The whole thing, mess even though I feel that's way too strong of a term here, is at the feet of the studios. They made it. They're who dug the hole, dropped themselves into it, and filled it in...
Exemplary
The whole thing, mess even though I feel that's way too strong of a term here, is at the feet of the studios. They made it. They're who dug the hole, dropped themselves into it, and filled it in up to their necks and beyond.
Back in the 00s, Netflix was considered this cute little thing that was adding a little to the studio bottom line by licensing shows. It was basically a new syndication outlet. Then they (studios) started reading about Netflix's growth, and how much they were raking in on subscriptions. And thought, inevitably as capitalists do, "we should get in on that."
Netflix, very wisely and cleverly, saw the writing on the wall. Their business model depends (then and now) on having material available to stream to consumers. When studios started making noises about wanting their piece of that pie, Netflix got into the content creation business. To safeguard their business. Before they just licensed stuff, but when studios wanted to stop licensing, Netflix could either die, or make content. Obviously they chose to make content.
Before, Netflix was just modern TV on demand. You liked The Office or Friends or whatever, Netflix might have it. After, studios were yanking licenses and spinning up their own services. And rather than just stick with their back catalogues, they wanted to make waves and entice customers. So they started spending and spending and spending on streaming content. Digging that hole.
Would they have spent the kind of money on TV they decided to for their streaming? Old-school traditional TV outlets? No. Not regularly anyway. Maybe a prestige event series, occasionally, but not everything. And the networks would have been paying, which was being supported by advertising. Which, we now know, is dropping because it turns out (insert surprise face here) people really fucking hate trying to watch their shows with advertising jammed in interrupting it.
Disney, probably Warner Bros, and probably Comcast (who own NBC/Universal) have the back catalog to hook up a service to. But this thing where they spent a billion, or billions, in a year producing new content just for their streaming service ... how did they think that was going to end? If my math is right, at twenty bucks a pop, you need fifty million subscriber months to pay back a billion dollars. Which wouldn't even include the cost of actually running the service, just the content cost.
We're not quite in the dawn of a TV new age anymore, but we're in the messy mid morning of that age I think. Where you've had your coffee, but the sugar rush from breakfast is wearing off, and it's Monday anyway so you're grumpy from the weekend being over. And the boss is knocking on your door screaming about the meeting you're dreading. That's where TV is right now.
Advertising is gone, unless streaming manages to successfully hook the majority of consumers into ad supported streaming plans. Which doesn't necessarily look like a sure bet. The services want it though, because capitalism. More. More money. Advertising is more money from the same subscribers. Marketers are like lobbyists; always ready to sit down with you and explain how you can fuck up what you've been doing without issue just to get more.
If, it turns out, most consumers will sign up for a service plan that includes ads along with the stream ... okay I guess. I mean, I wouldn't sign up for that, but I hate ads passionately. But we're talking about averages and the unwashed masses, and maybe they might.
But if they don't, TV as we know it is down to the collective income that can be derived from the monthly subscription, plus whatever sponsorships and tie-ins and marketing schemes the services can hook in.
Apple and Amazon, for example, sort of look like they're doing their services more or less to support their mainline business models. And Amazon bought MGM, probably specifically so they'd have something of a back catalog to depend on. That was the value of MGM, their catalog, and Amazon controls it. For now, Apple seems quite content to focus on well funded genre content, which is positioning them as a new-age HBO of sorts, and there's no particular reason they can't afford to keep doing it. The only real danger there would be that some bean counter in Apple decides the money being spent on Apple tv is "wasted" and cuts it back. But, again, Apple clearly can afford it.
But the rest of the TV market needs to tighten their belts. Netflix is winning because even they managed to not go completely nuts with spending. They ramped it up, sure, but they had the subscriber base to do it with. The other services were going with the tech playbook of loss leader, pouring money down the bottomless pit hoping to fill it and rise to profits. Which hasn't worked because, again, you can't spend a billion with a b dollars a year on content hoping to make it back on subscriptions.
