[ascendantlogic]

So here's the catch 22. The Hollywood content producers and deliverers won't just sit back and let Netflix and Amazon eat their entire lunch. They will fight back, and presumably with their own streaming services. So we will have a proliferation (more so than now) of services to get specific content through. Usually this is a good thing. People want choice and choice breeds competition which is good for consumers. However in this instance most people I know, myself included, just want one streaming service to subscribe to so it's not such a hassle. But wishing for that is like wishing for Hitler to be replaced with Stalin. It will end poorly with just another monopoly taking the place of the old.

[parennoob]

Well the way to prevent that is to with your wallet. Don't pay for a cable subscription (I don't), and refuse to watch sporting events unless they are available openly for streaming for a non-ridiculous price. It's seriously not such a big deal. Don't watch the shows that are only available via DVDs or on "boutique" services where you end up with a subscription when you only wanted a specific thing.

Eventually, content producers will realize that their delivery is usually horrible, and causes a lot of pain for consumers (I have to pay Comcast $300/month to watch the occasional football game? Sorry, not watching football.) and come up for better, more convenient ways for consumers to pay for the content they consume.

[voltagex_]

It's already happening here in Australia. If you like a lot of popular shows you might need 3 different streaming subscriptions, plus cable / satellite for sport.

If you want soccer, you might even have to change ISP / mobile provider to get it (EPL on Optus)

[soylentcola]

I sort of wonder whether the direct-subscription thing will just take the place of premium cable (or join its ranks). I guess it depends on how you use them and how you watch TV.

In the past, I looked at Netflix streaming as a more affordable replacement for basic cable: just like with basic cable (all of the USA/TBS/TNT/etc channels) you couldn't necessarily count on finding a specific movie like with a video store or a VOD setup but you could skim through the offerings, just like flipping channels, and find something you wouldn't mind watching. Other times, it would seem like there's "nothing on".

Nowadays there's enough good, original programming coming out throughout the year that it reminds me more of premium cable. And just as you'd tack on another $5 or $10/mo for HBO, MAX, Starz, etc. you can individually subscribe to Netflix, Amazon, and others depending on which ones you find worth paying for based on the shows they produce.

The other side to it (for me at least) is the convenience of video on demand without messing with DVRs and such. I've said it before and I'll say it again--if cable wanted a way to make me gladly pay $50/mo or more for their service, they'd give me something like a legit version of Popcorn Time. I messed around with that (via VPN of course) when it was making waves a while back and even though I currently subscribe to cable, HBO, Netflix, and Amazon, I was choosing to watch shows via Popcorn Time.

The thing it offered was a single, attractive list of all shows available and a way to bookmark the ones I liked and show which episode I left off on. It brought the Netflix interface to cable TV and was simply a more enjoyable way to watch.

I realize that I'm not entitled to whatever I want for free and I understand that this was still an unlicensed way to watch but I didn't feel it was immoral since I already paid for access to the shows. Even if distribution deals would prevent Comcast and friends from offering everything that way, it would be quite welcome and forward-thinking if they leveraged their unique position as content distributor to offer up something along those lines. Again, it's the one thing that would make me almost glad to pay for cable again, rather than only doing it begrudgingly because it's relatively cheap when bundled with internet access.