What I find especially annoying nowadays is that a lot of shows simply aren't releasing on DVD or Blu-Ray anymore, or if they do, it's in laughably small quantities.
For example; I wanted to buy "Final Space" on Blu-Ray, and it doesn't appear to exist. I then look for DVD, and the only place to purchase that is on TBS's website, and it's been sold out for quite awhile.
I really don't want to have to sign up for another streaming service, I just want to buy the damn show, rip it myself, and watch it on my server; sadly it looks like I'm somewhat in the minority on this, and I suppose I get it, but it does upset me that soon the only way to guarantee that I get to have something forever is via piracy.
EDIT:
I just checked, apparently the DVD for Final Space is back in stock. I think my point still stands, and I think that it's weird that a show that was broadcast in 1080p isn't available on blu-ray.
I predict that as content producers attempt to exert more control over how people consume media they will be met with a new "cord cutting" movement that will circumvent the systems put in place to exert such power. We will eventually settle on slow burn for everything with a value added fee on a per-show basis. A mix of the Spotify and the iTunes model, if you will.
Unless, everyone gets so used to pirating things that they ignore the evolutions in pricing models and find it easier to just pirate content.
Here's my reaction: I just stopped watching for the most part and started doing other things instead.
If I'm not doing something active now and I just want to sit - I read the funny pages (reddit), I read hacker news, I find questions in my mind to research, I play video games, read a book, start a side-project and/or listen to some music.
My wife still watches all sorts of garbage TV and if not for her I'd have cancelled cable a long time ago.
These days it seems people are doing one of two things:
1. Sharing account details. eg four people in a circle of friends, one will have Netflix, another Prime Video, someone else will have Now TV and so on. And each of them will use the others account so all of them get access to all of the services.
2. Some of the more well off individuals or less socially connected will sign up to two or three services and pirate everything else.
Whichever way you look at it, basically consumers have gotten fed up with the vendor lock ins and have gone back to sharing content.
It has always been this way though. Even when VHS's were a thing, you'd get families which would share videos with each other. Sometimes those films and TV shows were just recorded straight off the TV. This is also why I think there is a culture where people don't care about downloading content because there has always been an understanding that it was fine to record stuff on the TV and radio for personal consumption back before the internet was in every home. The daft thing is the TV and film industry had a massive opportunity to disrupt this culture but instead their own greed has just encouraged people back into old habits.
I know regulation isn't a popular topic on here but I do wonder if it's time someone stepped in and said "You guys need to start cooperating together!"
We'll have another "piracy epidemic" where streaming services have hysterics and try to ban piracy. This will predictably not work as it hasn't the last few times. Someone will make purchasing content easy again and everyone will use that.
Corporations will get involved, jack the prices up, throw in ads and try to invent cable again.
I wouldn't mind going back to buying stuff a la cart if it weren't for the fact that buying access to an individual season of an individual show costs more than an entire month of service at the buffet.
I'm myself going back in time and just last week got my first Blu-ray player. They, and the discs, are quite well priced now, often below streaming prices. I'll keep Netflix though, but won't be getting another service.
The movement towards streaming exclusively is probably intended to eliminate ambiguity and traceability from the pirated sources. I wouldn't be surprised if PII is/will be encoded into the content. Once media ownership has been phased out, content owners will start going after infringers.
If this is over public airways (like ABC) then Disney should loose their rights to that public space. Netflix should be in court yesterday over this. And the public should be up in arms over this as they are using our PUBLIC airways. For steaming fine but not on PUBLIC spectrum.
Wait... is it normal for TV channels to show ads for competitors? (Not owned by the same conglomerate?)
Like... I've never seen an ad for Fox on CBS, or for ABC on NBC. Same as I don't think I've ever seen ads for the NYT inside of the WSJ.
I don't have a strong opinion on the matter... but is a policy against Netflix ads on Disney properties really something new and newsworthy, or just par for the course for companies in the US which compete generally?
The article even said that it is not abnormal for networks to not allow rival networks to advertise on their channel if they specify a time.
ABC pays for the right to rent the airways and do with it as they please within certain parameters. When you rent an apartment don’t you have the expectation of being allowed to do what you want within your apartment within certain constraints?
It wouldn’t really hurt Disney that much if they couldn’t reach the relatively few people who watch TV over an antennae.
> For steaming fine but not on PUBLIC spectrum.
