4 ms·

I think the cable TV model was a mature business model for extracting the most amount of value possible from paying viewers before they choose to leave. Every

I think the cable TV model was a mature business model for extracting the most amount of value possible from paying viewers before they choose to leave. Every streaming service will converge to what cable TV is like: paid channels, maximum amount of ads, additional premium content, attempts at lock-in, exclusive licensing of content, etc. Not adopting the cable business model is leaving billions of dollars on the table, so it will happen.

MostlyStable 3y ago
I'm curious where the equilibrium is. There is some portion of people who will not torrent no matter what. Either because of lack of ability or moral views, or some other reason. There is a second set of the population that will never pay for media, or at least not more than very trivial amounts. Either because of lack of ability to pay, not thinking it's worth it, or not believing there is anything wrong with piracy. Then the is the third group that will happily pay for content when it is reasonably priced and, perhaps most importantly, easy and convenient. If it's too expensive or too difficult/annoying, they will pirate. The size of this third group dictates where the equilibrium is. If it's very small, then media will always converge in the cable style maximum extraction. But if that second group is large, then the cable model might lose more money than it gains by pushing consumers towards piracy.
- whstl 3y ago
  I started using pirated copies of some music software I actually paid for and own, because it became too problematic and inconvenient. Why do I need a kernel extension for this crap? Fuck iLok sincerely. Next step is not paying for anything altogether. A middle finger is the only thing those kinds of companies are getting from me in the future, and honestly I'd rather see their demise. If streaming ever becomes like this, I'm also going back to piracy.
- feoren 3y ago
  You're missing a 4th group: people who would enjoy watching content X, but simply won't bother if it's too annoying. The alternative isn't piracy, it's just doing something else with your time. There's not that many shows or movies that I care enough about to keep one subscription open for it. I had an HBO subscription for Game of Thrones, but I also enjoyed Succession, Last Week Tonight, and some other random stuff. After Game of Thrones shit the bed, I canceled HBO and simply don't watch those other shows. I never finished Succession; I'd like to one day, but it's not worth either the subscription or pirating. This just shows that the availability of piracy is NOT the problem. It shouldn't matter to HBO whether I've pirated it or not: I could be a paying customer if their prices matched their catalog's value, but it doesn't, so they get nothing, piracy or no.
  - WWLink 3y ago
    I support your move, it's better than piracy. The problem with piracy is if you become a fan of a series and gossip with your friends about it, now you're marketing that company's crappy service. It's a weird way to go about things.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      It's weird because TV is also culture. Game of Thrones isn't just some random piece of personal, single-player entertainment: it was, and is, an important cultural phenomenon for at least half of the planet. That's what makes the dynamics so weird: it's not just, or even primarily, about your personal entertainment - there are social aspects involved, from wanting to belong with your peer group (e.g. talk about latest GoT episode with your cow-orkers at the water cooler), to all kinds of rituals (e.g. watching romantic comedies with a date/spouse). Same applies to books and musics, to a lesser degree to magazines/news media. For some reason, it mostly doesn't apply to videogames; I used to think it was because they're a new thing, but these days, I think it's rather because the experience is much more individualized and requires much more effort (and time), making it a poor social object.
      - riwsky 3y ago
        games are culture—shared, social culture—you just need better friends and coworkers.
      - dasyatidprime 3y ago
        I do observe it applying to video games in many circles. This is more true for social (cooperative or competitive) games and in game-adjacent social contexts like Twitch streaming, but it's also applicable to recognizing references and plot beats from widely-known classics or having similar experiences over particular moments or levels, even in single-player. Pokémon, Final Fantasy, Minecraft…
      - masklinn 3y ago
        > Same applies to books and musics, to a lesser degree to magazines/news media. For some reason, it mostly doesn't apply to videogames It absolutely does, but apparently not for your peer group.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago
  Group three depends on means, motive, and opportunity.
- izacus 3y ago
  I think a lot of that will be answered with even more aggressive lockouts, DRM and "protections". Platform like Apple's iOS really play into this because they're designed to not allow users to bypass the money extraction and vote with their wallets.
philipov 3y ago
The money's not on the table if people can and will leave. That's the point of competition. Piracy is entirely in the spirit of free market capitalism: the equilibrium price of a good with infinite supply is 0.
- galahad_ 3y ago
  The problem ist that a production of f.e. a movie costs money. If the people that make movies don't earn money, they will not make any movies. So they have to earn that money somehow. If the price of their good is 0 why should they bother with filming?
  - philipov 3y ago
    Because they love making movies, and can find other ways to get people to pay them for their labor rather than for copies of the movie. This is already happening today.
  - hedora 3y ago
    They could earn their money by not actively pissing off their customers. The streaming industry proved that consumers prefer paying for convenient streaming over messing around with privacy. For some reason, they feel they need to burn their own industry down in order to prove that people prefer piracy (or not watching) over inconvenient streaming setups. Is anyone really surprised by the current outcome?
    - philipov 3y ago
      Yes, distribution is a service, and providing good service adds value that people are willing to pay for.
      - thesnide 3y ago
        I can cook myself using only my free time. But I'm willing to shell out some money for having someone cooking for me and doing the dishes. Yet, only if the price is right. A good legal bargain kills illegal ones. But then capitalism greed comes, with that enshitification, and as that lowers the legal bargain value, illegal comes back.
tzs 3y ago
