5 ms·

It is interesting how round things come and go. First we had cabe TV and for a time it was good. Then there came the dawn of the internet and with it piracy a

It is interesting how round things come and go. First we had cabe TV and for a time it was good. Then there came the dawn of the internet and with it piracy and lawsuites. Then came the age of the streaming services, and for a time it was good again. It resembled the cable age of old, but with the power of choice! Or so it seemed. Then came competing services. Monopolies fuelled by publishing rights. The user had again to pay for each extra subscriptions, just like in the old days, with movie packages, sports packages and whatnot. Streaming is so bad now it makes sense to pirate stuff again. (This comment doesn't condone illegal practices). We kinda came full circle.

yellow_lead 3y ago
> Then came the age of the streaming services, and for a time it was good again. It resembled the cable age of old, but with the power of choice! Maybe this was because VCs were footing the bill. Once companies have to be profitable the fun seems to end.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  VCs footing the bill for such large disruptions of entire sectors only for them to end up the same seems like it should somehow be illegal. Uber killed off cab companies by being subsidized only to end up more (or just as) expensive except it screwed the workers in the process.
  - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    as far as I know cab companies are alive and kicking, they were just forced to give better service due to the increased competition. And I can tell you I unequivocally prefer cab over uber, cab drivers are humans, uber drivers are fleshy extensions of an algorithm. By this I mean I can ask a cab driver to wait and take me home, I cannot ask that of an uber driver.
breckenedge 3y ago
I want to be the consumer, not the product. With large media companies, it’s inevitable that I will become the product. Cable was supposed to be free of commercials. Streaming was supposed to be free of commercials. Thankfully books are still free of commercials.
- bombcar 3y ago
  I’m so sorry to ruin your day. https://lithub.com/the-time-terry-pratchetts-german-publisher-inserted-a-soup-ad-into-his-novel/ https://lithub.com/the-time-terry-pratchetts-german-publishe...
  - gchamonlive 3y ago
    Thank god this isn't pervasive
- vel0city 3y ago
  Cable had ads on it from day one. Only a few premium channels didn't have ads or only had pre-roll ads.
  - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    this guy again. stop it, when people say it's ad-free they mean the content wasn't disrupted with an ad. stop attacking a strawman.
    - vel0city 3y ago
      this guy again > free of commercials This isn't "not disrupted by ads". This means no ads. Free of commercials, not limited commercials. Ad-free means ad-free. No mustard means no mustard not just no grey poupon. Not a hard concept to understand. And once again, cable had interruptive ads since the first cable was connected to the first subscriber. So even scoped to just pre-roll ads you're still denying highly documented history. National cable networks were making many millions in ad revenues the first few years into their existence. This means they ran ads. Aka, not free of commercials. The only way the above makes sense is to add a ton of qualifiers. "The whole point of a few premium channels on some cable networks 20 years into cable's history was limited to no advertising." Cable's original point was by no means "freedom from ads." And even this statement of "Streaming was supposed to be free of commercials" just ignores the fact Hulu had ad-supported streaming in 2007, pretty early in the commercial OTT streaming industry growth. YouTube started having ads in 2008. But I guess if you've been doing enough drugs to think Netflix started it's streaming business in the 90s you'd see that as late. The rest of us in reality see that's still pretty early in the commercial streaming world. stop denying reality.

yellow_lead 3y ago

> Then came the age of the streaming services, and for a time it was good again. It resembled the cable age of old, but with the power of choice! Maybe this was because VCs were footing the bill. Once companies have to be profitable the fun seems to end.

edgyquant 3y ago
VCs footing the bill for such large disruptions of entire sectors only for them to end up the same seems like it should somehow be illegal. Uber killed off cab companies by being subsidized only to end up more (or just as) expensive except it screwed the workers in the process.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
  as far as I know cab companies are alive and kicking, they were just forced to give better service due to the increased competition. And I can tell you I unequivocally prefer cab over uber, cab drivers are humans, uber drivers are fleshy extensions of an algorithm. By this I mean I can ask a cab driver to wait and take me home, I cannot ask that of an uber driver.

breckenedge 3y ago

I want to be the consumer, not the product. With large media companies, it’s inevitable that I will become the product. Cable was supposed to be free of commercials. Streaming was supposed to be free of commercials. Thankfully books are still free of commercials.

bombcar 3y ago
I’m so sorry to ruin your day. https://lithub.com/the-time-terry-pratchetts-german-publisher-inserted-a-soup-ad-into-his-novel/ https://lithub.com/the-time-terry-pratchetts-german-publishe...
- gchamonlive 3y ago
  Thank god this isn't pervasive
vel0city 3y ago
Cable had ads on it from day one. Only a few premium channels didn't have ads or only had pre-roll ads.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
  this guy again. stop it, when people say it's ad-free they mean the content wasn't disrupted with an ad. stop attacking a strawman.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    this guy again > free of commercials This isn't "not disrupted by ads". This means no ads. Free of commercials, not limited commercials. Ad-free means ad-free. No mustard means no mustard not just no grey poupon. Not a hard concept to understand. And once again, cable had interruptive ads since the first cable was connected to the first subscriber. So even scoped to just pre-roll ads you're still denying highly documented history. National cable networks were making many millions in ad revenues the first few years into their existence. This means they ran ads. Aka, not free of commercials. The only way the above makes sense is to add a ton of qualifiers. "The whole point of a few premium channels on some cable networks 20 years into cable's history was limited to no advertising." Cable's original point was by no means "freedom from ads." And even this statement of "Streaming was supposed to be free of commercials" just ignores the fact Hulu had ad-supported streaming in 2007, pretty early in the commercial OTT streaming industry growth. YouTube started having ads in 2008. But I guess if you've been doing enough drugs to think Netflix started it's streaming business in the 90s you'd see that as late. The rest of us in reality see that's still pretty early in the commercial streaming world. stop denying reality.