They're all going to have to dial it back. I saw Anson Mount at a convention this past summer, while the strike was going on, and he said something I haven't forgotten. And it appears to be coming true only months later. The entire industry has been spending and spending and spending, on borrowed money. And they're all terrified about those loan payments coming due. He said there would be a huge realignment that was going to be ugly, and that's definitely what's starting to happen.
Where will the money come from? Well it seems clear old style TV is dying, and will probably be a cute little afterthought within the next ten to twenty years. Streaming seems to be the new model. But it also seems kind of clear the market can't support twenty some-odd different streaming services, all at 10 to 30(?) bucks each, per month.
The littlest ones will die, poof. Some will manage to merge. A handful will survive, either alone or via merges. But they'll all have to live within their means. No more stocking the entire slate with prestige budget projects.
For decades, TV meant "low cost." You didn't spent tens of millions of dollars on an episode of TV. You might not even spend tens of millions on the entire 24 episode season.
And that was when there were three, three, networks that divided the viewing public between them, backed by advertising, and saw their ratings counted in the tens of millions of viewers per hour of prime time. When a prestige network event saw hundreds of millions of viewers glued to that hour of TV. For example, the MASH finale in 83 had 105million tune in. Seinfeld in 98 got 76mil. Friends six years later got 52million. The OJ Bronco chase in 94 pulled 95million people.
A meteor would have to level New York for a TV network to get those kinds of ratings now, as everyone tuned into watch the aftermath. Modern shows don't command viewership in those numbers.
I like slick looking shows as much as the next guy. But they're all spending way, way too much. Dial it back. Go back to the "special two parter" kind of episodes, mixed in amid the less expensive ones. Take Strange New Worlds for example.
The rumor is it's running as much as $9mil per ep. Sure the eps look great, movie quality, but something's gotta give. Would I draw a line, would most fans draw a line in the sand, that says this quality or nothing? I bet not. I really bet not. And we're getting ten episodes, every eighteen to twenty four months. Used to be, you could count on 24 starting every September, running through May with an irritating dead zone around the holidays.
Star Trek Next Generation famously included a scene in the pilot set in the engineering room, because the producers found/figured out they probably couldn't afford to build that set if they didn't already have it. For TV in general, used to be you had a few sets (which was why genre stuff was more expensive; you couldn't just film in known reality but had to make it from the ground up), hired your actors, hired your writer's room, staffed the production, and you were off and running. Week in, week out, cranking out the show.
Genre famously cost more because it did cost more. A cop or medical drama never had that big "special effects" line item. Babylon 5's JMS, on numerous occasions, talked about how he would fill in "little" episodes to save budget for the "big wham" episodes that needed effects. That mentality needs to come back to TV production.
Strange New Worlds would be my example of a show that needs to dial it back. TNG and DS9 and the others are beloved, even though compared to modern Trek they look like hillbilly cousins. If SNW is going for $70-90million a season, either dial that back or stretch out the run time. The sets and cast are probably half, about half, the total production cost. Use that.
They could take four of their $8-9 mil episodes and turn them into sixteen modestly priced episodes. Where they lean on the writing and the actors, on sets they already have. Where they don't splash expensive CGI and hugely complicated practical effects across the screen. Where they don't do movie style shoots with dozens of takes per scene. And so on.
Some of the most memorable Treks had little or no effects. Inner Light is one of the best Trek stories of all time, and it's the bridge set, and then a sandy village plus a flute, filled with some day player actors to fill scenes for Patrick Stewart. Measure of a Man is a courtroom drama, so they needed the regular sets plus a "space courtroom" and then, wait for it, used writing and their cast to make the magic happen.
Money doesn't mean TV is great. Money gets headlines, but right now the money in the headlines is "bankruptcy" for the studios. Spend less, make the money go further, and stretch seasons back out. They want subscribers to stick with them longer anyway. I hate ads, and vastly prefer the binge model (to the point that I basically wait for the show to finish before I go looking, so I can binge it), but a lot of people like that social media effect where they watch weekly and then wade into the comment chains.
If the goal is to keep subscribers, stretch the seasons back out. A SNW (or any show) with twenty episodes, instead of eight or ten, holds onto more subscribers longer. Right now, that seems insane since the studios have somehow managed to convince themselves subscribers will only watch expensive shows full of movie budget level content. But if they stop spending six to ten million per episode, and go back to writing and actors rather than spectacle (which was always the playing card movies had), I really think that'll do what they want.
