[rayiner]

I don’t understand why so many people think this is a bad thing. Content distribution has become a commodity, thanks to AWS and the like. The codecs and whatnot are all standardized. And it turns out that consumers don’t really care about recommendation systems and similar accouterments. So the competition has shifted to the thing that people care about: content. When the market is competing over the thing people care about, that’s a good thing.

This is the healthiest the television industry has ever been. There are no “big 4 networks” controlling distribution. There’s no monopolies—if you want to launch a competitor, start a studio, pay Amazon a bunch of money, and boom. Disney, Netflix, CBS, etc., have just become umbrella organizations for studios producing content. They can compete directly with each other, and consumers and pick and choose what they want to spend their dollars on.

[mikeash]

It’s annoying as a user to juggle subscriptions. If I want to watch something, I have to figure out where it’s available, sign up if I don’t currently have a subscription, worry about forgetting services and having a bunch of monthly payments I’m not using. End result: I watch a lot of YouTube and pretty much gave up on the rest.

Contrast with music, where I have a single subscription and get access to everything I want without having to think about it. The question of what I want to listen to is separate from the question of what service I want to use. I can pick a service based on price and features instead of juggling a bunch of different ones.

[RussianCow]

On the other hand, it's better than the alternative with cable providers where your only choices are the cheap, basic package with only 12 channels, or the really expensive package with >100 channels, of which you'll only ever watch a couple. Juggling multiple subscriptions is annoying, yes, but at least you can pick and choose what content you want to pay for.

Personally, Netflix has more than enough content for me to watch, so that's the only video subscription service I still pay for.

[beatgammit]

We're the same way, but we have Amazon as well, mostly because of the shipping side. There are series that I'd like to watch, but it's not available on either, so I just don't bother.

In fact, I started getting back into watching TV shows after a couple years of not watching much, and then the fragmentation with Netflix losing content and creating their own happened, and now I just don't watch nearly as much and we just watch occasionally for family movie/TV time. I have friends that mention various series and I've just stopped bothering looking anymore because, chances are, it's not on a network I already have access to.

My wife has gone back to watching movies at the theater, I'm playing more video games, and the only reason we pay for streaming anymore is for the kids. I used to enjoy talking about shows with friends, but now it feels like everyone has access to different content, so there's less common ground than before.

I'd be happy to pay a little extra for access to certain content, I just don't want to have to remember which service provides which content.

[mikeash]

It’s definitely better than it could be. It’s just a stark contrast with the way it is in music.

[zeta0134]

I wish there was an easier way to just buy content, in a way that I knew was going to support the creators and not line the pockets of the distribution network. I used to wait for stuff to come out on DVD and pick it up then, but I don't know how much the original studio gets for that, or whether the original studio even exists by that point.

I certainly don't like the subscription model, but that's a personal choice. I just don't watch a lot of episodic television content; at some point I grew tired of the drawn out plotlines and endless filler, and during the TV era, I became especially dissatisfied with the constant advertising. Even with ad-free streaming models, I find that I'm just not interested. So when that one show comes out that I do very much enjoy, it's hard to justify signing up for a streaming service; it feels like I'm paying for access to a lot of other crap that I'll never consume.

[bscphil]

>I wish there was an easier way to just buy content, in a way that I knew was going to support the creators and not line the pockets of the distribution network.

I agree (Bandcamp for movies?) but the economics of this are hard. While you can make a solid album with free software, cheap instruments you own already, and a few hundred dollars worth of equipment, even a well made indie movie is going to run into hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in costs. They have to recoup those somehow, and it's a terrifying leap to go from a traditional production / distribution network to relying directly on consumers to pay for your product. It's "no one ever got fired for buying IBM" except in the movie distribution industry.

I suppose if there's one industry leading the way it's in video games. If I'm not mistaken several AAA games have been included in Humble Bundles, which means you pay what you want and get a non-DRM copy of the game. (Even a torrent link!)

[rayiner]

> Contrast with music, where I have a single subscription and get access to everything I want without having to think about it.

Only because of the obsolete centralized planning model the law creates for music streaming, which long predates the capability for direct music distribution to the customer. It undermines competition, shifting power to the distribution system. But competing over whether your streaming service offers this or that feature doesn’t create competition on the part that really matters: content. It lowers the incentive to invest in quality music that breaks out of cookie cutter molds, it would be bad for consumers in every respect but on cost. (It is notable that whole television has never been better, mainstream music probably has never been worse.)

Imagine if software licensing had to all be cleared through a centralized board at rates set by judges. It would be what app developers hate about the App Store times ten.

The inconvenience of having to pick and choose is the cost of having a real market. We don’t order all our food through a central food clearing house. We order from different restaurants, who have different payment models, different menu formats, different delivery rules, etc. If all restaurants were legally required to be in Uber Eats that wouldn’t be better, it would be worse. It would give all the power and profits to the middle man, rather than the restaurants.

[nabla9]

Disney copying Netflix makes it just harder for the customers. The whole Netflix subscription business model should die. When content distribution is commodity as you say, the only service they provide is easy payment.

Disney, Netflix, Amazon, HBO, Spotify etc. divide content between them and if you want to watch four shows, listen a music and read an ebook, you may have to subscribe 7 or more content delivery system.

People should be able to pay for the individual series or even episodes. The only reason why you need to create account to consume content is to make payment easier.

[bscphil]

>People should be able to pay for the individual series or even episodes.

Isn't this already a thing? iTunes and Amazon both allow you to purchase individual episodes or season passes.

[shshhdhs]

And they let you subscribe to other services through their payment processing. And if you have a FireTV device, you can search for content across all those providers

[hutzlibu]

Yes, but much more expensive, compared to the flatrate thing.

[orev]

One worst-case scenario can be found in what happened to CDs in the 90s and 00s. Content companies knew people would buy a CD just to get the one popular song, so they would fill the rest of it with junk.

You could look at any app’s library in a similar way, where there’s only a small set of “good stuff” while the rest is old junk. If they collude to spread the good stuff around all the apps, then you are artificially forced to subscribe to all of them if you want to see that stuff.

Yes, that is their prerogative as content owners, but nobody likes it and you feel like you’re getting robbed instead of feeling like you’re living in an amazing future that’s giving you good value. And it costs more so not good for consumers.

[gregknicholson]

> There’s no monopolies—if you want to launch a competitor, start a studio, pay Amazon a bunch of money

That does sound a lot like Amazon is a relevant monopoly here.

[ggg2]

now it is even worse.

before we had the big 4 and everyone had them at their home. now you have big 3 and everyone have one or another. or at most 2.

and this is untill the big one dominate (like google did with search). which is the end game for all of them.

the true solution is payments direct to the content creators, and the hosting providers being a cost for them.

[013a]

No one said it was a bad thing for consumers. It’s a bad thing for Netflix.

[ykevinator]

Content and price.