I have to call BS on this. I'm paying for the service and the bandwidth. It often goes over public land or utilities, or at least not over pipes owned by Disney, so if the ad is loaded client side, then Disney is SOL and shouldn't have a say in it.
That said, ads suck, blah blah and I personally don't care.
- Orders of magnitude more choice in what to watch
- Writers have a lot more flexibility. They don't have to be advertiser friendly.
- Writers don't have to write cliffhangers every N minutes so you come back after the ad break.
- Writers don't have to worry about sequence like they did with TV/Cable, because they know you'll be able to watch the show in order. Meaning that their worlds and characters can change and have real consequence.
Just pick your favorite 2 or 3 services. You don't have watch everything.
It's more likely that I turn back to pirating. I'll lazily buy 1-3 services and whatever else I really want, I'll just rip those from the interwebs.
Streaming is only convenient when products aren't siloed. If I need to keep track of more than n services (different n for different people), piracy just becomes the more convenient option.
I'd like to pay the hard working people that produce shows I really like. The middleman is just making it really difficult to do.
Anyone imagining they were gonna get all their favorite shows for less money was likely delusional. Especially if that includes sports.
It costs a certain amount of money to make these programs, if everyone is paying 50% less to get channels/services 'a la carte', then there's not enough money to make all those shows anymore.
Even if you don't think Disney is a serious threat, they are losing at their own game to Amazon, which is producing objectively better quality content given their dominance at the Emmys over Netflix (which was nearly shut out).
They have resorted to overpaying billions for old reruns like Seinfeld. At some point people will wake up and wonder why they're paying $15/month to watch reruns and return to actually buying content again for things like that.
Fleabag is a spectacular show, and deserves every accolade. At the same time, it has a limited appeal market.
Outside of that lucky pick up, Amazon really hasn't done all that well. Many of their big hype shows have been abysmal. That Jack Ryan one is just terrible -- I had big expectations for it, but it's so poorly acted, and so bizarrely edited, that I still marvel that it was released as is. If I actually had to pay for Amazon's offering, instead of it being some bizarre throw-in with Prime, I wouldn't.
At the same time, Netflix has had a lot of fantastic, and fantastically successful, shows. Shows with enormous appeal.
So I wouldn't start shorting Netflix because Fleabag won some awards. Indeed, the trope that Netflix is so over has gone on here for time eternal.
Netflix has $12B in debt. Subscriber growth has slowed a lot (2.7M per quarter). They're competing with big players with deep pockets, and sometimes large content libraries.
Services are getting so fragmented that I could see that being a net loss for the industry. Maybe people would have paid $20 per month for Netflix with 95% content coverage, but I cancelled my subscription because $12 per month wasn't worth it for the three shows I watched.
Amazon's UX is horrible though. Having to access it through the amazon.com storefront is like having to walk through a crowded gift shop to get into your movie theater.
I think Netflix is in a lot of trouble. For years, their catalog has been shrinking, replaced with Netflix Original Series/Movies. For a while, the Original Series were actually good quality.
Then this past week, watched "The I-Land" which was heavily advertised on Netflix. Watched 1 episode, and then started episode 2, and then quit. It was basically a pile of garbage.
Basically, I use Netflix mainly for entertainment for my children. Since they are huge Disney fans, I can't wait for Disney to release their streaming service, so I can cancel my Netflix subscription.
I just cancelled Netflix this month. If they're gonna be throwing down $100 million a year for Friends they can be doing better with their catalogue than what's there. I'm out.
> return to actually buying content again
It's a nice thought, but lets be honesty piracy is coming back for round 2 off the back of the splintered streaming ecosystem.
Many of us don't care about original content. I joined Netflix for movies, not original TV-style shows. Their movie catalog has become abysmal. The only reason I keep my account is because I shared it with my parents and they use it for my nephew.
Ya, but $15/m isn't a whole lot. I hardly watch Netflix anymore, and there are certainly bigger fish to fry when it comes to saving money or maybe spend more time trying to make more money.
The one thing I enjoyed with Netflix's original shows was that they weren't held back by these archaic regional deals. A show released by them releases globally. Netflix going global was the moment I jumped on. It still irritates me that the major film studios lag in releasing stuff on Netflix worldwide. There's no regional advertising deals to cut. What's the hold up??
Amazon has a similar problem of having a worthless catalogue where I live. Every movie I clicked on during my prime trial said "not available in your region".
HBO was possibly the biggest disappointment where despite not having to cut deals for ads in their shows, their steaming service is still not available globally.