Keep people tuning in. People like actors, and good writing. People like interesting stories. Effects don't make a story great. Effects make a good story better, frame it more interestingly; but shit writing is still shit writing. For what a fraction of SNW spends on ten episodes of effects, they could keep the writer's room fully staffed and putting out great episodes for the production to film.
Basically, TV needs to be brought back. Even if it's streaming, it's still TV. Treat it like TV.
I really started getting into k-dramas a couple years ago and frankly haven't felt a single urge to watch any Hollywood stuff I've been seeing out recently. K-dramas just have a very effective...
But if they stop spending six to ten million per episode, and go back to writing and actors rather than spectacle (which was always the playing card movies had), I really think that'll do what they want.
Keep people tuning in. People like actors, and good writing. People like interesting stories.
I really started getting into k-dramas a couple years ago and frankly haven't felt a single urge to watch any Hollywood stuff I've been seeing out recently. K-dramas just have a very effective format that I really dig. They tend to be around 16 episodes on average. While the genres definitely have very dialed-in tropes, a lot of the stories themselves still end up approaching those tropes creatively. And the acting can be absolutely phenomenal. Stories also aren't strictly beholden to a single genre. Fantasy stories can have romcom elements. Romcoms can have murder mystery side plots. There's a lot of interplay with the k-pop scene as well, with big music groups contributing to soundtracks, and idols getting into acting.
Another major aspect I appreciate about it is that k-dramas tend to wrap up stories in a single season. Occasionally, they might run for 2. But the stories are written with an ending in mind, and loose ends tend to get wrapped up neatly. Contrast this with the trend in US productions to end seasons with a giant question mark and no guarantee of a continuation.
That goes hand-in-hand with the amount of volume. For big hit actors who are popular at the moment, it's common for them to be in multiple projects per year. So instead of watching a show and being left wondering if and when a season 2 comes out, I end up just searching for the actors I like and finding other projects they're in. And invariably, while watching other shows I will end up finding more actors I like, and searching for more works they've been in. It makes for a very engaging cycle of consumption.
Lastly, the writing quality can be fantastic. Not all, for sure. But by and large, I've really enjoyed the various methods of storytelling. It seems like there's a lot more willingness to experiment with different ideas instead of just relying on tried-tested-trusted stuff that's been recycled so many times people are tired of watching it. Again, yes there are cookie cutter genre dramas (edit: these can still be worth watching because the different actors bring different characterizations to life, even if other plot devices are set in stone). But there's also a lot more that go out on a limb to try something wacky and end up blowing people away.
Netflix started getting pretty invested in the k-drama scene. I hope they learn from the methods. At present though, it seems like they're more interested in trying to get k-drama productions to adapt to netflix's methods (many get trimmed down to less than 10 episodes and it's not in a good way, leaving massive voids in the story that are noticeably absent) instead of taking lessons of success from k-drama production methods.
To be fair, the ending of Squid Game S1 was almost completely neat with a bowtie and everything. The "cliffhanger" seems more tacked on than anything else. Could be studio interference.
To be fair, the ending of Squid Game S1 was almost completely neat with a bowtie and everything. The "cliffhanger" seems more tacked on than anything else. Could be studio interference.
There are a handful of dramas that run for 2, or very rarely 3 seasons. From what I've seen, it's usually planned for that duration from the beginning. Squid Game ended on somewhat of a...
There are a handful of dramas that run for 2, or very rarely 3 seasons. From what I've seen, it's usually planned for that duration from the beginning. Squid Game ended on somewhat of a cliffhanger. It is also getting more common for a single drama to be split into Part 1 and Part 2, differentiated from full seasons of 16 episodes. The Glory is a good example. Aired in 2 parts of 8 episodes, totaling 16. Death's Game is very recent one that tried out a format of 2 parts of 4 episodes.
edit: To clarify, "I hope they learn from the methods" was intended to mean Netflix learning from k-dramas. Not sure if that came across clearly.