I liked cable, except for the price. Cut it by a factor of 3 and I'd probably subscribe again. For movies pretty much everything I wanted to watch would eventually show up. Typically a movie would first be in theaters, then become available for purchase on disc or digital, rental, and be included in one paid streaming service. Sometime later, maybe two years after it was in theaters, it should show up on some non-premium cable channel. The only time I couldn't wait for things to show up on non-premium cable was when "Avengers: Endgame" was coming soon. I knew that one would be hard to avoid major spoilers for once it was released in theaters so decided seeing it in theaters was a must. That meant I had to get get a month of Netflix, which had the Marvel movies then, to get caught up enough for "Endgame". I also liked cable for rewatching TV series. I'm not sure why, but when some channel is showing "The Simpsons" or "South Park" reruns on a regular schedule I like watching much more than I do when I watch an episode on an on-demand streaming service (or on DVD). I think it has something to do with the latter being more deliberate. I picked that episode, which somehow makes it so I feel like I need to take it more seriously. When it is just "This channel shows a couple episodes every night" then it seems a lot more casual, like listening to music on the radio. It is easier to just sit back and relax and watch.
- iamtedd 3y ago
  Why would you pay to be advertised at? We can argue about how pervasive advertising is and how subtle it can be, but cable TV literally has commercial ad breaks.
  - tzs 3y ago
    Ads on cable tend to occur at natural breaks in the programming. For series the episodes are written with commercial breaks in mind. For example a typical "The Simpsons" episode is written as 3 acts and the commercials come between the acts. Movies aren't written with ads in mind, but usually the cable channel running the movie takes into account what is going on in the movie when they decide where to place their ad breaks. This makes that ads a lot less intrusive than ads on YouTube or most other ad supported streaming services. With the ads not actually interrupting the story, they actually often provide a convenient break to get up and get a snack, or clean up after the last snack, or visit the restroom. And I can always pick up my iPad or Kindle or a book to pass the time during the ad break if I don't need to do any of those other things.
FpUser 3y ago
>"Every streaming service will converge to what cable TV is like: paid channels, maximum amount of ads, additional premium content, attempts at lock-in, exclusive licensing of content, etc." I am more than willing to pay for content subscription assuming they have everything under one roof and no ads. Pay for cable like service - fuck it. I'd rather watch the paint dry.
jdhbb 3y ago
Other side of the equation is - Production of Content has become cheap. Distribution has become free with global reach. So we have Infinite amount of content floating about. Not even bringing generative AI into the picture. So infinite growing Supply. Finite demand.
- jpc0 3y ago
  > Other side of the equation is - Production of Content has become cheap I spend a lot of time in both production and post production. The price for good content has certianly decreased but it most certianly hasn't become any definition of cheap. Consumers want very hogh quality content these days and that only comes with experienced staff, you can use cheaper gear. > Distribution has become free with global reach Every time someone says this I want to know what where they get this information. So now I am going to ask, prove it. Show me the VOD service or streaming service that is free with global reach. Even network egress from any provider costs a ton of money nevermind compute for transcoding and storage costs. Again prove it.
  - jdhbb 3y ago
    Porn is free. They are running the same services. They have proved global distribution is possible. Pretty much like Youtube and Tiktok. Media and Entertainment sector has all kinds of bizarre economics cause it's used by the Telcos(check what AT&T and Comcast own in ME sector), the Tech firms (google/youtube, amazon, netflix, apple) to play empire defense and market capture games. Demand is not decided by the consumer. Or marketing depts won't be getting the budgets they do for demand engineering from their tech and telco overloads. But all that free cash dries up or slows downs once the market capture phase is over which is what has happened with the end of the streaming wars. Disney, Viacom et al have realized they can't compete against tech platforms or telco subsidized shops on the distribution front.
    - jpc0 3y ago
      > Porn is free Open an incognito tab, open <insert popular porn site> what is the very first thing on the page after the age disclaimer. Let me give you a hint, "Meet sexy single in your area" isn't a meme for nothing. Porn is far from free, it is paid for by advertising, and from my recollection they are the ones that revolutionised the ad industry by bringing in pre-roll ads. Regardless, if video distribution is free at a global scale, then go do it. Create a video hosting service with global scale with any video, not even ones people want to watch, create one that serves 40 views a month. Then come back with an income statement that proves your point. That is the point I'm trying to make, you claim it's free purely because you don't know what the actual cost is. I'm not saying the current providers are doing the correct thing. I end up sailing the 7 seas far more than I like purely because I don't even know which one of the 40 services even have the series I want to watch. You know what does? <Insert streaming site with dubious legality> Ps: The majority of porn content is user submitted, you knoe we already have a free video service that does the same thing as porn, it's called YouTube.
pdimitar 3y ago
Those billions on the table are only theoretical. It's a greedy MBA group-think. They overestimate how many people will pay for their stuff and yes, even regular non-tech-literate folk get disgusted by paying to be advertised at and leave. There is still a cohort of elderly people like my mother who is just happy I pay her a cable TV (through IPTV) service but they are a diminishing group.
int_19h 3y ago
> maximum amount of ads, additional premium content, attempts at lock-in, exclusive licensing of content, etc. To be fair, this is describing oligopolic capitalism in general; streaming services is just where it's most visibly on display for the general public. But the same modus operandi is pervasive throughout the economy: attract customers with good deals initially while maximizing lock-in by all means at your disposal, then start fleecing them. There's simply no economic incentive not to do this, and ethics don't even enter into the equation at the scale those companies operate. In a more diverse market, competition provides some, albeit limited, check on all this, but very aggressive anti-monopoly regulation is required to keep the market diverse enough for that. I don't just mean breaking up actual monopolies, but even any semblance of market dominance must be mercilessly crushed to maintain competitiveness. Any form of "laissez faire" in the presence of private property inevitably leads to oligopolies.

