, as a production company or a distributor, which is currently something that only a company with an enormous pile of cash and/or ownership of an existing large catalog of material, can realistically do.
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
    There’s vastly more high-quality television being produced than any other time in history. From my perspective, subscribing to one of the major services gives me a better experience than cable TV ever did, at a much lower cost. If I run out of stuff to watch I can always switch to another.
  - kaashif 5y ago
    > competition is worse for consumers in some respects here The implicit assumption here is that without competition, we'd have all (or most) of the same shows, just on a single service. I don't think that's true. I think competition between streaming services largely on the basis of original content has produced a lot of good shows that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. It seems to me like there's a lot more variety in things to watch these days, and it's not like I have to pay for every streaming service every month... Would all of the Star Wars content on Disney+ even have been made if Disney couldn't put it on Disney+, for example? Netflix has started and cancelled a ton of original series, but would they have even been tried at all back when cable TV was king? I don't know, maybe there are some statistics on the variety of TV shows being watched and I'm wrong, but I can't find them.
    - brimble 5y ago
      A shift in the competitive landscape might encourage distributors to integrate better with aggregators or meta-interfaces of various sorts. Or directly with one another, in some fashion. > Would all of the Star Wars content on Disney+ even have been made if Disney couldn't put it on Disney+, for example? I think the strongest argument in favor of the current arrangement is that monopolies yield rents, which (might!) mean more money for production. However, I think in a world where no production companies could own streaming platforms, production companies would probably... you know, still produce lots of content, since selling content would be their main way of making money, and you can't sell what you don't have. More importantly than whether Disney would still be OK, I think it would make it easier for indies and startups to participate in the market.
- bawolff 5y ago
  In certain ways yes, in certain ways no. The monopoly provided by copyright does really hinder effective competition. Requiring non-discriminatory licensing would radically change the competitive landscape in this space.
- echelon 5y ago
  [edit: yeah, my argument went on a tangent and didn't return back to point. Removed to not distract from the discussion.]
  - RussianCow 5y ago
    I think you may have posted this in the wrong thread.
usrn 5y ago
I really think services like YouTube are going to win out. For every hour of video I've watched on Netflix or Hulu I've probably watched 40 on Youtube. The variety of content there is absolutely incredible and so much of it is very deep educational content.
- brimble 5y ago
  I think people are watching a lot more video in general. There are multiple generations, at this point, that mostly wouldn't pay for cable or even bother with rabbit ears even if TV & movie streaming services didn't exist, but do pay for a streaming service or three. I don't think YouTube's going to beat that entire market, unless they shift tactics pretty substantially. I think they expanded the market, though, grabbing almost all of that new territory for themselves in the process (at least until TikTok came along)
  - InitialLastName 5y ago
    > I think people are watching a lot more video in general My parents, their parents, and many of their peers have TVs on in the background during virtually every waking moment they spend at home, and have done so since at least the 90s. People are watching video differently, but I'm not sure it's "a lot more".
    - skrbjc 5y ago
      My parents and my in-laws (all in their 70s) do this, too, and I'm astounded by it. The TV is just on and playing in the background all the time, even when we visit and are sitting down and talking. It's not enjoyable to me. Come to think of it, my wife often does this as well (she's in her 30s). She'll put something on and then do something completely different, just the other day I came into the room to find her with netflix running on screen, a youtube video playing on another screen and her staring at her phone looking at something else. But I find myself, if I'm going to watch something, sit down and focus on it completely, to the point that I often pause and rewind if I didn't quite catch the phrasing of something. I guess it's just that certain people don't mind passive viewing and can have a lot more inputs without being bothered by it.
zbuf 5y ago
No need to mandate it, Netflix should have realised the end game of competing with their own suppliers.
- bradstewart 5y ago
  They did realize it. The end game was that their suppliers would stop supplying to take more profit for themselves. So they the only thing they could and started producing content.
ChrisLomont 5y ago
>that it shouldn't be permitted ... In other words, we want as many middlemen as possible in the chain?
- brimble 5y ago
  I think it's a good idea to mitigate the downsides of the monopoly granted by copyright, when possible. We saw similar problems with studio ownership of movie theaters, and solved that by not letting studios own movie theaters (via an antitrust suit). That's only very recently, and in what may be the twilight of the movie theater itself, changed. In the current environment, I suspect we'll see (are already seeing, to some extent) history repeat itself, but not do anything about it this time, because we're so skittish of regulating markets now. I don't think you should have to own an extensive catalog of content to launch a streaming service. Nor that you should effectively have to grovel for the patronage of one of a handful of integrated production+distribution mega corporations to undertake production of new media. But that's rapidly where the market's heading, and I don't see any mechanism to change that course short of anti-trust action. There are, as usual, some benefits to the rents the current monopolistic system produces (extra cash sloshing around to throw at projects, for example—extra R&D money is a typical benefit monopolies produce, and in this case, because the monopolies are on particular content rather than on all content [so far—Disney's getting alarmingly close], there remain incentives to actually spend that money on, if you will, R&D, or the closest thing to it in media production) but at the cost reduced competition on cost & quality, and of making it much harder to enter the market, for new players.

izacus 5y ago

Why would you want even more consolidation? The other content owners (Disney, WB, etc.) have already pulled all their content from 3rd parties (including Netflix) to destroy competition. Why is there so many people on HN that want less market competition and cheer when corporations consolidate?

sliken 5y ago
Because people want to watch the leading shows in their area of interest and not have to pay 10+ services $10-$20 a month. As it gets increasingly hard/expensive, not to mention the bickering between services and platforms and services and markets to watch them on, customers are resorting to piracy as a way to get the content they want.
- francisofascii 5y ago
  Agree with this sentiment, but if they consolidate, the price may go from $10-20/month to $20-40/month. And then we are back to cable.
  - wombatpm 5y ago
    But without the 50 shopping channels
- mhitza 5y ago
  All these streaming companies battle for long term user acquisition, thus perpetual $10/month subscription per service for X providers is definitely a no-go long term. I think a middle ground would be shareware-like pay-per-view type model. Are you creating a new series? Make the first episode freely watchable, and then don't price excessively the entire season. As a consumer would make sense for me to pay 5$ for a season of show X on Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max/etc. But allow me to watch the thing I payed for perpetually in the future, as long as the show is still on the platform. And when I'm looking for something new to pay for, allow me to see the first episode of existing shows for free. Would that work for all consumers? I don't know, most people I know with streaming subscriptions, barely actively watch shows and very often those are standins for background noise.

micromacrofoot 5y ago

Apple doesn't need to buy Netflix to do this, they're already starting to do it.

runevault 5y ago

We need more companies not less. This is an awful idea. Frankly I wish we'd see what happened theaters back in the day happen and not allowing creators to be their own distributors. Yes Netflix would have to stop creating content, but it would at least somewhat mitigate this current world where everyone creates their own streaming service.