I'm an extremely causal Trek watcher but I know exactly what episodes these are: I would sooner re-watch each of these and maybe try to watch all of TNG before I pay for a single episode of shiny...
Some of the most memorable Treks had little or no effects. Inner Light is one of the best Trek stories of all time, and it's the bridge set, and then a sandy village plus a flute, filled with some day player actors to fill scenes for Patrick Stewart. Measure of a Man is a courtroom drama, so they needed the regular sets plus a "space courtroom" and then, wait for it, used writing and their cast to make the magic happen.
I'm an extremely causal Trek watcher but I know exactly what episodes these are: I would sooner re-watch each of these and maybe try to watch all of TNG before I pay for a single episode of shiny soulness garbage.
People like actors, and good writing.
The studio's unfortunately learned entirely the wrong lesson from Season 1 Game Of Thrones. It had the best story of any season, but they through we tuned in to watch big monsters and CG dragon and armies cutting each other up.
And they will go forward with the wrong lesson: replace all the humans, cut writers further, more shiny garbage, LLM scripts, generated images, starve the effects teams....
That's okay, new independent writers, short film makers artists and musicians have never been more empowered than now to publish their own content. If Netflix survives, they'll still have enough money to sponsor 100 x $100,000 new shows every year.
I want Netflix to start giving $100,000 grants to self-made YouTubers to produce movies/TV. Give it to people that have proven they know what they're doing and can make something entirely on their...
I want Netflix to start giving $100,000 grants to self-made YouTubers to produce movies/TV. Give it to people that have proven they know what they're doing and can make something entirely on their own.
Lately I have been watching Young Sheldon and I find it rather baffling how they decide to spend the budget. It’s supposed to be a sitcom - a genre with famously limited locations and budgets -...
Lately I have been watching Young Sheldon and I find it rather baffling how they decide to spend the budget. It’s supposed to be a sitcom - a genre with famously limited locations and budgets - and yet the second season has fantasy segments where the characters are all given fancy costumes and are in a green-screened CGI set. I just have to wonder why they chose to do that. Does it really make the show better? The drastic change in tone and visuals takes you out of whatever state you were in before.
Everything's a bit of a mixed bag; there's a real lack of consistency in the quality of certain aspects. It's a fairly formulaic show so there's not really an overarching plot, through the last...
Everything's a bit of a mixed bag; there's a real lack of consistency in the quality of certain aspects. It's a fairly formulaic show so there's not really an overarching plot, through the last few episodes of the first season following into the first few episodes are introducing a new character that all start with a "Previously on Young Sheldon" segment because they break the format and refer to previous episodes.
Most of the appeal to me is the Radio Shack nostalgia and the cuteness of young kids being dorks, but it does have other appealing things about it. It also has a lot of "Texas vibes" that occasionally remind me of King of the Hills.
I've seen a lot of comments with this sentiment, and I disagree. To me, it seems like things have gotten significantly better overall if you don't forget that we are transitioning from cable tv...
I've seen a lot of comments with this sentiment, and I disagree. To me, it seems like things have gotten significantly better overall if you don't forget that we are transitioning from cable tv (which still exists with 76 million subscribers, according to wikipedia).
Sure, there was a short time when netflix had a massive catalog of nearly everything, but that was never really going to be sustainable in the long run. We know that $10-15/month is definitely not enough to support all that content if streaming is the primary delivery method. We know Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, and Peacock are all reporting significant losses. So it's likely that if we just had one streaming service with everything, it would probably cost roughly as much as all of them combined anyway. Based on this, I feel like the current ecosystem of streaming services is pretty good.
Back in the day when everyone had cable, everyone on the internet was clamoring for "a la carte" options, where we could pick the types of channels we wanted to subscribe to. A big one among the nerds was something like avoiding sports channels, since ESPN alone was known to be a significant proportion of your bill. Now we kind of have that in streaming form. I can subscribe to various services easily, and I can unsubscribe almost as easily. I'm not stuck in contracts like cable used to force on you. I can buy the sports package during football season, and I can stop paying for it when the season is over. I can subscribe to a service for just one month to watch the movies and shows I'm interested in, then rotate out to a difference service the next month.