MostlyStable 3y ago

I'm curious where the equilibrium is. There is some portion of people who will not torrent no matter what. Either because of lack of ability or moral views, or some other reason. There is a second set of the population that will never pay for media, or at least not more than very trivial amounts. Either because of lack of ability to pay, not thinking it's worth it, or not believing there is anything wrong with piracy. Then the is the third group that will happily pay for content when it is reasonably priced and, perhaps most importantly, easy and convenient. If it's too expensive or too difficult/annoying, they will pirate. The size of this third group dictates where the equilibrium is. If it's very small, then media will always converge in the cable style maximum extraction. But if that second group is large, then the cable model might lose more money than it gains by pushing consumers towards piracy.

whstl 3y ago
I started using pirated copies of some music software I actually paid for and own, because it became too problematic and inconvenient. Why do I need a kernel extension for this crap? Fuck iLok sincerely. Next step is not paying for anything altogether. A middle finger is the only thing those kinds of companies are getting from me in the future, and honestly I'd rather see their demise. If streaming ever becomes like this, I'm also going back to piracy.
feoren 3y ago
You're missing a 4th group: people who would enjoy watching content X, but simply won't bother if it's too annoying. The alternative isn't piracy, it's just doing something else with your time. There's not that many shows or movies that I care enough about to keep one subscription open for it. I had an HBO subscription for Game of Thrones, but I also enjoyed Succession, Last Week Tonight, and some other random stuff. After Game of Thrones shit the bed, I canceled HBO and simply don't watch those other shows. I never finished Succession; I'd like to one day, but it's not worth either the subscription or pirating. This just shows that the availability of piracy is NOT the problem. It shouldn't matter to HBO whether I've pirated it or not: I could be a paying customer if their prices matched their catalog's value, but it doesn't, so they get nothing, piracy or no.
- WWLink 3y ago
  I support your move, it's better than piracy. The problem with piracy is if you become a fan of a series and gossip with your friends about it, now you're marketing that company's crappy service. It's a weird way to go about things.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    It's weird because TV is also culture. Game of Thrones isn't just some random piece of personal, single-player entertainment: it was, and is, an important cultural phenomenon for at least half of the planet. That's what makes the dynamics so weird: it's not just, or even primarily, about your personal entertainment - there are social aspects involved, from wanting to belong with your peer group (e.g. talk about latest GoT episode with your cow-orkers at the water cooler), to all kinds of rituals (e.g. watching romantic comedies with a date/spouse). Same applies to books and musics, to a lesser degree to magazines/news media. For some reason, it mostly doesn't apply to videogames; I used to think it was because they're a new thing, but these days, I think it's rather because the experience is much more individualized and requires much more effort (and time), making it a poor social object.
    - riwsky 3y ago
      games are culture—shared, social culture—you just need better friends and coworkers.
    - dasyatidprime 3y ago
      I do observe it applying to video games in many circles. This is more true for social (cooperative or competitive) games and in game-adjacent social contexts like Twitch streaming, but it's also applicable to recognizing references and plot beats from widely-known classics or having similar experiences over particular moments or levels, even in single-player. Pokémon, Final Fantasy, Minecraft…
    - masklinn 3y ago
      > Same applies to books and musics, to a lesser degree to magazines/news media. For some reason, it mostly doesn't apply to videogames It absolutely does, but apparently not for your peer group.
Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago
Group three depends on means, motive, and opportunity.
