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Higher fees, fine. If you look at the amount and cost of content over the last decade it was clear it was unsustainable. The amount we all were paying vs. the a

Higher fees, fine. If you look at the amount and cost of content over the last decade it was clear it was unsustainable. The amount we all were paying vs. the amount of content was/is staggering. We were in a content golden age. On the other hand, ads are a problem and I refuse to watch them. There are too many other sources of content to ever sit through an ad.

nytesky 3y ago
I’m skeptical that content quality is as high. Movies especially are stumbling, and many streaming service originals seem very derivative or written by algorithms. Now content quantity is enormous, but that just makes separating the wheat from the chaff even harder.
- edmundsauto 3y ago
  To be fair, every generation says “they don’t make $media as well as they used to.” This may or may not be true, but looking at the past few years I have to say it’s subpar. That was probably exacerbated by the pandemic.
  - walterbell 3y ago
    There are decades of quality films worth seeking, some are on Criterion Collection physical media and their streaming service.
    - k12sosse 3y ago
      Vinegar syndrome filled a big niche for me in the last few years
    - tacocataco 3y ago
      Swing by archive.org, they have full movies! This one is next in my watch list: https://archive.org/details/Gattaca https://archive.org/details/Gattaca I've also "discovered" their software tab recently.
ok123456 3y ago
What if you don't like comic book movies?
- matwood 3y ago
  I can't stand comic book movies and my list of content to watch right now is probably more than I'll ever be able to get to.
electric_mayhem 3y ago
> If you look at the amount and cost of content over the last decade it was clear it was unsustainable. The amount we all were paying vs. the amount of content was/is staggering. We were in a content golden age. Nonsense. You know what actually had a staggering amount of content? Disc-based Netflix. They had and made available damned near everything. I’d happily go back to slower (legal) access to damned near everything rather than stay with the status quo of heavily fragmented fiefdoms, each ever more enshittified and with comparatively narrow selections of stale low-value crap available on-demand.
- electric_mayhem 3y ago
  Love the downvotes for bringing facts.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    >Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
    - southernplaces7 3y ago
      Why not? Sometimes people downvoate a perfectly good, informative or interesting comment for completely stupid, bullshit cliquish reasons on HN and it absolutely deserves to be called out when it's obvious.
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        I mean, the explanation is in the rule itself. Has anything magically changed overtime because someone doubled down and said "oh no I'm being attacked with downvotes!". Never saw it end positively on Reddit, never saw it end positively on HN. Also, it's all about the delivery. >Love the downvotes for bringing facts. just comes off as snark. If you really want to invite more nuanced responses to the clique, say so >I am open to rebuttals or corrections if I'm incorrect on something. replies matter so much more than points. That's why the points aren't public to begin with. So invite that instead of pseudo-begging for upvotes.
chimprich 3y ago
> unsustainable I got the impression all the major streaming players made significant profits and grew substantially over the past decade. Does "unsustainable" just mean they weren't making as much cash as they wanted to?
- matwood 3y ago
  Netflix is about the only one making money. Disney+, Hulu, Time Warner, etc... are all losing a lot of money on their streaming ventures. Expect to see consolidation incoming. The strikes also helped since it gave them cover to cut a lot of costs.
  - tharkun__ 3y ago
    Honestly that would be awesome if the studios were forced to make their content all available on Netflix again like they used to. Netflix is o ly really problematic because the studios all had $$$ signs in their eyes and pulled their stuff to make their own streaming service. I was perfectly happy paying Netflix every month. But I'm not paying Amazon, Disney, Apple, Hulu and whoknowsehatelse on top of Netflix.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      would it be? Then it'd just be netflix calling all the shots, controlling what is and isn't on TV, and free to price gouge as they have already been doing with the rest of them. It'd be Youtube all over again. Ask Youtube content creators how they are treated by Google. We have a story here today of someone uploading public domain content, being struck by copyright claims, reinstated, and then hit by a different company within 24 hours.
      - tharkun__ 3y ago
        If Netflix was basically just the broadcaster like say a movie theater but streaming online I do think it would be OK yes. Maybe have another broadcaster or two but not actually hide content behind 7 different ones with a completely non overlapping set of exclusive content so that I have to subscribe to all of them. It's better than the "studios" controlling everything. Think Paramount ruling: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_P.... Basically we need a paramount ruling for streaming. Instead of what they are actually currently doing which is to revert it.
asdff 3y ago
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the peak content era was actually the peak blockbuster era. Apparently stores had a couple thousand titles in each (1). They would of course have all the new releases across any major motion picture studio too. There's no streaming service that maintains such a comprehensive catalog of the classics today along with all the major releases that a blockbuster might have stocked. 1. https://old.reddit.com/r/blockbustervideo/comments/gum716/how_many_titles_would_an_average_store_have/ https://old.reddit.com/r/blockbustervideo/comments/gum716/ho...

