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It's not that simple. Providers simply can't go back to the old days. They will push consumers to their limit, but I just don't think people are interested in

It's not that simple. Providers simply can't go back to the old days. They will push consumers to their limit, but I just don't think people are interested in paying $150/mo for scheduled programming with ads any more. In the end it will likely be a compromise. But it's a good time to vote with our wallets.

TheRealPomax 4y ago
I never said it was sustainable, but the chain of events definitely is that simple. Netflix ran into the fact that it offered literally too good a deal for others to not cash in on by making the ecosystem worse so that they can charge people to make it convenient again instead. The fundamental principle behind making money is having something that people want, and then making sure it's inaccessible to them unless they pay you for it. The "making things terrible" comes from content companies going "we have a licensing system in place, we've used it for cable providers for decades, and we even used it for streaming services, but now we're going to cancel that and start our own vertically integrated lock-in service because we'll make way more money that way". While it makes sense, and everyone could have, and very much did, see it coming, it's still the kind of move that historically would have gotten your company broken up. But that's a power modern government seems to no longer want to wield anymore, despite our wishes they did.
- tomjakubowski 4y ago
  As long as barriers to entry to hosting content and releasing streaming apps remain low, this all seems fine. Where is the potential to abuse the vertical integration? Even if Disney owned Akamai or something, there's decent competition in CDNs.
rglullis 4y ago
Piracy is still better and cheaper.
- paxys 4y ago
  Piracy has always been better and cheaper, but it (thankfully) isn't how the vast majority of people consume content.
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    Piracy isn't all about price though. It's about convenience too. And it's not actually free. You're not paying the rights holder but pirating these days requires a lot of storage, a VPN perhaps a pay site or Usenet subscription. But also all the time to set up a media server etc. Connecting it to the TV (and all the tablets and phones) in a way the wife and kids can also grok. They don't want to search for Westworld_S04E01_H264_1080p_BLAHBLA.mkv in a long list. Oops no that's the one with the audio glitch, you need to find the PROPER instead. But why are the voices so quiet compared to the sound effects? Must be a Dolby Atmos downmixing problem. This stuff can really ruin the mood after a long work day. When you come home you just want to click on the man with the hat and not have to worry about issues. So you'll need time to review the downloads, categorise content or pay for Plex and a beefy server for the transcoding etc. Fix it when it's down. Keep it all updated. It's not very convenient. Netflix really beat that out with just click & play for a decent price. It was a good deal even being more expensive than piracy because it saved so much hassle. Most people have a life and more money than time to spare now. But the insane fragmentation is now screwing this up. Soon it may be more convenient for the masses to pirate again. Who wants to juggle 10 different subscriptions and player apps on all their devices, each with their own UI peculiarities? Having to deal with all the ads? But what show is on which service now?? Oh Prime Video has the movie I want to watch but it's only the Spanish dubbed version??? The industry has to do a very bad job to make piracy interesting again but they are well on their way. I'd pay €50 a month (which is a lot here in Spain) for a service that carries everything. If I watch all of Westworld this week they can send a big chunk of that HBO's way. If I watch for all mankind the next they can pay Apple. This is what Spotify etc do. Why does it have to be so difficult with video :(
    - rgavuliak 4y ago
      Early in 2012-2014 I worked for a SaaS paywall provider that offered what we called a National Model. You would pay once and get access to all major newspapers in the country. The fee you paid was divided into provider fee/a reward for the newspaper you bought your subscription at/time spent reward divided by user behaviour. The company has a successful business selling single instance paywalls. Why? You're in essence asking competitors to cooperate. One of them has higher costs and needs to raise the price? All the others need to agree on it. There's all kinds of complexities in this kind of system.
pessimizer 4y ago
> I just don't think people are interested in paying $150/mo for scheduled programming with ads any more. They were never interested in that, it's all that was available. "Pay TV" started off with no ads. Eventually, it will be all that is available again. You'll always be surprised at what peoples' limits are when you push them slowly enough.
- nightski 4y ago
  I don't know, where I grew up in the Midwest in the 90s there were many different cable packages and people always prided themselves on having the all inclusive package even if it was not that financially prudent. But maybe that was not the norm.
GekkePrutser 4y ago
I never paid that kind of money. At least in my circles nobody ever had extravagant cable packages. Just the basic and perhaps one special interest package like sports.

