4 ms·

This should really be the end goal. We are worse off than cable right now with all these streaming services and worse , overlapping content.

oatmealcookie 10mo ago
[dead]
mulderc 10mo ago
Strong disagree on being worse off than cable. I now almost never see ads, that is a huge benefit in my book.
- MattRix 10mo ago
  it is nice that if you pay enough you can avoid ads, but they are definitely coming to all the lower price tiers… and the premium tiers will of course get more expensive over time
  - SpaceNoodled 10mo ago
    At some point, the market will no longer be able to bear premium price hikes, and they'll just shove in ads instead - exactly as happened with cable.
    - lukeschlather 10mo ago
      HBO never had a tier with ads when it was on cable, it was simply expensive.
      - autoexec 10mo ago
        Lots of things didn't have ads on the past (basic cable TV for example). Today the model has changed to being expensive and still collect data/push ads. This isn't a cable vs streaming thing, it's a then vs now thing.
        TeMPOraL 10mo ago
        True. People forget television itself is barely 100 years old. Business models don't grow on trees, they need to be invented and they evolve along with the technology. Advertising was with us for centuries, but it took until last few decades for it to evolve into a social cancer it is today.
        basilgohar 10mo ago
        I'm really confused why this comment is downvoted to me. It's a pretty salient observation in my opinion. If it's because it's obvious to others, I think it bears repetition because it's an important distinction to the contrary.
        raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
        This meme needs to die and was never true. Cable TV started out as a means to broadcast network TV in areas where they couldn’t get it over the air. Those stations always had ads. Then came nationwide rebroadcast of local “SuperStations” in Atlanta (TBS) and Chicago (WGN) with ads. There has never been a time where basic cable didn’t have ads
        autoexec 10mo ago
        There absolutely was. I was alive when it happened. It was a major selling point of the service. The only ads you'd ever see were promotions for shows that would later be shown on the same channel. Those ads were only shown after one show had ended and before the next show started. Even then, at first they were nothing but title cards showing static text. Sometimes there was also a countdown clock telling you when the next show would start. After that came ads for what was going to shown on other channels as well, but again they'd never interrupt the programs you were watching and there zero ads for things like cars or laundry detergent. Then slowly, a few channels started adding them in various formats until eventually there was little difference between ads shown on cable and ads on broadcast TV Here's an article from the 80s talking about ads slowly but surely encroaching on what was essentially an ad free space: https://web.archive.org/web/20180120172105/https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-invaded-by-commercials.html https://web.archive.org/web/20180120172105/https://www.nytim... some choice quotes: > When cable first came on the scene, one of the most important points it made was that it was a non-commercial alternative to television,'' she says. ''Now advertisers are saying, 'Here's another place to think of on a costper-thousand basis.' '' > A much-cited - and widely disputed - study by the Benton & Bowles advertising agency found that the public would accept advertising if it meant a reduction or a holding-of-the-line on subscription fees > The bottom-line assessment of cable advertising is that it is too good to turn down. ''Who wants advertising on cable?'' Mr. Dann asks rhetorically. ''Anyone who wants to make money.''
      - _DeadFred_ 10mo ago
        That was 80s Reagan/conservative American. Those folks weren't as greedy as modern day companies and they cared about their product/experience, whereas nowadays caring about that is outsourced (see the Mad Men mess) and greed is king. It's wild to long for the day of 'caring', 'sane', Reagan era corporate 'governance'.
        gosub100 10mo ago
        Look up "corporate raiders" if you think business people weren't greedy in the 80s, or the dissolution of Ma Bell, that used to rent you your phone. In fact, the 80s era cable TV also started the box rental racket. You could not choose to buy, you had to rent. Regan's politics are completely orthogonal to IP content today.
    - marssaxman 10mo ago
      ...and piracy will once again become rampant!
    - GuB-42 10mo ago
      There is a difference between a streaming platform and cable. Streaming platforms are on demand while cable is broadcast. To have an ads/no ads option with cable, you need 2 distinct channels with different programming, as you need something fill what would be the ad breaks. With an on-demand platform, there is no fixed schedule, so you can insert ads at will without having to account for that. So even if the market for no ads is small, it doesn't cost them much to provide that option, and they just have to price it above how much they get from ads to make a profit. Even the seldom used YouTube Premium is actually quite profitable for Google. Streaming platforms won't miss that opportunity.