nytesky 3y ago

I’m skeptical that content quality is as high. Movies especially are stumbling, and many streaming service originals seem very derivative or written by algorithms. Now content quantity is enormous, but that just makes separating the wheat from the chaff even harder.

edmundsauto 3y ago
To be fair, every generation says “they don’t make $media as well as they used to.” This may or may not be true, but looking at the past few years I have to say it’s subpar. That was probably exacerbated by the pandemic.
- walterbell 3y ago
  There are decades of quality films worth seeking, some are on Criterion Collection physical media and their streaming service.
  - k12sosse 3y ago
    Vinegar syndrome filled a big niche for me in the last few years
  - tacocataco 3y ago
    Swing by archive.org, they have full movies! This one is next in my watch list: https://archive.org/details/Gattaca https://archive.org/details/Gattaca I've also "discovered" their software tab recently.

ok123456 3y ago

What if you don't like comic book movies?

matwood 3y ago
I can't stand comic book movies and my list of content to watch right now is probably more than I'll ever be able to get to.

electric_mayhem 3y ago

> If you look at the amount and cost of content over the last decade it was clear it was unsustainable. The amount we all were paying vs. the amount of content was/is staggering. We were in a content golden age. Nonsense. You know what actually had a staggering amount of content? Disc-based Netflix. They had and made available damned near everything. I’d happily go back to slower (legal) access to damned near everything rather than stay with the status quo of heavily fragmented fiefdoms, each ever more enshittified and with comparatively narrow selections of stale low-value crap available on-demand.

electric_mayhem 3y ago
Love the downvotes for bringing facts.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
  - southernplaces7 3y ago
    Why not? Sometimes people downvoate a perfectly good, informative or interesting comment for completely stupid, bullshit cliquish reasons on HN and it absolutely deserves to be called out when it's obvious.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      I mean, the explanation is in the rule itself. Has anything magically changed overtime because someone doubled down and said "oh no I'm being attacked with downvotes!". Never saw it end positively on Reddit, never saw it end positively on HN. Also, it's all about the delivery. >Love the downvotes for bringing facts. just comes off as snark. If you really want to invite more nuanced responses to the clique, say so >I am open to rebuttals or corrections if I'm incorrect on something. replies matter so much more than points. That's why the points aren't public to begin with. So invite that instead of pseudo-begging for upvotes.

chimprich 3y ago

> unsustainable I got the impression all the major streaming players made significant profits and grew substantially over the past decade. Does "unsustainable" just mean they weren't making as much cash as they wanted to?

matwood 3y ago
Netflix is about the only one making money. Disney+, Hulu, Time Warner, etc... are all losing a lot of money on their streaming ventures. Expect to see consolidation incoming. The strikes also helped since it gave them cover to cut a lot of costs.
- tharkun__ 3y ago
  Honestly that would be awesome if the studios were forced to make their content all available on Netflix again like they used to. Netflix is o ly really problematic because the studios all had $$$ signs in their eyes and pulled their stuff to make their own streaming service. I was perfectly happy paying Netflix every month. But I'm not paying Amazon, Disney, Apple, Hulu and whoknowsehatelse on top of Netflix.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    would it be? Then it'd just be netflix calling all the shots, controlling what is and isn't on TV, and free to price gouge as they have already been doing with the rest of them. It'd be Youtube all over again. Ask Youtube content creators how they are treated by Google. We have a story here today of someone uploading public domain content, being struck by copyright claims, reinstated, and then hit by a different company within 24 hours.
    - tharkun__ 3y ago
      If Netflix was basically just the broadcaster like say a movie theater but streaming online I do think it would be OK yes. Maybe have another broadcaster or two but not actually hide content behind 7 different ones with a completely non overlapping set of exclusive content so that I have to subscribe to all of them. It's better than the "studios" controlling everything. Think Paramount ruling: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_P.... Basically we need a paramount ruling for streaming. Instead of what they are actually currently doing which is to revert it.

asdff 3y ago

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the peak content era was actually the peak blockbuster era. Apparently stores had a couple thousand titles in each (1). They would of course have all the new releases across any major motion picture studio too. There's no streaming service that maintains such a comprehensive catalog of the classics today along with all the major releases that a blockbuster might have stocked. 1. https://old.reddit.com/r/blockbustervideo/comments/gum716/how_many_titles_would_an_average_store_have/ https://old.reddit.com/r/blockbustervideo/comments/gum716/ho...