Yeah I think the issue is actually that consumers won a bit too much, to the point where literally everyone in the industry lost money. The streaming companies besides Netflix lost insane amounts...
Yeah I think the issue is actually that consumers won a bit too much, to the point where literally everyone in the industry lost money. The streaming companies besides Netflix lost insane amounts of money, actors lost money, writers lost money. I’ve watched all the TV and movies I’ve wanted to and haven’t paid more than $10/month. I usually only watch a single series at a time, so I subscribe to whichever one has it, cancel at the same time so it doesn’t auto renew, and get on with my life.
If I compare that to prestreaming costs it’s not even close. Even besides cable, I often had to rent or buy DVDs for old content. A handful of dvd rentals would cost more than what I currently pay for a month.
I agree. I think that consumer price expectations are too low. The streaming era and the drying up of viewer money means that productions have to be leaner. Just in another Tildes thread about...
I agree. I think that consumer price expectations are too low.
The streaming era and the drying up of viewer money means that productions have to be leaner. Just in another Tildes thread about dubbing vs subtitles, the Vox article notes that films used to have dubbing turnaround times of 6 to 8 weeks in 1997; now they get mere days from Netflix.
I imagine that this affects other areas of production too: smaller budgets, much more rushed schedules.
The problem is that even if we spent cable-levels of money to get streaming stuff, due to the way things are price structured, only publishers and distributers see a real benefit. Residuals go...
The problem is that even if we spent cable-levels of money to get streaming stuff, due to the way things are price structured, only publishers and distributers see a real benefit. Residuals go poof.
I saw a indie music streaming site that seems to have a fair model: Resonate
Essentially you pay $0.0025 for the first time you stream a song. Every time you stream it, the price goes up. After you've paid about $1.40 total for the song, you own it and can stream for free.
I could see that applied to TV shows easily...the first 2 episodes of a season are free, increase by $0.10/episode, after you've paid $10 for a season you own it. Movies would have a tougher time adopting a model like this....but if Redbox is any indication $1 per full play would be reasonable.
Kind of, but that's usually because usage based billing is designed to screw over the customer the most. Although I know (and am one of) many people who loved data bank cellphone plans...where...
Kind of, but that's usually because usage based billing is designed to screw over the customer the most.
Although I know (and am one of) many people who loved data bank cellphone plans...where unused data rolled over to the next month....funny how those mostly evaporated.
Maybe something like paying a $10/mo subscription, where $8 goes towards your credit bank and $2/mo is 'insurance' in case your bank runs out.
No, it's because no one likes having to make micro-decisions all the time. You want to open up Netflix and relax, not think "hm, is it worth it to watch this movie when I have to pay $1.50 to it?...
No, it's because no one likes having to make micro-decisions all the time. You want to open up Netflix and relax, not think "hm, is it worth it to watch this movie when I have to pay $1.50 to it? I'm probably just going to watch it like 15 minutes... oh wait, but I remember, this is the fourth time I've watched it, so if I watch it again, I don't have to anymore... does that change the calculus... hmm...".
I guess, but I'd treat it a lot more like my toll booth provided rates were reasonable. We used to pay $5 a day to rent a movie from the video rental store. I hardly blink at $2 streaming rentals...
I guess, but I'd treat it a lot more like my toll booth provided rates were reasonable.
We used to pay $5 a day to rent a movie from the video rental store. I hardly blink at $2 streaming rentals these days...if they were integrated into Netflix and my rate was $10 less a month I'd be down for that.
I think the problem is more psychological. On paper, I love (well implemented) usage-based billing. In practice however, I don't like every interaction with a service tainted by the thoughts about...
I think the problem is more psychological. On paper, I love (well implemented) usage-based billing. In practice however, I don't like every interaction with a service tainted by the thoughts about whether it is worth the added cost it will incur, even if that cost is essentially negligible. In the case of streaming, it would make my choice paralysis even worse.
Back in the early to mid 2000's, I had this exact problem with text plans. I knew that, given my usage, a text at $.10 each was cheaper than a $5/mo unlimited plan. But I still could see that dime...
