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To succeed they had to make streaming video easier than torrenting it, and cheap enough to attract the casual torrenter. And like every company, v1 was run by

To succeed they had to make streaming video easier than torrenting it, and cheap enough to attract the casual torrenter. And like every company, v1 was run by the founders that understood their customer base. Of course, we're at v2, with legions of sales, accounts and advertising execs, and layers of management whose performance and pay is based solely on company performance. The other thing that Netflix dropped the ball on was the Spotify-esque "1 site to rule them all". There's now Disney+, Paramount+, Hulu, HBO, in the UK, BBC, ITV, E4, Sky, and so on. Movie + TV companies have always fought each other in a way that record companies never did, but both their products are just bits down a wire in 2023. Competition is coming at them from all sides. I know that they get precise viewing figures for their series, but cancelling some of them is just baffling. No more chance of "Growing The Beard" for shows given the crowded marketplace. I cancelled a year or so ago after they cancelled some of the programmes I used to watch. The only thing left on Netflix for me is Stranger Things and that's not enough to keep me.

aidenn0 4y ago
> The other thing that Netflix dropped the ball on was the Spotify-esque "1 site to rule them all". There's now Disney+, Paramount+, Hulu, HBO, in the UK, BBC, ITV, E4, Sky, and so on. Movie + TV companies have always fought each other in a way that record companies never did, but both their products are just bits down a wire in 2023 Netflix didn't drop the ball; it was clearly never going to happen. When Netflix launched their streaming service, I thought it was a dumb idea because I figured it was 10 years tops before all the major studios could run their own streaming services, at which point Netflix would have no content to stream (unlike mailing DVDs, you need permission from studios to stream their content). Most of the movie studios jealously guard the rights to their movies; Netflix got a lot of its early streaming content by sublicensing from Starz, which pissed of the studios (most notably Disney, but there was murmuring from Sony as well). At this point, Netflix invested both in TV back-content as well as creating original content. We are now entering an era in which Studios can potentially have complete control over legal distribution of their content, and they look likely to do so. I'll pause for a moment while you try to buy a copy of the (now 3.5 year old) Mandalorian season 1 on DVD or Bluray... I'm not sure why music ended in the "(almost) 1 site to rule them all" while video did not, but a couple possibly contributing factors: 1. MP3s had a one-two punch of coming practically out of nowhere, and portable players that significantly improved on the walkman/discman experience. Napster wasn't even around that long (2 years, 80M users at peak) but planted pirated MP3s as a big deal. Then the iPod came around and being on iTunes was important to stay relevant. If you're on iTunes, why not be on all streaming and purchasing services at the same time? 2. There is a long history in the US of compulsory licensing of music for various purposes. It doesn't cover on-demand streaming, but does cover satellite, terrestrial radio and "internet radio" services. 3. Retail media sales have long been the public metric of success for music; for film studios it's been retail ticket sales. The music charts even have formulae for translating streams into equivalent purchases of physical media.

aidenn0 4y ago

> The other thing that Netflix dropped the ball on was the Spotify-esque "1 site to rule them all". There's now Disney+, Paramount+, Hulu, HBO, in the UK, BBC, ITV, E4, Sky, and so on. Movie + TV companies have always fought each other in a way that record companies never did, but both their products are just bits down a wire in 2023 Netflix didn't drop the ball; it was clearly never going to happen. When Netflix launched their streaming service, I thought it was a dumb idea because I figured it was 10 years tops before all the major studios could run their own streaming services, at which point Netflix would have no content to stream (unlike mailing DVDs, you need permission from studios to stream their content). Most of the movie studios jealously guard the rights to their movies; Netflix got a lot of its early streaming content by sublicensing from Starz, which pissed of the studios (most notably Disney, but there was murmuring from Sony as well). At this point, Netflix invested both in TV back-content as well as creating original content. We are now entering an era in which Studios can potentially have complete control over legal distribution of their content, and they look likely to do so. I'll pause for a moment while you try to buy a copy of the (now 3.5 year old) Mandalorian season 1 on DVD or Bluray... I'm not sure why music ended in the "(almost) 1 site to rule them all" while video did not, but a couple possibly contributing factors: 1. MP3s had a one-two punch of coming practically out of nowhere, and portable players that significantly improved on the walkman/discman experience. Napster wasn't even around that long (2 years, 80M users at peak) but planted pirated MP3s as a big deal. Then the iPod came around and being on iTunes was important to stay relevant. If you're on iTunes, why not be on all streaming and purchasing services at the same time? 2. There is a long history in the US of compulsory licensing of music for various purposes. It doesn't cover on-demand streaming, but does cover satellite, terrestrial radio and "internet radio" services. 3. Retail media sales have long been the public metric of success for music; for film studios it's been retail ticket sales. The music charts even have formulae for translating streams into equivalent purchases of physical media.