500ish:
With video (meaning, again, movies and television shows), we already have great streaming options. And relative to the amount of content they serve up, they seem fairly priced.
The issue is three-fold, or four-fold, or five-fold, soon maybe six-fold, or seven-fold. Netflix. Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, HBO, Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max, NBC Plus Max Super Ultra or whatever, and so on.
We were all so focused for so long on the great unbundling of cable, that we didn’t think through the ramifications.
Some of us certainly did. I’ve been saying for years that all of these services are creating a giant PITA when it comes to finding the things you want to watch.
I disagree with Siegler calling the Plex folks pirates. Plex’s primary purpose is to make your own content more accessible. You can grant access to your library for friends, but there is absolutely no way for them to get the actual media files via Plex.
Yeah, the implications were and are clear. But this is still early days in the unbundling. Some of these services will fail outright or succeed so marginally that there will be re-consolidation. For example, I don’t see network-based streaming working. Why would I pay ABC/CBS/NBC for streaming access to their OTA shows? I wouldn’t. If there are streaming only exclusives ala the Star Trek show… I need to be a huge fan of that to pay for it exclusively and anyway, I can always sub at the end of each season, binge, then unsub.
The winners in this game will have significant original content that appeals to a variety of audiences AND access to second run content that people want to watch.
PS: Amazon Prime Video is also different… it’s one perk of a larger program that really makes the most sense if you use other things – Prime Reading, free 2 day shipping, etc. If Apple is smart, they’ll position their video this way – “$N gets you Apple Music, Apple Video and News+”. If they don’t offer that, it’s a missed opportunity (or if they offer it but it’s close to the price separately).
The TV networks can’t do this – “you get access to things you get for free… oh and a new show or two”. Disney, being Disney, has so much new and old content that they’ll be fine.
Nah. It’s simple. I don’t have cable and I: 1) find the show I want to watch, and 2) pay for that service until I’ve watched it. It’s way cheaper than cable.
Nobody needs to get all the services just because they exist. If you do need all those shows, just keep your cable.
No disagreement here, but some practical concerns.
1) These services all try to make it hard to quit after you’ve signed up. What is the financial and psychic cost of managing multiple subscriptions on a monthly basis?
2) How about for a family of two, four, seven people? All with different tastes?
Absolutely saw this years ago.
“Someone owns this content and wants to get paid for it” sure is annoying, right?
As mdelvecchio says, “you don’t have to subscribe to any of these”.
(I have Netflix and Prime. And Prime only because it came free with Prime for shipping purposes.
I barely use Netflix.
People who consume lots and lots of streaming media will pay more if they want specific content. I don’t see that as a problem, because they’re … paying for what they want to watch. And can easily not watch.)
1) Not that I’ve noticed. You can cancel Netflix or Prime pretty trivially, can’t you?
Equally, subscriptions you like have no psychic cost to manage – they just sit there. Financial? Still cheaper than cable, plus that argument applies to literally all things one likes to buy; should there be fewer restaurants to reduce the psychic cost of picking dinner? God, no.
2) They can pay more for more stuff – plus most of them (Netflix, e.g.) seem to allow family access.
A family of seven with magically no overlap in tastes is … well, irrelevant to any larger picture, since that’s like four or five households in the US, so to speak. They can do what people do now or did ten years ago: Pay more or not get every whim of consumption instantly satisfied.