4 ms·

This has been happening for years with the spawning of all these streaming services. At one point a lot of content was on Netflix but now it’s been bundled int

This has been happening for years with the spawning of all these streaming services. At one point a lot of content was on Netflix but now it’s been bundled into the owners own streaming platform. So we’ve effectively went from cable tv to digital streaming freedom and almost back to square one.

gumby 3y ago
Most of those owners are bleeding out, so to stanch the flow they are licensing their content to other companies like...netflix. It'll end up with a little oligarchy of a small number of streamers and then quality will plummet and ads will be unavoidable.
- midasuni 3y ago
  And pirate bay will once again be the place to go
  - pdimitar 3y ago
    You both are using future tense for something that's already happening for at least a year now.
  - TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
    It still is, for me. And 1337x.
geertj 3y ago
While I agree that there is ongoing enshittification, I do not think it's fair to say we're back at square one yet or any time soon. With Cable I am forced to buy a single ~$70+ plan with 100s of channels I don't need. With the streamers, at least I can get their ~$20 options independently.
- jeromegv 3y ago
  Yep! And you can alternate from month to month, you don't need to get ALL STREAMING SERVICES every single month. Unsubscribing is extremely easy. Now try to disconnect your cable and reconnect it months after months. We are nowhere near the cost and the pain of cable
foolfoolz 3y ago
one company (netflix) delivering the majority of streaming content wasn’t “digital streaming freedom”. you enjoyed the price compared to cable. it went from $100+/mo to $10/mo and now the price is going back to where it was to get a similar content experience
- TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
  > similar content experience You mean 5 channels of shopping, 1 channel for black programming, several in Spanish, 10 news channels all with BREAKING NEWS, sports channels that I don’t watch, kids channels that I don’t want, reruns of Law and Order and COPS, 1 or 2 female-oriented channels like Hallmark, reality TV, cooking and baking TV, America’s Bachelor… No thanks. I’ll keep my $100/month.
  - Tagbert 3y ago
    No, you’d still end paying that but in subscriptions to several streaming services and then some extras to rent or buy shows that are not freely available anymore. In the meantime those other channels that a smaller number of people watched just get cancelled. Unbundling was never going to make watching cheaper unless you limited the shows you watched and were lucky enough that they shows you wanted were available on the same services.
unsignedint 3y ago
These fragmented "plus" services ultimately led me to stop watching them altogether. Subscribing to each one becomes costly, and I don't find them compelling enough to justify the expense. In fact, I can't even recall the last Star Wars movie I watched.
- passwordoops 3y ago
  We've been okay cycling through them every 6 months or so

gumby 3y ago

Most of those owners are bleeding out, so to stanch the flow they are licensing their content to other companies like...netflix. It'll end up with a little oligarchy of a small number of streamers and then quality will plummet and ads will be unavoidable.

midasuni 3y ago
And pirate bay will once again be the place to go
- pdimitar 3y ago
  You both are using future tense for something that's already happening for at least a year now.
- TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
  It still is, for me. And 1337x.

geertj 3y ago

While I agree that there is ongoing enshittification, I do not think it's fair to say we're back at square one yet or any time soon. With Cable I am forced to buy a single ~$70+ plan with 100s of channels I don't need. With the streamers, at least I can get their ~$20 options independently.

jeromegv 3y ago
Yep! And you can alternate from month to month, you don't need to get ALL STREAMING SERVICES every single month. Unsubscribing is extremely easy. Now try to disconnect your cable and reconnect it months after months. We are nowhere near the cost and the pain of cable

foolfoolz 3y ago

one company (netflix) delivering the majority of streaming content wasn’t “digital streaming freedom”. you enjoyed the price compared to cable. it went from $100+/mo to $10/mo and now the price is going back to where it was to get a similar content experience

TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
> similar content experience You mean 5 channels of shopping, 1 channel for black programming, several in Spanish, 10 news channels all with BREAKING NEWS, sports channels that I don’t watch, kids channels that I don’t want, reruns of Law and Order and COPS, 1 or 2 female-oriented channels like Hallmark, reality TV, cooking and baking TV, America’s Bachelor… No thanks. I’ll keep my $100/month.
- Tagbert 3y ago
  No, you’d still end paying that but in subscriptions to several streaming services and then some extras to rent or buy shows that are not freely available anymore. In the meantime those other channels that a smaller number of people watched just get cancelled. Unbundling was never going to make watching cheaper unless you limited the shows you watched and were lucky enough that they shows you wanted were available on the same services.

unsignedint 3y ago

These fragmented "plus" services ultimately led me to stop watching them altogether. Subscribing to each one becomes costly, and I don't find them compelling enough to justify the expense. In fact, I can't even recall the last Star Wars movie I watched.

passwordoops 3y ago
We've been okay cycling through them every 6 months or so