      - yunwal 10mo ago
        Whenever a no ads tier is offered, a few ads always get shoved into the premium subscription eventually (see: spotify) because companies want to be able to reach the premium customers, who have more disposable income on average.
    - maxerickson 10mo ago
      My understanding is that they already make more money on the ad tiers. (So the price increases are about finding the revenue maximizing price for the ad free tiers, not about overall profit)
  - nemomarx 10mo ago
    Where's the amazon prime tier where I don't get ads?
    - oatmealcookie 10mo ago
      [dead]
    - toast0 10mo ago
      Two to five years ago. :P depending on how you feel about their cross-promotions (which are ads, but at least aren't inserted into the content)
    - Nevermark 10mo ago
      It is called: Prime Video Ad Free Go to the Prime Video website, or check your settings in Prime Video on your device. I have lived a video ad free life for decades. I am convinced video ads do bad things to our brains. In aggregate, beyond any individual impact they may or may not have. Ad blockers, ad free YouTube, Kagi, … whatever it takes.
    - autoexec 10mo ago
      As far as I can tell there isn't one. Even when you pay extra for no ads the interface itself is infested with them. A truly ad free amazon prime tier wouldn't constantly push shows and movies you that you have to pay for on top of the higher monthly fee you're already paying for or show ads for shows and movies on other platforms.
      - TeMPOraL 10mo ago
        They're clever with that, by offering subscriptions to various producers and other streaming platforms within Amazon Prime video UI. The Amazon subscription is very cheap, but then you end up sub-subscribing to SkyShowtime and MGM and Apple Video to get access to your favorite space shows, and suddenly it's cable 2.0. Wouldn't be so bad if the player didn't suck. You'd think video streaming chrome would be a solved problem by now, but it's not, and somehow we're regressing on this front.
      - 10mo ago
  - bikelang 10mo ago
    Cable was like $80/mo for me and the vast majority of the channels was absolute garbage. Now I pay like 25/mo and swap services every month or two. There’s always something new and interesting to watch - for my relatively minimal watching hours at least. I’m not sure how you feel worse off? You know you don’t need to stay subscribed to every service year round?
BurningFrog 10mo ago
Did people forget that on cable you could only watch what was being broadcast in that moment? Streaming is infinitely better.
- dragonwriter 10mo ago
  > Did people forget that on cable you could only watch what was being broadcast in that moment? On-demand cable content existed and was significant at the tail end of the period when cable was still dominant, so it is probably lost of most people's baseline (at least, those that didn't either abandon it early or never had it at all) in comparing to cable.
  - BurningFrog 10mo ago
    Wasn't this "on-demand cable content" just streaming delivered by a cable company?
- bakies 10mo ago
  growing up I always had on-demand and recording on the set top boxes
  - ghaff 10mo ago
    Certainly TiVo came in--as well as boxes from cable companies (though I only had TiVo). And, if you really want to go old school, you could program VCRs to record shows if you were off on vacation. But there was a long period even after cable came in for more channels and potentially better reception when TV was largely on a set schedule.
    - bakies 10mo ago
      Didn't the VCR still work with cable? (I haven't used one)
      - ghaff 10mo ago
smelendez 10mo ago
It depends on what you watch and how much you watch. Cable in its heyday was expensive, even for a low tier package with CNN, TNT, MTV, Nickelodeon and other non-premium channels. Most people did not have premium channels like HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Starz, etc. Even Disney was a paid add-on in the early 90s. Adding or removing those channels at the minimum meant calling customer service and in certain eras of cable technology could even mean waiting on a tech visit to provision physical descrambling equipment. And obviously TV was linear, not on-demand. If you watch a series or movie here and there, and aren't a big TV viewer, the streaming era is much, much cheaper with greater choice. You can often even access what you want to watch through a free trial, a single-month subscription, or a free service like Tubi or Pluto. Movie rental options are much better, more convenient, and cheaper (often even before adjusting for inflation) than Blockbuster, and you have access to much better information before you pull the trigger on renting a movie you haven't heard of before.
serial_dev 10mo ago
Why is overlapping content an issue? Isn't that good? Let's say I like Show A and Show B. Show A is available on Provider 1 and Provider 2, Show B is available at Provider 2 and Provider 3. Thanks to overlapping content, I can subscribe to Provider 2 and I can watch both of my favorite shows.
nonethewiser 10mo ago
Oh my god no. The content is much better and you can watch whenever you want.

oatmealcookie 10mo ago

[dead]

mulderc 10mo ago

Strong disagree on being worse off than cable. I now almost never see ads, that is a huge benefit in my book.

