6 ms·

They (all major streaming services) throw away millions on series they never release, they reduce spending on new series, and yet they still manage to increase

They (all major streaming services) throw away millions on series they never release, they reduce spending on new series, and yet they still manage to increase the cost of the service - and some are even adding pre-roll advertising? I was a huge advocate for these streaming services, but with the unjustified pricing hikes, ongoing georestriction of content, and the addition of advertising into a paid service, it has now come full circle and I feel the return to torrents is inevitable.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago
Honestly despite paying for netflix, I never stopped using torrents, even for netflix shows. Their UI is terrible and the geographic limitations are annoying, your watch list is unusable and the suggestions keep getting in your way. It's like their are not using their own product, and netflix is the least bad of the streaming services. Much easier to use the stremio app for most things.
- beAbU 3y ago
  I use Netflix to discover things I might be interested in, and if I want to keep watching I go to the high seas. I have all the other mainline streaming apps installed, sans a login. I use it purely for discovery. I have to say that the frequency of finding something worthwhile on netflix is decreasing...
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    Well, I did consule a lot of content. Humanity can only produce so many awesome things every day. We got used to abondance and quality.
    - dv_dt 3y ago
      It’s more that Netflix accumulated more internal content gatekeepers over time. They became the filters
  - evulhotdog 3y ago
    I personally use Trakt.tv to see popular and trending content. Then you don’t have to pilfer through each individual app or service. The other plus side is that this is content that people are actually watching (via marking as watched for tracking or scrobbling) so you also get the positive benefit of seeing what people are watching, not just things that Netflix or other providers want you to watch or who has paid the top dollar for your eyeballs.
- evulhotdog 3y ago
  Streamio in conjunction with real debrid and there’s little risk, with the library of the world at your fingertips. It’s the one stop shop that you would hope that all the streaming services could be, if they teamed up and split profits based upon views.
rapind 3y ago
It's funny how disrupters eventually fit right in with the disrupted. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. - Pete Townshend
ekianjo 3y ago
> I was a huge advocate for these streaming services, It was always going to go this way. Once you have a captive audience the next strategy is to milk it to death
- augustulus 3y ago
  as usual the stock market is to blame. in the 100 years or so it’s existed, the BBC has never really had a sustained drop in content quality, and yet its model is somehow taboo
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    The BBC's content quality varies a bit, and generally production values are worse. The acting is better than most US shows IMO, but that's not the BBC. The directing, cinematography aren't nearly as good; often very formulaic (e.g. Sherlock), and special effects are 30 years behind many US equivalents. In other words, the bit that the BBC don't control the creation of, the raw acting talent, is often the best bit. And writing, which they do control some of, is also generally of a reasonable to extremely good standard. Having said all that, the BBC's model is "create a law that says we must be paid". I don't think that's taboo in any shape or form, but it is quite a tricky thing to pull off in 2023 with the sensitivity around rent seeking.
    - augustulus 3y ago
      writing and acting are basically all that matter. acting is reliant on direction, so the idea that the direction is bad is out. writing is also massively influenced by the broadcaster, special effects are irrelevant if you’re not a child, and what cinematography can you point to in American TV that’s better? maybe you’re confusing films with TV ITV and Sky manage to find plenty of poor actors, so clearly having good actors is not just some inherent unearned feature of British TV besides all this, the BBC is much more than just dramas. it has the best documentaries bar none; some of the best and earliest sports coverage; probably the highest quality tv news and interview work; probably the best late night show; BBC radio 4; a hundred great podcasts; they literally invented TV streaming. etc etc etc. >“create a law that says we must be paid” this is a misconception. if you don’t want to pay for the BBC, you don’t have to. it’s just a crime to use it without paying. the same as its a crime to use the train without paying. and presumably if you found some way to hack netflix and use that without paying, that would be a crime too I’d say there’s far less sensitivity around rent-seeking than there ever has been since WW2, as long as it’s for private interest. there’s murdoch sensitivity around setting up new public bodies that benefit society, if that’s what you mean
danjc 3y ago
Every successful disruptor becomes what it set out to disrupt.
scyzoryk_xyz 3y ago
I agree with the sentiment, but the entertainment industry is largely built on a spread of various more or less risky bets. Usually from a single giant budget of a studio, and focused on ensuring a constant release timeline. And this isn’t a Netflix or streaming thing - the big 5 studios and tv industry have always had cases just like this one. We would have to take a look at the rest of that spread to figure out whether this is more or less business as usual.
matheusmoreira 3y ago
> some are even adding pre-roll advertising Never fails.
anfogoat 3y ago
> ... the return to torrents is inevitable. The only reason I ever paid for Netflix, HBO and Prime was because I felt less bad about never leaving in the first place. The UIs are atrocious, yes, but the absolute worst part of them all is that you have zero control. Content is there one day, gone the next.