TheRealPomax 4y ago

I never said it was sustainable, but the chain of events definitely is that simple. Netflix ran into the fact that it offered literally too good a deal for others to not cash in on by making the ecosystem worse so that they can charge people to make it convenient again instead. The fundamental principle behind making money is having something that people want, and then making sure it's inaccessible to them unless they pay you for it. The "making things terrible" comes from content companies going "we have a licensing system in place, we've used it for cable providers for decades, and we even used it for streaming services, but now we're going to cancel that and start our own vertically integrated lock-in service because we'll make way more money that way". While it makes sense, and everyone could have, and very much did, see it coming, it's still the kind of move that historically would have gotten your company broken up. But that's a power modern government seems to no longer want to wield anymore, despite our wishes they did.

tomjakubowski 4y ago
As long as barriers to entry to hosting content and releasing streaming apps remain low, this all seems fine. Where is the potential to abuse the vertical integration? Even if Disney owned Akamai or something, there's decent competition in CDNs.

rglullis 4y ago

Piracy is still better and cheaper.

paxys 4y ago
Piracy has always been better and cheaper, but it (thankfully) isn't how the vast majority of people consume content.
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  Piracy isn't all about price though. It's about convenience too. And it's not actually free. You're not paying the rights holder but pirating these days requires a lot of storage, a VPN perhaps a pay site or Usenet subscription. But also all the time to set up a media server etc. Connecting it to the TV (and all the tablets and phones) in a way the wife and kids can also grok. They don't want to search for Westworld_S04E01_H264_1080p_BLAHBLA.mkv in a long list. Oops no that's the one with the audio glitch, you need to find the PROPER instead. But why are the voices so quiet compared to the sound effects? Must be a Dolby Atmos downmixing problem. This stuff can really ruin the mood after a long work day. When you come home you just want to click on the man with the hat and not have to worry about issues. So you'll need time to review the downloads, categorise content or pay for Plex and a beefy server for the transcoding etc. Fix it when it's down. Keep it all updated. It's not very convenient. Netflix really beat that out with just click & play for a decent price. It was a good deal even being more expensive than piracy because it saved so much hassle. Most people have a life and more money than time to spare now. But the insane fragmentation is now screwing this up. Soon it may be more convenient for the masses to pirate again. Who wants to juggle 10 different subscriptions and player apps on all their devices, each with their own UI peculiarities? Having to deal with all the ads? But what show is on which service now?? Oh Prime Video has the movie I want to watch but it's only the Spanish dubbed version??? The industry has to do a very bad job to make piracy interesting again but they are well on their way. I'd pay €50 a month (which is a lot here in Spain) for a service that carries everything. If I watch all of Westworld this week they can send a big chunk of that HBO's way. If I watch for all mankind the next they can pay Apple. This is what Spotify etc do. Why does it have to be so difficult with video :(
  - rgavuliak 4y ago
    Early in 2012-2014 I worked for a SaaS paywall provider that offered what we called a National Model. You would pay once and get access to all major newspapers in the country. The fee you paid was divided into provider fee/a reward for the newspaper you bought your subscription at/time spent reward divided by user behaviour. The company has a successful business selling single instance paywalls. Why? You're in essence asking competitors to cooperate. One of them has higher costs and needs to raise the price? All the others need to agree on it. There's all kinds of complexities in this kind of system.

pessimizer 4y ago

> I just don't think people are interested in paying $150/mo for scheduled programming with ads any more. They were never interested in that, it's all that was available. "Pay TV" started off with no ads. Eventually, it will be all that is available again. You'll always be surprised at what peoples' limits are when you push them slowly enough.

nightski 4y ago
I don't know, where I grew up in the Midwest in the 90s there were many different cable packages and people always prided themselves on having the all inclusive package even if it was not that financially prudent. But maybe that was not the norm.

GekkePrutser 4y ago

I never paid that kind of money. At least in my circles nobody ever had extravagant cable packages. Just the basic and perhaps one special interest package like sports.