With Disney talking ads in their offering, I have zero hope that they will launch worldwide at the scale of Netflix, and certainly not in Sri Lanka. Maybe India. But not Sri Lanka.
Funnily enough, google play has been the best option for me. I have various networks' TV series purchased on it. And movie night usually means renting the major movie studio produced stuff from Google play. I hope they stick around for a long time to come because they somehow seem to be the one globally available neutral ground left. Weird how that works.
I think the copyright lobby is too strong, but it would be a very positive move to change tv/film licensing to mirror radio's royalty model. Let the best service provider win, with a (more or less) complete catalog.
This is a perfect sweet spot at the moment where I will happily pay for Netflix at 15 bucks a month and Spotify for 10 and not pirate anything.
The issue with the large congolmerates like Disney taking over is that I worry they're going to return to the 'Cable pricing model' except delivered via internet, and consumers will be back to being exploited for as much as possible with as many Ad's crammed into the content as possible.
Then we'll start pirating again and have to listen to the big conglomerates complain about how much piracy is hurting their business...
I dunno why they just can't follow the music streaming model and put all of their content on the different streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Tidal and let the market decide on the differing features.
I guess Hollywood and the movie/tv studios need to have their own Napster moment.
This has been said many times but it's worth repeating it. Piracy is coming back and is coming back hard.
The last piracy boom didn't have highly scalable clouds, gigabit download connections, mobile, commercial VPN services, mainstream machine learning, etc. This fragmentation is going to lead to a situation with a high demand for pirated shows and movies and there are plenty of folks in this world willing to capitalize on that.
It’s pretty impressive that Disney would make a pretty penny off their Netflix deal, while Netflix did (IMO) an admirable job with the Marvel IP, and even then at the end the relationship gets described as “adversarial” — by Disney, not netflix. Don’t get me wrong I’m gonna watch the shows, but this is some cutthroat stuff.
I wish that Netflix was the sole dominant market player in this space such that for all intents and purposes it was the place to get streaming content so that I didn’t have a hodgepodge of services to subscribe to with different interfaces and user experiences and content. As the silos of content increase piracy will as well.
I’m tired of my favorite shows being kicked off of Netflix for seemingly arbitrary reasons so I keep local copies around or buy shows on iTunes but as costs rise to own instead of stream I think piracy will increase instead of decrease as it has in the heyday of Netflix.
Makes sense. Broadcasters don't allow ads from their competitors on their networks (you would never see an ad for a CBS show on Freeform),so idk why they would allow ads from streamers. Probably thought it was incremental dollars when it just basically meant Netflix was stealing subscribes away from them.
At the end of the day, Disney is still gonna sell that inventory (maybe at a slightly lower premium). So I would see it's worth it to lose $5-10MM a year if it means slightly cutting off the reach of one of your biggest competitors.
Ultimately we’ll end up at “choose your own channels” but at the cost of 15$ per channel. If you subscribed to all of them you’d be right back at cable prices again, minus sports content.
This is strictly worse than cable (with on demand) now. We went so far we slid backwards!
I don't care what company made what thing. I just want to be able to consume the content in an easy way, not have go juggle five different apps.
We need multiple providers that have all the content and that you pay a simple flat rate. They should be indistinguishable commodities like Spotify, Google Play, etc.
I didn't have cable TV for the past 15 years or so. Just didn't need that all that garbage for the occasional thing I really wanted to see.
Netflix was the simple aggregator through which I could watch what I liked. Hasn't been for a while, though. There are better things to do with my life anyway than consuming movies and shows.
[+] [-] tombert|6 years ago|reply
For example; I wanted to buy "Final Space" on Blu-Ray, and it doesn't appear to exist. I then look for DVD, and the only place to purchase that is on TBS's website, and it's been sold out for quite awhile.
I really don't want to have to sign up for another streaming service, I just want to buy the damn show, rip it myself, and watch it on my server; sadly it looks like I'm somewhat in the minority on this, and I suppose I get it, but it does upset me that soon the only way to guarantee that I get to have something forever is via piracy.
EDIT:
I just checked, apparently the DVD for Final Space is back in stock. I think my point still stands, and I think that it's weird that a show that was broadcast in 1080p isn't available on blu-ray.
[+] [-] gardnr|6 years ago|reply
Unless, everyone gets so used to pirating things that they ignore the evolutions in pricing models and find it easier to just pirate content.