bhpm 3y ago
I just wait until I can buy it on the Apple TV store or I don’t watch it. Torrenting and maintaining the software to play movie files on my TV takes time and it just isn’t a priority for me.
- rgblambda 3y ago
  >Torrenting and maintaining the software to play movie files on my TV takes time I've never thought either of those things took much time or effort. Though admittedly I've never timed myself doing it.
  - px43 3y ago
    For new people getting into it, there are quite a few traps that make it really easy to download malware or sign up for phony services pretending to be popular torrenting sites. As with all things, it's easy once you know how to do it, but the learning curve has gotten trickier over time as search engines have been flooded with malicious misdirections that no one seems incentivized to clean up.
  - antifa 3y ago
    Jellyfin had been great for me, but the setup for jellyfin and the optional niceties like homeserver with NFS, auto download new episodes, Socks5 VPN proxy, subtitles, remote control, getting jellyfin on each TV, etc. definitely looks daunting to the outsider. I've gone all the way with everything I've mentioned, and IMO is worth it. After initial setup, it's been low maintenance. My next upgrade will probably be to replace my NUC with a formal RAID setup like synology, but I haven't filled my current drives yet.
- ewweezdsd 3y ago
  To be honest all you need is a torrent client, HDMI cable and a laptop. Not much time required. With slightly more effort you can even intall Plex or Jellyfin on your laptop, and stream directly to your smart tv.
  - bhpm 3y ago
davely 3y ago
This is where services like Rdio (sigh), Spotify and Apple Music have done really well, in my opinion. If I want to listen to some music, it’s practically guaranteed to be right there in the one music service I’m paying for. If I want to watch a show or movie, there’s now a bunch of cognitive overhead going going on. - Which app is it in? - Do we have that one? - Do we have a subscription? - Wait, how do we navigate the UI in this app again? - Why is there an ad? I thought we pay for this service! - Oh, we don’t pay enough. - Oh, this service is raising it’s monthly fee, again For me, the creation of streaming music services completely stopped me from pirating music. The current state of streaming video makes me want to pull out the old eye patch and take to the high seas again.
- rvba 3y ago
  It is very easy to be a monopoly, especially one that was first in a certain market, or which can use various tactics to make you use their service. You dont remember how Apple would upload some album into your device without your consent? I find it fascinating how many people allow monopolies for just laziness: "Steam is so great because I have all games in one place - I dont need 20 shortcuts on my desktop". Then Steam (for years - I think they fixed it now and it opens in few seconds, without asking you to login every day), takes 2 minutes to start because it was written by cheapest bidder + it can close your account so you lose all your games. Multiple services are a way for actual market competition. Otherwise everything becomes Disney, who churns multiple crappy Marvel movies every year (current blockbuster cinema is mostly rubbish), or everything becomes Neflix where quality is trash, but hey actors were chosen by an algorithm (Ozark - or what was the show name, basically took popular actors and a popular theme and made a show with no interesting plot, no interesting dialogue). So scary to see that people agree with that, because they are lazy. This is some Idiocracy level. By the way, since we are on hacker news: nearly all, if not all shows are on the pirate websites.
  - alexpotato 3y ago
    > everything becomes Neflix where quality is trash, but hey actors were chosen by an algorithm I always thought that the algorithm had some successes (at least "back in the day") e.g. The myth is that House of Cards came out of Netflix realizing that there were a lot of fans of Kevin Spacey, people wanted a complex story line etc. [0] More recently, I kind of agree that the "enshittification" is starting to kick in but not sure how much of that is monopoly vs oligopoly. Which is sad b/c the big data, when used correctly, DOES lead to "sleeper" hits with different story lines/plots, old actors in new roles etc. This in turn makes me wonder if things were better under the old advertising/commercial supported model where ratings led to more ads which led to better writing etc. In other words, the networks knew exactly what was bringing in the revenue so they sent dollars to those shows. With Netflix, you know what people are watching but not necessarily what brought them to Netflix in the first place. 0 - Good explanation of this here: https://filmmakermagazine.com/64544-house-of-cards-the-netflix-algorithms-and-me/ https://filmmakermagazine.com/64544-house-of-cards-the-netfl...
vinyl7 3y ago
A lot of, if not most of, our modern tech economy over the last 10-15 years is all very economically nonviable. It only worked because of ZIRP and free money. It's all unsustainable and fake. It would be nice to get back to an economy based in reality, but that would undo all the "progress" we made since the dotcom bust and 2008 crash. Can't let that happen, so we'll probably keep the coke fueled party going so the crash will happen when it's somebody else's responsibility.
eslaught 3y ago
The early, cheap phase of streaming was funded on the back of overpriced, bundle cable subscriptions. I think it's underappreciated how much streaming gutted this business model. Not that it was justified per se, but streaming went from a nice bonus on top to an "oh shit, we killed the golden goose" for the content industry. Therefore, I think what we're seeing is inevitable. Higher prices, more silos, and a possible return to bundling or similar. And probably with less content to go around. That will push some into piracy, but we all know that never made up a substantial fraction of users in the first place.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago

Honestly despite paying for netflix, I never stopped using torrents, even for netflix shows. Their UI is terrible and the geographic limitations are annoying, your watch list is unusable and the suggestions keep getting in your way. It's like their are not using their own product, and netflix is the least bad of the streaming services. Much easier to use the stremio app for most things.

beAbU 3y ago
I use Netflix to discover things I might be interested in, and if I want to keep watching I go to the high seas. I have all the other mainline streaming apps installed, sans a login. I use it purely for discovery. I have to say that the frequency of finding something worthwhile on netflix is decreasing...
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  Well, I did consule a lot of content. Humanity can only produce so many awesome things every day. We got used to abondance and quality.
  - dv_dt 3y ago
    It’s more that Netflix accumulated more internal content gatekeepers over time. They became the filters
- evulhotdog 3y ago
  I personally use Trakt.tv to see popular and trending content. Then you don’t have to pilfer through each individual app or service. The other plus side is that this is content that people are actually watching (via marking as watched for tracking or scrobbling) so you also get the positive benefit of seeing what people are watching, not just things that Netflix or other providers want you to watch or who has paid the top dollar for your eyeballs.
evulhotdog 3y ago
Streamio in conjunction with real debrid and there’s little risk, with the library of the world at your fingertips. It’s the one stop shop that you would hope that all the streaming services could be, if they teamed up and split profits based upon views.

rapind 3y ago

It's funny how disrupters eventually fit right in with the disrupted. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. - Pete Townshend

ekianjo 3y ago

> I was a huge advocate for these streaming services, It was always going to go this way. Once you have a captive audience the next strategy is to milk it to death

augustulus 3y ago
as usual the stock market is to blame. in the 100 years or so it’s existed, the BBC has never really had a sustained drop in content quality, and yet its model is somehow taboo
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  The BBC's content quality varies a bit, and generally production values are worse. The acting is better than most US shows IMO, but that's not the BBC. The directing, cinematography aren't nearly as good; often very formulaic (e.g. Sherlock), and special effects are 30 years behind many US equivalents. In other words, the bit that the BBC don't control the creation of, the raw acting talent, is often the best bit. And writing, which they do control some of, is also generally of a reasonable to extremely good standard. Having said all that, the BBC's model is "create a law that says we must be paid". I don't think that's taboo in any shape or form, but it is quite a tricky thing to pull off in 2023 with the sensitivity around rent seeking.
  - augustulus 3y ago
    writing and acting are basically all that matter. acting is reliant on direction, so the idea that the direction is bad is out. writing is also massively influenced by the broadcaster, special effects are irrelevant if you’re not a child, and what cinematography can you point to in American TV that’s better? maybe you’re confusing films with TV ITV and Sky manage to find plenty of poor actors, so clearly having good actors is not just some inherent unearned feature of British TV besides all this, the BBC is much more than just dramas. it has the best documentaries bar none; some of the best and earliest sports coverage; probably the highest quality tv news and interview work; probably the best late night show; BBC radio 4; a hundred great podcasts; they literally invented TV streaming. etc etc etc. >“create a law that says we must be paid” this is a misconception. if you don’t want to pay for the BBC, you don’t have to. it’s just a crime to use it without paying. the same as its a crime to use the train without paying. and presumably if you found some way to hack netflix and use that without paying, that would be a crime too I’d say there’s far less sensitivity around rent-seeking than there ever has been since WW2, as long as it’s for private interest. there’s murdoch sensitivity around setting up new public bodies that benefit society, if that’s what you mean

danjc 3y ago

Every successful disruptor becomes what it set out to disrupt.

scyzoryk_xyz 3y ago

I agree with the sentiment, but the entertainment industry is largely built on a spread of various more or less risky bets. Usually from a single giant budget of a studio, and focused on ensuring a constant release timeline. And this isn’t a Netflix or streaming thing - the big 5 studios and tv industry have always had cases just like this one. We would have to take a look at the rest of that spread to figure out whether this is more or less business as usual.

matheusmoreira 3y ago

> some are even adding pre-roll advertising Never fails.

anfogoat 3y ago

> ... the return to torrents is inevitable. The only reason I ever paid for Netflix, HBO and Prime was because I felt less bad about never leaving in the first place. The UIs are atrocious, yes, but the absolute worst part of them all is that you have zero control. Content is there one day, gone the next.

bhpm 3y ago

I just wait until I can buy it on the Apple TV store or I don’t watch it. Torrenting and maintaining the software to play movie files on my TV takes time and it just isn’t a priority for me.

