It was only a matter of time before large scale streaming tech got commoditized. That was Netflix's moat early on and now it will have to be their content library. They clearly saw the writing on the wall long ago.

The golden age of streaming is over IMO, now content will be increasingly divided into their own streaming services. I wish that streaming video were regulated like radio, with a flat rate per minute that gets paid back to the license owner. I can dream...

The issue is that I am ready to pay several times what I currently pay Netflix in order to get access to a full library of movies and series (so something where content is added all the time and never removed).

However, I am not at all ready to pay that sum to 4 or 5 services.

Sadly, savage download seems to be the most convenient option.

What possible justification is there for that? With radio there was at least the colorable reason that public goods (limited radio spectrum) were involved. Here's it's private content streaming from private servers over private wires.

I'm not certain if it predates the radio compulsory licensing, but I think the compulsory licensing for recordings is at least as old, so it's not about limited radio spectrum, it was rather about preserving certain rights that people were worried copyright would unduly restrict.

Well, in the US, copyright exists "To promote the progress of science and useful arts" I can argue that being able to be able to get movies in one place is certainly useful. Or that it seems reasonable that in exchange for the unnatural monopoly of copyright, strings can be attached.

All property rights are "unnatural" (animals don't recognize property rights, only possession). In my view, copyrights are the least unnatural. We grant property rights in land with few restrictions, yet real property rights are a greater restriction on freedom than copyrights. A copyrightable work, unlike a piece of land, is the fruit of someone's labor. Land, in contrast, pre-exists the owner. And whereas land is a scarce natural resources, the universe of copyrightable works is unlimited. There is no good reason to attach more strings to copyright than to real property.

Great points, but what's next after streaming?

Piracy.

What's after piracy?

More piracy except with VR.

Honestly, Netflix had a chance to really damage piracy by costing the product at the market rate not the "We can get away with this because we own government" lobbiest rate (It's called the Mickey Mouse Act for a reason after all).

The incumbents decided they didn't want that, so instead they'll split into a whole bunch of services that combined cost more than netflix would have done for the same amount of content and the people who would have paid a fair price but not an unfair price will just go back to torrenting or whatever Blockchain(TM) DarkNet(TM) thing replaces it.

If I was running the government (perish the thought), I'd actually be wary about cracking down too hard on copyright infringement (on the consumer side at least) because it will push users towards solutions that are genuinely anonymous (porn and movies will do that, expressing their democratic rights..probably not) and frankly as the sole voting member of Noirlord-topia that'd scare the shit out of me a lot more than Disney been pissed they made slightly less.

I don't watch much TV tbh (I'm in the UK and I don't have a TV license, haven't had for years) and I still have a Netflix subscription because occasionally I'll watch the odd movie, it's worth 7.99 a month to watch the odd film once or twice a month plus the occasional TV show, it's not worth 4.99 * 6 services.

I think I'd actually prefer a "£0.5 per episode, valid for 60 days" model to that.

Think is I can go watch a movie for £4.99 at the local cinema that has some absurd 8K screen, 27 speaker surround and comfy seats, why would I pay so much more to watch the odd movie.

I simply wouldn't.

I don't know if it's really fair to blame Netflix for this one. There's no obligation to charge the minimal price for your product, just the minimal competitive price. As for content, Netflix was able to dominate streaming early on because nobody had realized how big the market was going to be yet. It's a lot harder to dominate the market with other people's content now because everyone is realize how valuable their contracts with Netflix were and are starting to pull the rights to stream their content in favor of hosting their own platforms which forces Netflix into the content creation business if they want to stay relevant. None of that is really Netflix's fault in isolation.

Hmm, I wasn't intending to blame Netflix, Netflix had an interesting model, the incumbents just choked them off when they saw how popular it was going to become (and in fairness to Netflix they saw it coming and hedge their bets with their first forays into original content which gave them both some ability to weather the storm and engage in cross-licensing deals with existing networks - the massive expansion was worth it imo but it's a race against time for them, can they get enough original content to justify the subscription as they lose content to license deals expiring and keep the users they have and grow enough to justify the costs, if they can they'll win, if they can't they'll blow a lot of cash and crater).

It's kinda a tragedy of the commons, they all want to be Netflix without realising that Netflix only works with a large back catalogue of content from multiple places.

Pirate streaming but that's already a thing. I think the interesting thing about piracy, ignoring the entire cost/no-cost and legality debates, is that pirates have the potential to always focus entirely on the end-consumer's experience because they don't care about the red tape that constricts the services provided by legitimate businesses.

Not only is it a thing, it's (from a UX pov) a better thing.

Some of the least techiest people I know have Kodi/Exodus boxes.

I don't even have a Kodi box and I have a fast linux PC connected to the living room TV.

Lawyers whacking at digital hydras.

Streaming

television

It made sense when there were only a few platforms doing streaming services. If everyone starts doing it, the walls begin to close in. Then all of a sudden there are hundreds of streaming services all with their own exclusive content. At that point, what makes it different than a TV channel besides being on-demand?

Isn't this end game what a lot of people wanted (including myself). Pay for only the channels you want, when you want. I like not having to pay for ESPN when the Warriors aren't playing (although pay per game might make me even happier at the right price).

What I want is to pay for the shows I want.

I'd be happy to pay by the hour.

That's probably not working, because producing the quality stuff is so expensive that people are not ready to pay enough to cover the production costs.

In the streaming business you lure people into paying more than they otherwise would (on average - your mileage may vary) by giving them a feeling that they get so much content for the money. Even though in practice they then actually find a quite limited amount of content they actually enjoy. Also there's the typical trick of subscription services that "you can cancel at any time (but you wont)", which makes the purchase feel more affordable.

Amazon sells shows by the show or season. Here's an example: https://www.amazon.com/Halt-Catch-Fire-Season-3/dp/B01JFWK71...

Yeah, that's close to what I like. Except the prices are at least twice as high as I'd pay for TV. Movies are fine.

Maybe that's my bad attitude and I should pay what it costs. Or Amazon is pricing these too high for some reason.

Also, I'd need to see the first few episodes of any show before I pay up. I start a lot of shows, and hive up on most of them.

And all of it accessible only so long as you keep paying (and paying, and paying).

Back to discs, for me.

A year ago, when I saw how large my friends' collection of Bluerays and DVD's had grown, I thought they were taking things a bit far.

Now, not so much. At least, for content you want to watch more than once.

Since I moved, my local library is a significant drive away. But I've also been meaning to get over there and have a look at the current state of their collection, as well.

I don't need to see the latest thing, right away. So, this will work well, for me.

P.S. My friends have a rather nice viewing set up. And if it's the two of them, that's getting up towards $20 for two tickets to the theater -- for first releases. Invite a couple of friends over to their place, and even with Blueray purchases, they've already saved over the price of tickets. And... no unwanted distractions.

You don't need to subscribe to all the services at once, you can do them one at a time.

This worked for me. I wanted to watch 2 shows on HBO. I signed up for a free trial, watched 2 shows in 2 months, and paid $14.95. Now they don't have anything I want to watch, so I canceled.

Side note: Last night I was in a hotel with hundreds of channels including HBO, and there was nothing to watch, so I watched Netflix, which costs probably less than 10% of what I would pay for the hotel's selection at home.

You mean actual competition, instead of a handful of companies controlling users' eyeballs? Perish the thought!

Would Netflix be spending $7B on content if they were the Spotify of movies?

and device makers like Apple getting into this business as well. I am waiting for Samsung etc to also jump in.