[+] [-] wayneftw|6 years ago|reply
If I'm not doing something active now and I just want to sit - I read the funny pages (reddit), I read hacker news, I find questions in my mind to research, I play video games, read a book, start a side-project and/or listen to some music.
My wife still watches all sorts of garbage TV and if not for her I'd have cancelled cable a long time ago.
[+] [-] laumars|6 years ago|reply
1. Sharing account details. eg four people in a circle of friends, one will have Netflix, another Prime Video, someone else will have Now TV and so on. And each of them will use the others account so all of them get access to all of the services.
2. Some of the more well off individuals or less socially connected will sign up to two or three services and pirate everything else.
Whichever way you look at it, basically consumers have gotten fed up with the vendor lock ins and have gone back to sharing content.
It has always been this way though. Even when VHS's were a thing, you'd get families which would share videos with each other. Sometimes those films and TV shows were just recorded straight off the TV. This is also why I think there is a culture where people don't care about downloading content because there has always been an understanding that it was fine to record stuff on the TV and radio for personal consumption back before the internet was in every home. The daft thing is the TV and film industry had a massive opportunity to disrupt this culture but instead their own greed has just encouraged people back into old habits.
I know regulation isn't a popular topic on here but I do wonder if it's time someone stepped in and said "You guys need to start cooperating together!"
[+] [-] krisgee|6 years ago|reply
Corporations will get involved, jack the prices up, throw in ads and try to invent cable again.
Repeat.
[+] [-] Pxtl|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LocalH|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] subpixel|6 years ago|reply
Case in point: all I want right now is to stream the award-winning film “Give me Liberty”. It is over a year old and available precisely nowhere.
And when it comes available, the chances are high it’s not on one of the several competing services I pay for on a monthly basis.
[+] [-] distances|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tcbawo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] thismyrealone|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] myrandomcomment|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crazygringo|6 years ago|reply
Like... I've never seen an ad for Fox on CBS, or for ABC on NBC. Same as I don't think I've ever seen ads for the NYT inside of the WSJ.
I don't have a strong opinion on the matter... but is a policy against Netflix ads on Disney properties really something new and newsworthy, or just par for the course for companies in the US which compete generally?
[+] [-] scarface74|6 years ago|reply
ABC pays for the right to rent the airways and do with it as they please within certain parameters. When you rent an apartment don’t you have the expectation of being allowed to do what you want within your apartment within certain constraints?
It wouldn’t really hurt Disney that much if they couldn’t reach the relatively few people who watch TV over an antennae.
[+] [-] dvdhnt|6 years ago|reply
That said, ads suck, blah blah and I personally don't care.
[+] [-] cjrp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Reedx|6 years ago|reply
- No ads
- You can watch on demand
- Orders of magnitude more choice in what to watch
- Writers have a lot more flexibility. They don't have to be advertiser friendly.
- Writers don't have to write cliffhangers every N minutes so you come back after the ad break.
- Writers don't have to worry about sequence like they did with TV/Cable, because they know you'll be able to watch the show in order. Meaning that their worlds and characters can change and have real consequence.
Just pick your favorite 2 or 3 services. You don't have watch everything.
[+] [-] Beltiras|6 years ago|reply
Streaming is only convenient when products aren't siloed. If I need to keep track of more than n services (different n for different people), piracy just becomes the more convenient option.
I'd like to pay the hard working people that produce shows I really like. The middleman is just making it really difficult to do.
[+] [-] TulliusCicero|6 years ago|reply
It costs a certain amount of money to make these programs, if everyone is paying 50% less to get channels/services 'a la carte', then there's not enough money to make all those shows anymore.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tempsy|6 years ago|reply
Even if you don't think Disney is a serious threat, they are losing at their own game to Amazon, which is producing objectively better quality content given their dominance at the Emmys over Netflix (which was nearly shut out).
They have resorted to overpaying billions for old reruns like Seinfeld. At some point people will wake up and wonder why they're paying $15/month to watch reruns and return to actually buying content again for things like that.
[+] [-] endorphone|6 years ago|reply
Outside of that lucky pick up, Amazon really hasn't done all that well. Many of their big hype shows have been abysmal. That Jack Ryan one is just terrible -- I had big expectations for it, but it's so poorly acted, and so bizarrely edited, that I still marvel that it was released as is. If I actually had to pay for Amazon's offering, instead of it being some bizarre throw-in with Prime, I wouldn't.
At the same time, Netflix has had a lot of fantastic, and fantastically successful, shows. Shows with enormous appeal.
