[BossingAround]

If the streaming services did this, I'd probably have pretty much all of them. Then, instead of paying monthly, you essentially have a tab open with everyone, and you pay for whatever you stream.

Indeed, this would make me way less annoyed at the thousand and one streaming services popping up like mushrooms after a rainy day.

[scott_w]

I... really like this idea. It's an interesting problem and something that a challenger service could possibly use (assuming they can resolve potential cash flow issues around content licensing). From an incumbents' perspective, it's less desirable since the fact I already have Netflix, Crunchyroll, Amazon Prime, Apple TV makes me less inclined to add Disney+ or a new service to my list of monthly outgoings.

[joseda-hg]

There's a separate cash flow problem on doing this, a big chuck of the expected revenue comes from people that setup the subscription and forget about it

I tend to care lot less on keeping something like dropout even if I don't use it all the time (I like to think I contribute keeping it afloat, and watch it whenever), but I cancel other subscriptions a lot more aggresively (I've unsubbed/resubbed to Gamepass plenty of times specially when playing random stuff with friends, there's something nice of the exploratory playing you do when you don't need to care who has bought which game)

On the pattern I use dropout, they'd get a month or two of revenue out of me (Binge a couple of their limited runs and catch up on their staples) and zilch for the rest of the year even if I'm a happy customer

[ethbr1]

It's an interesting point, because it gets to when streaming services' content costs are paid.

Are they upfront? Or do they pay per view royalties at the end of a streaming period? Or likely mix of both, varying by each piece of content terms?

Hypothetically, if a streaming service structured most of their obligations in the form of post-view true-up's, they wouldn't have any problem doing this. And could make bank on the float between customer payment (first of month) and paying for their content (end of period).

[bobdvb]

For movies and series, there's a process called "Minimum Commit" where the media companies have to commit to spend $X for a bundle of content that includes both the content you want to sell and a random selection of crap to pad out the offering. Then it depends on the deal, but often the amount that each item is watched then contributes to the royalties cost. The relative exclusivity you might want will then dictate the overall cost and royalties returned.

For sports it's different, typically you bid for the right to own a geographic market and the games are sometimes split into bundles where you can bid for one or all bundles depending on how deep your pockets are. You'll then get to keep exclusive or non-exclusive rights for a certain number of years. You'll then pay annually/quarterly for that right at the total bid package for the term of the deal (e.g. 5 years). Depending on the contract you might be able to re-sell that right to other companies as well, which dilutes your audience, but may increase the distribution overall.

Then aside from the rights, you end up paying infrastructure costs both fixed and variable. You also generally commit to CDN capacity for distribution based on a forecast of how much you think your customers will watch in any quarter.

[ethbr1]

Fascinating! Thanks! I figured someone here would know modern practice.

I was flummoxed the other day when I talked with someone who was a content equity trader -- I didn't even realize that class of finance existed.

[scarface_74]

Streaming services mostly pay for licensed content up front. That’s why video streaming is much more like a traditional tech company - high up front costs with very low marginal costs compared to streaming music companies where their costs stream linearly with their revenues

[basch]

Pay for what you use streaming exists. I don't think it would work here. Paying a large sum and dividing it up by what you watch is basically back to cable tv, just with a little smarter more immediate billing -> analytics feedback for hollywood.

A change I think is necessary for consumers however is deduplication of content payments. If you subscribe to multiple services, youre paying for a license to some content multiple times, sometimes many times.

What I would like to see is more like Kagi Fair Pricing, a master payment account (like prime or movies anywhere) that has access to all your accounts, cross references where you are paying for a title multiple times, and offers a refund or credit.

[huhtenberg]

It's a very slippery path towards per-watch pricing with "rent this episode for just $0.99"... and that will be horrible.

[naniwaduni]

The problems with per-watch pricing most come down to requiring a conscious decision each time they use your service, when you'd prefer that they be indifferent at most margins so that they don't have to be regularly reminded that oh, yeah, the amount of money they're spending on this darn this thing actually varies with how they use it.

Largely this breaks down into two salient factors:

- the friction of the transaction itself, which you largely shed when the consumer already has already agreed to be billed on usage, and

- metering aversion, which can be alleviated with a wide range of cheap tricks, e.g. using very coarse quantization: think not "rent this episode for just $0.99", but "rent up to 50 episodes this month for just $9.99". But the extreme of this is what you actually see: one price for any usage of the service at all, which ... is a popular pricing model at consumer scales because it works?

[yreg]

Give it a reasonable enough price (0.99 per episode is too expensive) and add a monthly cap (can be a bit higher than the current subscription) and you've got me as a customer.

[scarface_74]

Digital rentals for movies have been a thing since 2006 with the first video iPod and still is. Apple tried that with TV shows. But no one wanted it.

[samspot]

At the rate I watch, this would save me money.

[schnable]

You can do this now with all the On-demand stores. But it quickly becomes more economical to buy a bundle.

[mvieira38]

I wouldn't mind tbh, it's way better than ads and would keep me from watching bad content

[PcChip]

Why would you otherwise watch bad content?

[lotsofpulp]

Why is that horrible?