MattRix 10mo ago
it is nice that if you pay enough you can avoid ads, but they are definitely coming to all the lower price tiers… and the premium tiers will of course get more expensive over time
- SpaceNoodled 10mo ago
  At some point, the market will no longer be able to bear premium price hikes, and they'll just shove in ads instead - exactly as happened with cable.
  - lukeschlather 10mo ago
    HBO never had a tier with ads when it was on cable, it was simply expensive.
    - autoexec 10mo ago
      Lots of things didn't have ads on the past (basic cable TV for example). Today the model has changed to being expensive and still collect data/push ads. This isn't a cable vs streaming thing, it's a then vs now thing.
      - TeMPOraL 10mo ago
        True. People forget television itself is barely 100 years old. Business models don't grow on trees, they need to be invented and they evolve along with the technology. Advertising was with us for centuries, but it took until last few decades for it to evolve into a social cancer it is today.
      - basilgohar 10mo ago
        I'm really confused why this comment is downvoted to me. It's a pretty salient observation in my opinion. If it's because it's obvious to others, I think it bears repetition because it's an important distinction to the contrary.
      - raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
        This meme needs to die and was never true. Cable TV started out as a means to broadcast network TV in areas where they couldn’t get it over the air. Those stations always had ads. Then came nationwide rebroadcast of local “SuperStations” in Atlanta (TBS) and Chicago (WGN) with ads. There has never been a time where basic cable didn’t have ads
        autoexec 10mo ago
        There absolutely was. I was alive when it happened. It was a major selling point of the service. The only ads you'd ever see were promotions for shows that would later be shown on the same channel. Those ads were only shown after one show had ended and before the next show started. Even then, at first they were nothing but title cards showing static text. Sometimes there was also a countdown clock telling you when the next show would start. After that came ads for what was going to shown on other channels as well, but again they'd never interrupt the programs you were watching and there zero ads for things like cars or laundry detergent. Then slowly, a few channels started adding them in various formats until eventually there was little difference between ads shown on cable and ads on broadcast TV Here's an article from the 80s talking about ads slowly but surely encroaching on what was essentially an ad free space: https://web.archive.org/web/20180120172105/https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-invaded-by-commercials.html https://web.archive.org/web/20180120172105/https://www.nytim... some choice quotes: > When cable first came on the scene, one of the most important points it made was that it was a non-commercial alternative to television,'' she says. ''Now advertisers are saying, 'Here's another place to think of on a costper-thousand basis.' '' > A much-cited - and widely disputed - study by the Benton & Bowles advertising agency found that the public would accept advertising if it meant a reduction or a holding-of-the-line on subscription fees > The bottom-line assessment of cable advertising is that it is too good to turn down. ''Who wants advertising on cable?'' Mr. Dann asks rhetorically. ''Anyone who wants to make money.''
    - _DeadFred_ 10mo ago
      That was 80s Reagan/conservative American. Those folks weren't as greedy as modern day companies and they cared about their product/experience, whereas nowadays caring about that is outsourced (see the Mad Men mess) and greed is king. It's wild to long for the day of 'caring', 'sane', Reagan era corporate 'governance'.
      - gosub100 10mo ago
        Look up "corporate raiders" if you think business people weren't greedy in the 80s, or the dissolution of Ma Bell, that used to rent you your phone. In fact, the 80s era cable TV also started the box rental racket. You could not choose to buy, you had to rent. Regan's politics are completely orthogonal to IP content today.
  - marssaxman 10mo ago
    ...and piracy will once again become rampant!
  - GuB-42 10mo ago
    There is a difference between a streaming platform and cable. Streaming platforms are on demand while cable is broadcast. To have an ads/no ads option with cable, you need 2 distinct channels with different programming, as you need something fill what would be the ad breaks. With an on-demand platform, there is no fixed schedule, so you can insert ads at will without having to account for that. So even if the market for no ads is small, it doesn't cost them much to provide that option, and they just have to price it above how much they get from ads to make a profit. Even the seldom used YouTube Premium is actually quite profitable for Google. Streaming platforms won't miss that opportunity.
    - yunwal 10mo ago
      Whenever a no ads tier is offered, a few ads always get shoved into the premium subscription eventually (see: spotify) because companies want to be able to reach the premium customers, who have more disposable income on average.
  - maxerickson 10mo ago
    My understanding is that they already make more money on the ad tiers. (So the price increases are about finding the revenue maximizing price for the ad free tiers, not about overall profit)
- nemomarx 10mo ago
  Where's the amazon prime tier where I don't get ads?
  - oatmealcookie 10mo ago
    [dead]
  - toast0 10mo ago
    Two to five years ago. :P depending on how you feel about their cross-promotions (which are ads, but at least aren't inserted into the content)
  - Nevermark 10mo ago
    It is called: Prime Video Ad Free Go to the Prime Video website, or check your settings in Prime Video on your device. I have lived a video ad free life for decades. I am convinced video ads do bad things to our brains. In aggregate, beyond any individual impact they may or may not have. Ad blockers, ad free YouTube, Kagi, … whatever it takes.
  - autoexec 10mo ago
    As far as I can tell there isn't one. Even when you pay extra for no ads the interface itself is infested with them. A truly ad free amazon prime tier wouldn't constantly push shows and movies you that you have to pay for on top of the higher monthly fee you're already paying for or show ads for shows and movies on other platforms.
    - TeMPOraL 10mo ago
      They're clever with that, by offering subscriptions to various producers and other streaming platforms within Amazon Prime video UI. The Amazon subscription is very cheap, but then you end up sub-subscribing to SkyShowtime and MGM and Apple Video to get access to your favorite space shows, and suddenly it's cable 2.0. Wouldn't be so bad if the player didn't suck. You'd think video streaming chrome would be a solved problem by now, but it's not, and somehow we're regressing on this front.
    - 10mo ago
- bikelang 10mo ago
  Cable was like $80/mo for me and the vast majority of the channels was absolute garbage. Now I pay like 25/mo and swap services every month or two. There’s always something new and interesting to watch - for my relatively minimal watching hours at least. I’m not sure how you feel worse off? You know you don’t need to stay subscribed to every service year round?