Back in the early to mid 2000's, I had this exact problem with text plans. I knew that, given my usage, a text at $.10 each was cheaper than a $5/mo unlimited plan. But I still could see that dime every time I hit send. I think eventually the plan structure changed so it became part of unlimited talk and text.
Off topic, but it is wild to think how much my usage patterns have changed. I remember being into calling plans for 100s of minutes a month, and now I barely ever call anyone. And sending fewer than 50 text messages a month....
Do you feel that the news about WWE coming to Netflix for $5 billion over the next 10 years reflects and maintains your stance? Why wasn't that sustainable? The only reason I can think is that...
Back in the day when everyone had cable, everyone on the internet was clamoring for "a la carte" options, where we could pick the types of channels we wanted to subscribe to. A big one among the nerds was something like avoiding sports channels, since ESPN alone was known to be a significant proportion of your bill. Now we kind of have that in streaming form.
Do you feel that the news about WWE coming to Netflix for $5 billion over the next 10 years reflects and maintains your stance?
Sure, there was a short time when netflix had a massive catalog of nearly everything, but that was never really going to be sustainable in the long run.
Why wasn't that sustainable? The only reason I can think is that because Disney, HBO, NBCUniversal and the like wanted more. They are all gambling big on the question of how high they can raise prices after getting users hooked.
Two reasons. First, that Netflix catalogue was never as comprehensive as people remember it being. It was populated primarily with second-run shows. You wouldn't see a new season of Breaking Bad...
Why wasn't that sustainable? The only reason I can think is that because Disney, HBO, NBCUniversal and the like wanted more. They are all gambling big on the question of how high they can raise prices after getting users hooked.
Two reasons.
First, that Netflix catalogue was never as comprehensive as people remember it being. It was populated primarily with second-run shows. You wouldn't see a new season of Breaking Bad or Parks and Rec on Netflix until a year or so after it already premiered on cable/network TV. So the thing you wanted to "keep" never really existed in the way you likely remember.
That leads into the second reason: Because Netflix was not footing the bill for the actual production of their content, their library was comparatively cheap. Outside the most popular shows like The Office, Netflix was paying considerably less to license a given series than its initial production budget.
I'll add a third reason: Cheap debt afforded by perpetually low interest rates after the 2008 recession. It was easy for tech companies like Netflix to under-price their product in the name of growing their userbase as fast as possible.
That's certainly true, but it wasn't that big of a deal IMHO. I watched new seasons when they were available, not when they were broadcast on TV. Netflix having the old seasons of Succession, Ted...
First, that Netflix catalogue was never as comprehensive as people remember it being. It was populated primarily with second-run shows. You wouldn't see a new season of Breaking Bad or Parks and Rec on Netflix until a year or so after it already premiered on cable/network TV. So the thing you wanted to "keep" never really existed in the way you likely remember.
That's certainly true, but it wasn't that big of a deal IMHO. I watched new seasons when they were available, not when they were broadcast on TV.
Netflix having the old seasons of Succession, Ted Lasso, etc. would make it much, much better in 2024.
That leads into the second reason: Because Netflix was not footing the bill for the actual production of their content, their library was comparatively cheap. Outside the most popular shows like The Office, Netflix was paying considerably less to license a given series than its initial production budget.
This is right on the money. Netflix was ancillery revenue for Networks that had already made a good profit on the shows. It was comparable to selling DVD box sets.
Ultimately the old model could only be made sustainable if most people continued to watch cable/network TV. Once people started cutting the cord, the business had to change.
Ultimately the old model could only be made sustainable if most people continued to watch cable/network TV. Once people started cutting the cord, the business had to change.
Think about how much people were paying for content before streaming, then think about how much Netflix was charging in the good era (~$10/month), and you'll see that all the production companies...
Think about how much people were paying for content before streaming, then think about how much Netflix was charging in the good era (~$10/month), and you'll see that all the production companies would have had to increase the licensing costs so much to match the same revenue they were losing that Netflix's price increases would have been drastic. 5-10x.
You're right; they made a bet and they're losing that bet right now as the OP's article alludes to. The cost of running the distribution side too when they don't have experience in software makes their attempt to compete unprofitable. Maybe we'll find a middleground, but a sustainable rate could never have stayed at $10/month for a lot of content.
