3 ms·
I wonder if the time isn't ripe for a kind of "meta" service. Essentially, one group provides the content, branding, some kind of licensing data structure desc
by at_a_remove 4y ago
I wonder if the time isn't ripe for a kind of "meta" service.
Essentially, one group provides the content, branding, some kind of licensing data structure describing date ranges and countries, and so on. An abstracted look and feel. Another service spits out the app and has the streaming infrastructure.
The apps produced would have the benefit of reaching many, many platforms and so deduplicate a lot of the work getting something to work on a Roku, or a Firestick or a Chromecast. This could open up the door to a lot of smaller groups and allow them to focus on obtaining, curating, and producing content, their specialty.
Netflix could be that platform. Of course, they would have to be their own clients first, learning how to abstract the Netflix app, going over their databases and adding columns to various tables, marking all of their content as ContentID = 1 or something. Once they got through that exercise, they could reach out to the smaller providers who are struggling.
- svachalek 4y agoYears ago we joked that someday there would be a service like that, and they would call it "cable".
- red-iron-pine 4y agoNow we call it cable cutting. There won't be a return to cable; probably a return to piracy
- agentwiggles 4y agoThis is kinda like what Amazon does with their channels, which is a bit clunky in various ways, but on the whole I don't hate the model. (besides the fact that the increasing fragmentation of content means I have to have a dozen subscriptions). What I really want is some sort of meta "subscription manager" where I could mark what I'm currently watching and what I always want access to, and it could manage cancelling and uncancelling the various subscriptions that I have. Even better if it could just give me access to everything through a unified interface. I would pay for this - I think it could save a lot of money. What I've been doing recently is whenever I sign up for a new thing, I just immediately cancel. That way when I hit the end of the month and I'm not using Peacock or Shudder or whatever other bench team service, I just won't have it any more. If I need it again, rinse and repeat. Currently the only subscriptions I'm maintaining long-term are HBO and Disney. Disney will probably be a long-runner as long as my kids still want to use it for Bluey and the odd movie. HBO has their classic shows like The Sopranos and Deadwood, plus the Adult Swim catalogue, so they land in a good value spot for me too.
- twobitshifter 4y agoIsn’t this exactly what YouTube tried?
- akurtzhs 4y agoPlex is aiming for this with their emphasis on universal cross-service search. If you look at the main page personal media is 6 paragraphs down.