BurningFrog 10mo ago

Did people forget that on cable you could only watch what was being broadcast in that moment? Streaming is infinitely better.

dragonwriter 10mo ago
> Did people forget that on cable you could only watch what was being broadcast in that moment? On-demand cable content existed and was significant at the tail end of the period when cable was still dominant, so it is probably lost of most people's baseline (at least, those that didn't either abandon it early or never had it at all) in comparing to cable.
- BurningFrog 10mo ago
  Wasn't this "on-demand cable content" just streaming delivered by a cable company?
bakies 10mo ago
growing up I always had on-demand and recording on the set top boxes
- ghaff 10mo ago
  Certainly TiVo came in--as well as boxes from cable companies (though I only had TiVo). And, if you really want to go old school, you could program VCRs to record shows if you were off on vacation. But there was a long period even after cable came in for more channels and potentially better reception when TV was largely on a set schedule.
  - bakies 10mo ago
    Didn't the VCR still work with cable? (I haven't used one)
    - ghaff 10mo ago

smelendez 10mo ago

It depends on what you watch and how much you watch. Cable in its heyday was expensive, even for a low tier package with CNN, TNT, MTV, Nickelodeon and other non-premium channels. Most people did not have premium channels like HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Starz, etc. Even Disney was a paid add-on in the early 90s. Adding or removing those channels at the minimum meant calling customer service and in certain eras of cable technology could even mean waiting on a tech visit to provision physical descrambling equipment. And obviously TV was linear, not on-demand. If you watch a series or movie here and there, and aren't a big TV viewer, the streaming era is much, much cheaper with greater choice. You can often even access what you want to watch through a free trial, a single-month subscription, or a free service like Tubi or Pluto. Movie rental options are much better, more convenient, and cheaper (often even before adjusting for inflation) than Blockbuster, and you have access to much better information before you pull the trigger on renting a movie you haven't heard of before.

serial_dev 10mo ago

Why is overlapping content an issue? Isn't that good? Let's say I like Show A and Show B. Show A is available on Provider 1 and Provider 2, Show B is available at Provider 2 and Provider 3. Thanks to overlapping content, I can subscribe to Provider 2 and I can watch both of my favorite shows.

nonethewiser 10mo ago

Oh my god no. The content is much better and you can watch whenever you want.