[Sholmesy]

The incentives are misaligned.

Netflix, Amazon, Disney et al, aren't interested in showing me what I want to watch for a purchase price, they are after my attention, and to divert me to their most profitable revenue stream (Netflix in house creations etc).

My attention is not for sale, I'll buy content if it is sold in a manner that is attractive to me in a consumer friendly model, Louis CK selling his standup specials on his own website come to mind, otherwise I won't bother.

The problem is there's no end game for these companies, if you agree to buy something, they'll stop selling it and sell you a subscription instead. If you buy the subscription, they'll chuck ads in front of the subscribed service, and then periodically cut off access to certain content in an effort to maximize their own profit. There's no way to manage you're own library, you're subject to whatever the shareholders think they can keep squeezing out of you. On top of that, even if I yield to them completely, I still have to run their DRM blobs on my computing devices for the priviledge.

It's "amoral" to pirate in my worldview, but these companies are equally amoral. I still want to participate in the collective modern culture of tv, movies, etc, so somethings got to give.

[chimprich]

> The problem is there's no end game for these companies

It's our whole economic system. Everything is set up for the expectation of endless growth. Every company is expected to increase their revenue and share price and employee compensation.

This is a bit of a problem for global tech companies because when you already have a big chunk of the world's population as your customers then growing your numbers becomes difficult. The only way to get more cash then is to extract more cash from your existing users.

Even (or especially) if you're already making vast sums of cash, the expectation is that you'll produce increasing amounts of it year on year. As a result you almost have to give your users a worse experience each year.

No one seems terribly keen on the actual effects of this, but individual decision makers' performance is generally measured on how well they impel users to give up more cash.

I don't see how this situation improves without some rethinking of our whole economic system.

[Freebytes]

They also have a tendency to edit, remove episodes, etc. And it does not even need to be for political correctness either. It could be licensing rights to music in shows. They will sometimes edit a show to remove the music or remove the episode altogether. (This happened with Scrubs.)

They will remove content that involves people talking about suicide. They will remove content that is offensive. They have even gone back and edited previous episodes and content. This has happened in Stranger Things (actual edits with no notice) and Arrested Development (a redesign of the fourth season that is far worse than the original version of it). (I could not watch the fifth season. It was way too terrible.)

[Sholmesy]

Peep Show, 30 Rock, Community. Modern classics, editing out "offensive" material, that was actually making a point about how offensive it is.

[sleepybrett]

This happens in physical media release as well, mostly i've seen music replaced with cheaper licensed music, I think the most recent physical releases of 'Community' still contain the episode that includes the 'Advanced Dungeons and Dragons' episode, that has been removed from netflix due to the use of Blackface (One character arrives at the game in blackface (actually jet black with a white wig) because his character is a Drow (dark elf), other characters call him out for being racist but he explains his character's backstory)

[kyorochan]

Do you know where I could read more about this (specifically suicide/offensive stuff). A cursory search only showed a scene being cut from 13 Reasons Why, but I would be very interested in learning more.

[sleepybrett]

IMO Disney plus as a product is conceived as 'a library of disney properties' not as a general streaming service that might license movies from other studios. Anything that is licensed externally for disney+ is an exception. Netflix, originally conceived and operated as a blockbuster in the cloud is certainly going through a transition to more in-house product.

Other services are going the same way. Netflix being a first mover was able to license a lot of content for what must have been more favorable rates, now that it's much easier for a studio to spin up their OWN streaming service (there are vendors out there that will sell you, essentially, a streaming service in a box) they are experimenting with increasing their rates for licensing and simultaneously running their own service.

This is all region dependent of course. Often you'll see stuff available only on the studio's streaming service in north america, but licensed to more general streaming services overseas.

We'll see how this shakes out. Perhaps someone like paramount determines that their in-house streaming service just isn't profitable and move back to a licensed model.

[kevincox]

> they are after my attention, and to divert me to their most profitable revenue stream (Netflix in house creations etc).

They don't even really want your attention. In house creations aren't the most profitable because they make money, they are the most profitable because they cost the least. As long as you keep paying your subscription they are happy. The content is intended to keep you just happy enough to stay subscribed (or upgrade your plan) as well as to attract new subscribers.

Basically their income is subscriptions, their costs are largely video licensing (or creation). Serving content is probably a minor additional cost.

[azangru]

> It's "amoral" to pirate in my worldview, but these companies are equally amoral.

Amoral or immoral? Companies (being legal entities) are amoral; and I am fine with being amoral in return; but many would complain that it's immoral :-)

[scarface74]

Of course your attention is for sale. Even now, you are posting to a site whose entire purpose for existing is to advertise YC funded companies.

[Sholmesy]

You are correct, obviously.

> I still want to participate in the collective modern culture ... so somethings got to give.

Same comment applies to this forum. I want to participate in discussions on HN, and therefore I am subject to the occasional job ad from YC companies. It's not perfect, but it's a bit facetious to compare that to the attention grabbing of Youtube/Amazon, etc who will intentionally curtail my efforts to find content I want, in lieu of something they want to promote.

[pnt12]

That's too cynical. If it were an ad platform, you wouldn't be allowed to criticize those companies, or YC, or members from YC. But you can!

It also doesn't ask for a lot of attention. You don't get notifications, infinite scrolling, custom content for your preferences, and click bait is limited, per the enforced guidelines. There's a bit of FOMO since articles only stay at the top for a while, but there's ways to get around that (RSS, which I use).

HN is a place to discuss interesting ideas first, and YC startups second. The hard work from dang deserves more praise than that!

[karmakurtisaani]

Thanks for reminding me of Louis CK website. One of the few places I'm happy to pay for content.

[EmilioMartinez]

They should be charged with attention piracy