rgblambda 3y ago
>Torrenting and maintaining the software to play movie files on my TV takes time I've never thought either of those things took much time or effort. Though admittedly I've never timed myself doing it.
- px43 3y ago
  For new people getting into it, there are quite a few traps that make it really easy to download malware or sign up for phony services pretending to be popular torrenting sites. As with all things, it's easy once you know how to do it, but the learning curve has gotten trickier over time as search engines have been flooded with malicious misdirections that no one seems incentivized to clean up.
- antifa 3y ago
  Jellyfin had been great for me, but the setup for jellyfin and the optional niceties like homeserver with NFS, auto download new episodes, Socks5 VPN proxy, subtitles, remote control, getting jellyfin on each TV, etc. definitely looks daunting to the outsider. I've gone all the way with everything I've mentioned, and IMO is worth it. After initial setup, it's been low maintenance. My next upgrade will probably be to replace my NUC with a formal RAID setup like synology, but I haven't filled my current drives yet.
ewweezdsd 3y ago
To be honest all you need is a torrent client, HDMI cable and a laptop. Not much time required. With slightly more effort you can even intall Plex or Jellyfin on your laptop, and stream directly to your smart tv.
- bhpm 3y ago

davely 3y ago

This is where services like Rdio (sigh), Spotify and Apple Music have done really well, in my opinion. If I want to listen to some music, it’s practically guaranteed to be right there in the one music service I’m paying for. If I want to watch a show or movie, there’s now a bunch of cognitive overhead going going on. - Which app is it in? - Do we have that one? - Do we have a subscription? - Wait, how do we navigate the UI in this app again? - Why is there an ad? I thought we pay for this service! - Oh, we don’t pay enough. - Oh, this service is raising it’s monthly fee, again For me, the creation of streaming music services completely stopped me from pirating music. The current state of streaming video makes me want to pull out the old eye patch and take to the high seas again.

rvba 3y ago
It is very easy to be a monopoly, especially one that was first in a certain market, or which can use various tactics to make you use their service. You dont remember how Apple would upload some album into your device without your consent? I find it fascinating how many people allow monopolies for just laziness: "Steam is so great because I have all games in one place - I dont need 20 shortcuts on my desktop". Then Steam (for years - I think they fixed it now and it opens in few seconds, without asking you to login every day), takes 2 minutes to start because it was written by cheapest bidder + it can close your account so you lose all your games. Multiple services are a way for actual market competition. Otherwise everything becomes Disney, who churns multiple crappy Marvel movies every year (current blockbuster cinema is mostly rubbish), or everything becomes Neflix where quality is trash, but hey actors were chosen by an algorithm (Ozark - or what was the show name, basically took popular actors and a popular theme and made a show with no interesting plot, no interesting dialogue). So scary to see that people agree with that, because they are lazy. This is some Idiocracy level. By the way, since we are on hacker news: nearly all, if not all shows are on the pirate websites.
- alexpotato 3y ago
  > everything becomes Neflix where quality is trash, but hey actors were chosen by an algorithm I always thought that the algorithm had some successes (at least "back in the day") e.g. The myth is that House of Cards came out of Netflix realizing that there were a lot of fans of Kevin Spacey, people wanted a complex story line etc. [0] More recently, I kind of agree that the "enshittification" is starting to kick in but not sure how much of that is monopoly vs oligopoly. Which is sad b/c the big data, when used correctly, DOES lead to "sleeper" hits with different story lines/plots, old actors in new roles etc. This in turn makes me wonder if things were better under the old advertising/commercial supported model where ratings led to more ads which led to better writing etc. In other words, the networks knew exactly what was bringing in the revenue so they sent dollars to those shows. With Netflix, you know what people are watching but not necessarily what brought them to Netflix in the first place. 0 - Good explanation of this here: https://filmmakermagazine.com/64544-house-of-cards-the-netflix-algorithms-and-me/ https://filmmakermagazine.com/64544-house-of-cards-the-netfl...

vinyl7 3y ago

A lot of, if not most of, our modern tech economy over the last 10-15 years is all very economically nonviable. It only worked because of ZIRP and free money. It's all unsustainable and fake. It would be nice to get back to an economy based in reality, but that would undo all the "progress" we made since the dotcom bust and 2008 crash. Can't let that happen, so we'll probably keep the coke fueled party going so the crash will happen when it's somebody else's responsibility.

eslaught 3y ago

The early, cheap phase of streaming was funded on the back of overpriced, bundle cable subscriptions. I think it's underappreciated how much streaming gutted this business model. Not that it was justified per se, but streaming went from a nice bonus on top to an "oh shit, we killed the golden goose" for the content industry. Therefore, I think what we're seeing is inevitable. Higher prices, more silos, and a possible return to bundling or similar. And probably with less content to go around. That will push some into piracy, but we all know that never made up a substantial fraction of users in the first place.