The fact that 15+ year old tech developed by some hobbyists (over asymmetrical networks not optimized for it mind you) provides a better service than anything modern corporations can deliver really is amazing to me.
It's because the corporations aren't really interested in providing a better service to the viewer, they're interested in providing a better service to their advertisers. That said, the idea of embedding the advertising freely is an interesting one, and I wonder if it's been seriously considered by the networks. Probably harder to convince the cheque-writers of the value they're getting, though.
> It's because the corporations aren't really interested in providing a better service to the viewer
I sold all of my Netflix stock (which wasn't a huge number anyway) the moment I saw that you could no longer see reviews of content on Netflix. It was a clear cut sign that they no longer "get it".
I hate to say it, but I miss the reviews+DVD days, where I discovered a huge wealth of foreign directors and their films. And there was even something exciting about DVD envelopes arriving in the mail aftet a short wait, building out the queue that would last a few months, and mailing it back wasn't a nightmare.
The loss of ratings was a telltale sign it'd gone mainstream and impersonal, but another one was the autoplay, which cannot be turned off. That's incredibly obnoxious, and loud, as previews somehow always seem to be.
Is this all an inevitable consequence of growth and the evolution of mass content or a set of bad decisions?
I'd be surprised if it rivaled subscription revenue, though. My point is indeed questionable in the context of original content. HBO's kinda proves my point - their original content is much higher quality IMO. There's some old quote about how Netflix needed to become HBO faster than HBO could become Netflix, and I think they're close to losing that one.
sure, but how much of what you think is product placement actually is, and how much of it is just things being used in their natural context because it would be weird put something fake there.
Free is always going to be more attractive and excuses made by folks who don't want to pay for services.
Netflix/Prime/HBO/etc all work perfectly fine, just sign up once, login, and that's it.
Folks are just using this yet again as an excuse to not want to pay more than $10/month for every tv show and movie ever made, but that's not sustainable. It was obvious from the start that folks who wanted to cut the cord and buy content piecemeal would just have essentially a Comcast subscription with 1/10th of the channels, for the same price in the end.
Folks are just using this yet again as an excuse to not want to pay more than $10/month for every tv show and movie ever made
This is absolutely not accurate.
These streaming services lock you into a specific catalogue of their curated material. There is absolutely no way the statement you made about having access to everything is true. It's also especially less true if you're not living in the US. For example if you're a foreigner in a or regoin country, you're access to certain content is often limited.
With p2p sharing, none of this is a blocker.
Then there are other strange developments, let's take the fact that nearly every good album on Spotify now has only the "Remastered" or "Deluxe" editions available for streaming. I don't remember that being part of the deal when signing up. Now I'm forced to listen to sub-par versions of albums.
Who knows, maybe in 40 years will be thanking people who preserved Terrabytes of original content for the world to access?
Of course it isn't, because it is illegal and free.
> "Remastered" or "Deluxe" editions available for streaming. I don't remember that being part of the deal when signing up. Now I'm forced to listen to sub-par versions of albums.
This has nothing to do with Spotify, it is for example when the entire Led Zeppelin original master tapes get remastered in the studio by the label, and they re-release old mono albums or older albums in a better fidelity format then when they were recorded years ago thanks to technological progress.