The consumer frequently says they want one service, but not I'm not sure that's accurate. At the very least they want a single platform through which to organize and view content (much like cable tv was, rather than swapping between Netflix, Prime, etc), but don't necessarily want monopolistic content producers. The future is effectively cable with everything on demand.

And frankly, just having an easy accessible way to rent any motion picture if it's not on a streaming platform. There's no reason for digital copies to be so inaccessible. Some things are literally only available on dvd/blue-ray or pirated.

> The consumer frequently says they want one service, but not I'm not sure that's accurate. … And frankly, just having an easy accessible way to rent any motion picture if it's not on a streaming platform.

Wouldn't whatever this "easy accessible way" is be the one service you're skeptical people want? I don't think anyone saying "I want one service" means "I hope to be locked in to one provider", but rather "I want one easy interface, and not to have to worry about surveying and paying for lots of siloed libraries."

> I don't think anyone saying "I want one service" means "I hope to be locked in to one provider"

It's a thin line, is what I'm warning.

> I want one easy interface

Definitely this.

We have various non-standardized interfaces currently for home entertainment with machines running their own enterprise software. The playstations, xboxes, apple TV, smart tvs, etc have their own mediocre ways of cobbling things and allowing you to rent / buy / stream.

Perhaps an open-source alternative is what's needed, but that's often so late to the game.

Definitely worth a comparison to the audio streaming market...

My Spotify subscription is £9.99 and gives me access to unlimited music from all artists (within reason - it’s very unlikely I find something not on there).

I’m willing to pay more for a video subscription that gives me access to unlimited tv and movies.

But to get everything on streaming I have to buy: - Amazon Subscription - Netflix Subscription - Apple TV subscription - Disney+ Subscription - Now TV - TV licence (iPlayer)

And after I have subscribed to all of these, there are still loads of movies and TV shows not covered.

I would pay for one subscription that had the content mixed in. It would be better to have a single £25 contract and get everything rather than this crazy fragmentation where you pay for 80% of the content 4 times and have to get an additional subscription if there is one series you want to watch on a different service.

DRM and walled gardens are the obstacle to open source media players. See above re control.

> Perhaps an open-source alternative is what's needed, but that's often so late to the game.

The problem is that the software part of it is comparatively easy; a perfect platform from the point of view of code, robustness, and useability means nothing unless you can get the rights-holders to agree to make their content available on it.

Is this actually a hurdle considering we can access all this content right from the browser? It could just be a container pointing to the content, I don't think it's necessitated that there be native launchers such that they aren't really "on" it.

> Is this actually a hurdle considering we can access all this content right from the browser?

Right, that's sort of what I mean—accessing it isn't the point. Once you've paid for and subscribed to every different streaming service today, and checked that there aren't a few more that have sprouted up overnight, then access is a solved problem, in the browser or prettified on the desktop. The hard part, and what I think people mean when they speak of wanting one service, is not having to curate, seek out, and pay for all those different streaming services in the first place.

I want every distribution service to have every piece of content. Just like how Blockbuster and Hollywood Video both got all the VHS tapes so you could pretty much always find the same things at each. I don't want Netflix to have one set of content, Amazon to have another, Disney to have a third, etc, and need to pay for all the services. I want multiple competing distributors.

To be fair, content holders want to make as much money as possible. Their attempts to restrict/distinguish/control are only because they (wrongly IMO) believe this will end up making them more money.