izacus 3y ago
I think a lot of that will be answered with even more aggressive lockouts, DRM and "protections". Platform like Apple's iOS really play into this because they're designed to not allow users to bypass the money extraction and vote with their wallets.

philipov 3y ago

The money's not on the table if people can and will leave. That's the point of competition. Piracy is entirely in the spirit of free market capitalism: the equilibrium price of a good with infinite supply is 0.

galahad_ 3y ago
The problem ist that a production of f.e. a movie costs money. If the people that make movies don't earn money, they will not make any movies. So they have to earn that money somehow. If the price of their good is 0 why should they bother with filming?
- philipov 3y ago
  Because they love making movies, and can find other ways to get people to pay them for their labor rather than for copies of the movie. This is already happening today.
- hedora 3y ago
  They could earn their money by not actively pissing off their customers. The streaming industry proved that consumers prefer paying for convenient streaming over messing around with privacy. For some reason, they feel they need to burn their own industry down in order to prove that people prefer piracy (or not watching) over inconvenient streaming setups. Is anyone really surprised by the current outcome?
  - philipov 3y ago
    Yes, distribution is a service, and providing good service adds value that people are willing to pay for.
    - thesnide 3y ago
      I can cook myself using only my free time. But I'm willing to shell out some money for having someone cooking for me and doing the dishes. Yet, only if the price is right. A good legal bargain kills illegal ones. But then capitalism greed comes, with that enshitification, and as that lowers the legal bargain value, illegal comes back.

tzs 3y ago

I liked cable, except for the price. Cut it by a factor of 3 and I'd probably subscribe again. For movies pretty much everything I wanted to watch would eventually show up. Typically a movie would first be in theaters, then become available for purchase on disc or digital, rental, and be included in one paid streaming service. Sometime later, maybe two years after it was in theaters, it should show up on some non-premium cable channel. The only time I couldn't wait for things to show up on non-premium cable was when "Avengers: Endgame" was coming soon. I knew that one would be hard to avoid major spoilers for once it was released in theaters so decided seeing it in theaters was a must. That meant I had to get get a month of Netflix, which had the Marvel movies then, to get caught up enough for "Endgame". I also liked cable for rewatching TV series. I'm not sure why, but when some channel is showing "The Simpsons" or "South Park" reruns on a regular schedule I like watching much more than I do when I watch an episode on an on-demand streaming service (or on DVD). I think it has something to do with the latter being more deliberate. I picked that episode, which somehow makes it so I feel like I need to take it more seriously. When it is just "This channel shows a couple episodes every night" then it seems a lot more casual, like listening to music on the radio. It is easier to just sit back and relax and watch.

iamtedd 3y ago
Why would you pay to be advertised at? We can argue about how pervasive advertising is and how subtle it can be, but cable TV literally has commercial ad breaks.
- tzs 3y ago
  Ads on cable tend to occur at natural breaks in the programming. For series the episodes are written with commercial breaks in mind. For example a typical "The Simpsons" episode is written as 3 acts and the commercials come between the acts. Movies aren't written with ads in mind, but usually the cable channel running the movie takes into account what is going on in the movie when they decide where to place their ad breaks. This makes that ads a lot less intrusive than ads on YouTube or most other ad supported streaming services. With the ads not actually interrupting the story, they actually often provide a convenient break to get up and get a snack, or clean up after the last snack, or visit the restroom. And I can always pick up my iPad or Kindle or a book to pass the time during the ad break if I don't need to do any of those other things.

