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Australia has Binge, which I don't think is available elsewhere (maybe NZ?). It seems like Australia is a small enough market that HBO, Paramount, NBC, Universa

Australia has Binge, which I don't think is available elsewhere (maybe NZ?). It seems like Australia is a small enough market that HBO, Paramount, NBC, Universal, etc – all the not-quite-Netflix sized streaming services – have chosen to just licence instead of try to launch (examples, some may have launched). This means that Binge has a really quite wide range of high quality content and in many ways feels like Netflix from the glory days.

robbiep 3y ago
Although you’d think the application/platform itself would be a totally solved technical problem and there’d be complete COTS systems they can implement, and then you experience using the binge app on your Apple TV, phone or via browser and it’s a dumpster fire
- danpalmer 3y ago
  Arguably most of the tech is off the shelf. They won't be using their own server hardware, networking gear, peering agreements, or content delivery network, and will also likely be buying the video processing, database, data warehousing, workflows and pipelines, etc. Then they'll be outsourcing payment processing, potentially identity, customer support tooling too. What's left? Apps, which are branding-heavy, and where companies want to own the UX and a backend which amounts to a CRUD app and is cheap to build. Yes the apps from these places suck, but they're the tip of the iceberg, built cheaply because the companies aren't tech companies and are buying COTS. Rarely do end user experiences get white-labelled in these sorts of cases.
sssilverman 3y ago
WB Discovery has been pretty clear it intends on launching Max in Australia as early as 2025, not coincidentally when Foxtel/Binge's HBO rights are up for renewal. Also try telling that to poor Stan, now in 5th place having lost much of its licensed content to Amazon, Disney+ and Paramount+ entering the market.

robbiep 3y ago

Although you’d think the application/platform itself would be a totally solved technical problem and there’d be complete COTS systems they can implement, and then you experience using the binge app on your Apple TV, phone or via browser and it’s a dumpster fire

danpalmer 3y ago
Arguably most of the tech is off the shelf. They won't be using their own server hardware, networking gear, peering agreements, or content delivery network, and will also likely be buying the video processing, database, data warehousing, workflows and pipelines, etc. Then they'll be outsourcing payment processing, potentially identity, customer support tooling too. What's left? Apps, which are branding-heavy, and where companies want to own the UX and a backend which amounts to a CRUD app and is cheap to build. Yes the apps from these places suck, but they're the tip of the iceberg, built cheaply because the companies aren't tech companies and are buying COTS. Rarely do end user experiences get white-labelled in these sorts of cases.

sssilverman 3y ago

WB Discovery has been pretty clear it intends on launching Max in Australia as early as 2025, not coincidentally when Foxtel/Binge's HBO rights are up for renewal. Also try telling that to poor Stan, now in 5th place having lost much of its licensed content to Amazon, Disney+ and Paramount+ entering the market.