So I wouldn't start shorting Netflix because Fleabag won some awards. Indeed, the trope that Netflix is so over has gone on here for time eternal.
[+] [-] xirdstl|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dehrmann|6 years ago|reply
Netflix has $12B in debt. Subscriber growth has slowed a lot (2.7M per quarter). They're competing with big players with deep pockets, and sometimes large content libraries.
Services are getting so fragmented that I could see that being a net loss for the industry. Maybe people would have paid $20 per month for Netflix with 95% content coverage, but I cancelled my subscription because $12 per month wasn't worth it for the three shows I watched.
[+] [-] causality0|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RcouF1uZ4gsC|6 years ago|reply
Then this past week, watched "The I-Land" which was heavily advertised on Netflix. Watched 1 episode, and then started episode 2, and then quit. It was basically a pile of garbage.
Apparently, I am not along in my assessment.
https://www.tvinsider.com/815148/the-i-land-netflix-reviews/
https://qz.com/quartzy/1712203/the-i-land-on-netflix-is-the-...
Basically, I use Netflix mainly for entertainment for my children. Since they are huge Disney fans, I can't wait for Disney to release their streaming service, so I can cancel my Netflix subscription.
[+] [-] corobo|6 years ago|reply
> return to actually buying content again
It's a nice thought, but lets be honesty piracy is coming back for round 2 off the back of the splintered streaming ecosystem.
[+] [-] driverdan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmarlow|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meijer|6 years ago|reply
Amazon stopped a few months ago. You just cannot watch Seinfeld online.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] paulddraper|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nstart|6 years ago|reply
Amazon has a similar problem of having a worthless catalogue where I live. Every movie I clicked on during my prime trial said "not available in your region".
HBO was possibly the biggest disappointment where despite not having to cut deals for ads in their shows, their steaming service is still not available globally.
With Disney talking ads in their offering, I have zero hope that they will launch worldwide at the scale of Netflix, and certainly not in Sri Lanka. Maybe India. But not Sri Lanka.
Funnily enough, google play has been the best option for me. I have various networks' TV series purchased on it. And movie night usually means renting the major movie studio produced stuff from Google play. I hope they stick around for a long time to come because they somehow seem to be the one globally available neutral ground left. Weird how that works.
[+] [-] 6gvONxR4sf7o|6 years ago|reply
Disney won't show competitors ads at all. Meh.
These cases aren't identical, but the difference still feels weird.
[+] [-] tschellenbach|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MAGZine|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickthemagicman|6 years ago|reply
The issue with the large congolmerates like Disney taking over is that I worry they're going to return to the 'Cable pricing model' except delivered via internet, and consumers will be back to being exploited for as much as possible with as many Ad's crammed into the content as possible.
Then we'll start pirating again and have to listen to the big conglomerates complain about how much piracy is hurting their business...
[+] [-] tibbydudeza|6 years ago|reply
I guess Hollywood and the movie/tv studios need to have their own Napster moment.
[+] [-] whoisjuan|6 years ago|reply
The last piracy boom didn't have highly scalable clouds, gigabit download connections, mobile, commercial VPN services, mainstream machine learning, etc. This fragmentation is going to lead to a situation with a high demand for pirated shows and movies and there are plenty of folks in this world willing to capitalize on that.
[+] [-] stefan_|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] awinder|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neonate|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gigatexal|6 years ago|reply
I’m tired of my favorite shows being kicked off of Netflix for seemingly arbitrary reasons so I keep local copies around or buy shows on iTunes but as costs rise to own instead of stream I think piracy will increase instead of decrease as it has in the heyday of Netflix.
[+] [-] Deadsunrise|6 years ago|reply
At the end of the day, Disney is still gonna sell that inventory (maybe at a slightly lower premium). So I would see it's worth it to lose $5-10MM a year if it means slightly cutting off the reach of one of your biggest competitors.
[+] [-] thinkingkong|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickthegreek|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jfengel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] echelon|6 years ago|reply
This is strictly worse than cable (with on demand) now. We went so far we slid backwards!
I don't care what company made what thing. I just want to be able to consume the content in an easy way, not have go juggle five different apps.
We need multiple providers that have all the content and that you pay a simple flat rate. They should be indistinguishable commodities like Spotify, Google Play, etc.
[+] [-] linuxhansl|6 years ago|reply
Netflix was the simple aggregator through which I could watch what I liked. Hasn't been for a while, though. There are better things to do with my life anyway than consuming movies and shows.