FpUser 3y ago

>"Every streaming service will converge to what cable TV is like: paid channels, maximum amount of ads, additional premium content, attempts at lock-in, exclusive licensing of content, etc." I am more than willing to pay for content subscription assuming they have everything under one roof and no ads. Pay for cable like service - fuck it. I'd rather watch the paint dry.

jdhbb 3y ago

Other side of the equation is - Production of Content has become cheap. Distribution has become free with global reach. So we have Infinite amount of content floating about. Not even bringing generative AI into the picture. So infinite growing Supply. Finite demand.

jpc0 3y ago
> Other side of the equation is - Production of Content has become cheap I spend a lot of time in both production and post production. The price for good content has certianly decreased but it most certianly hasn't become any definition of cheap. Consumers want very hogh quality content these days and that only comes with experienced staff, you can use cheaper gear. > Distribution has become free with global reach Every time someone says this I want to know what where they get this information. So now I am going to ask, prove it. Show me the VOD service or streaming service that is free with global reach. Even network egress from any provider costs a ton of money nevermind compute for transcoding and storage costs. Again prove it.
- jdhbb 3y ago
  Porn is free. They are running the same services. They have proved global distribution is possible. Pretty much like Youtube and Tiktok. Media and Entertainment sector has all kinds of bizarre economics cause it's used by the Telcos(check what AT&T and Comcast own in ME sector), the Tech firms (google/youtube, amazon, netflix, apple) to play empire defense and market capture games. Demand is not decided by the consumer. Or marketing depts won't be getting the budgets they do for demand engineering from their tech and telco overloads. But all that free cash dries up or slows downs once the market capture phase is over which is what has happened with the end of the streaming wars. Disney, Viacom et al have realized they can't compete against tech platforms or telco subsidized shops on the distribution front.
  - jpc0 3y ago
    > Porn is free Open an incognito tab, open <insert popular porn site> what is the very first thing on the page after the age disclaimer. Let me give you a hint, "Meet sexy single in your area" isn't a meme for nothing. Porn is far from free, it is paid for by advertising, and from my recollection they are the ones that revolutionised the ad industry by bringing in pre-roll ads. Regardless, if video distribution is free at a global scale, then go do it. Create a video hosting service with global scale with any video, not even ones people want to watch, create one that serves 40 views a month. Then come back with an income statement that proves your point. That is the point I'm trying to make, you claim it's free purely because you don't know what the actual cost is. I'm not saying the current providers are doing the correct thing. I end up sailing the 7 seas far more than I like purely because I don't even know which one of the 40 services even have the series I want to watch. You know what does? <Insert streaming site with dubious legality> Ps: The majority of porn content is user submitted, you knoe we already have a free video service that does the same thing as porn, it's called YouTube.

pdimitar 3y ago

Those billions on the table are only theoretical. It's a greedy MBA group-think. They overestimate how many people will pay for their stuff and yes, even regular non-tech-literate folk get disgusted by paying to be advertised at and leave. There is still a cohort of elderly people like my mother who is just happy I pay her a cable TV (through IPTV) service but they are a diminishing group.

int_19h 3y ago

> maximum amount of ads, additional premium content, attempts at lock-in, exclusive licensing of content, etc. To be fair, this is describing oligopolic capitalism in general; streaming services is just where it's most visibly on display for the general public. But the same modus operandi is pervasive throughout the economy: attract customers with good deals initially while maximizing lock-in by all means at your disposal, then start fleecing them. There's simply no economic incentive not to do this, and ethics don't even enter into the equation at the scale those companies operate. In a more diverse market, competition provides some, albeit limited, check on all this, but very aggressive anti-monopoly regulation is required to keep the market diverse enough for that. I don't just mean breaking up actual monopolies, but even any semblance of market dominance must be mercilessly crushed to maintain competitiveness. Any form of "laissez faire" in the presence of private property inevitably leads to oligopolies.