Except that's not what the current streaming ecosystem is. It's a series of a la carte options of what streaming rights a particular company has at the moment. That sometimes lines up with there...
Back in the day when everyone had cable, everyone on the internet was clamoring for "a la carte" options, where we could pick the types of channels we wanted to subscribe to.
Except that's not what the current streaming ecosystem is. It's a series of a la carte options of what streaming rights a particular company has at the moment. That sometimes lines up with there being a trend on a particular platform, but with the exception of Disney no service is all that cohesive. And even that is simply because they only host their own content.
It's gotten to the point where if you want to watch an entire movie series, or for really bad examples like Pokemon, a single TV series, you have to jump between several different platforms. Either ones that you already pay for or presumably sign up for once you track down where the sequel you want to watch is. If you want to go back and watch the same thing months or years later you have to track down who currently has the rights to it all over again.
Streaming services only briefly competed on features and usability. I believe there were a few ultimately unsuccessful attempts to have "horror" platform or the like. Now they're only competing on the particular pieces of media they have for the current month. That's not a consumer "win".
Not only was it not sustainable, their library was never as comprehensive as people remember it to be. Early Netflix streaming subsisted off sloppy seconds from broadcast and cable networks. With...
Sure, there was a short time when netflix had a massive catalog of nearly everything, but that was never really going to be sustainable in the long run.
Not only was it not sustainable, their library was never as comprehensive as people remember it to be. Early Netflix streaming subsisted off sloppy seconds from broadcast and cable networks. With only a tiny handful of exceptions, Netflix was running old episodes. A new season of something you liked would air on NBC or AMC, but it wouldn't make it to Netflix until a year later.
These shows made their real money on broadcast/cable, cheap licensing of reruns to Netflix was just gravy. I don't know how people expected the transition to streaming as the new de facto means of distribution to not also result in a substantial rise in costs, reduction in quantity, or a mix of both.
When you take their DVD service into account, they had a really excellent library. But even their streaming-only library felt larger than it does today because they had great discoverability back...
When you take their DVD service into account, they had a really excellent library.
But even their streaming-only library felt larger than it does today because they had great discoverability back then. It was much easier to find older or more obscure media, and they had a kickass recommendation system.
Same. The "streaming wars", which are really just all these streaming companies knowing they can get away with squeezing us if they all raise prices at the same time (seriously, almost ALL of them...
Same. The "streaming wars", which are really just all these streaming companies knowing they can get away with squeezing us if they all raise prices at the same time (seriously, almost ALL of them raised prices over the last 2 years, despite pricing on many services being the same for years before), is just killing me. It's no longer worth the convenience. I used to be able to pay $80 between a few different services to get everything I wanted (which included sports because I'm a sports nerd) and 2 months ago, I think I was up to $130 between several services. I canceled everything and went back to torrents and streams. I bought a Fire Cube so that I can have a web browser on my TV for streaming and for better in-home streaming via plex and it already paid for itself in a single month (somewhat ironic I bought a streaming box and the only streaming apps I really use are youtube and crunchyroll lol, but it fit my web browser and plex needs).
Yep, I had dropped it for a while. But with streaming becoming more and more like the cable TV subscriptions that I left for streaming in the first place, I fired my NAS and Usenet services back...
Yep, I had dropped it for a while. But with streaming becoming more and more like the cable TV subscriptions that I left for streaming in the first place, I fired my NAS and Usenet services back up and now I'm back to downloads and local streaming via Plex.
You can get a ton of entertainment by picking 2 or 3 streaming services and then renting a movie here and there that isn't on the services you want. Netflix: 22.99 Max: 19.99 2 movie rentals: 3.99...
You can get a ton of entertainment by picking 2 or 3 streaming services and then renting a movie here and there that isn't on the services you want.
Netflix: 22.99
Max: 19.99
2 movie rentals: 3.99 * 2
Total: 50.96 plus taxes
And I picked the most expensive plans on the expensive services. Peacock is frequently $26/year on sale. You may not need 2 movie rentals every month either. Compare this with cable: what were people paying for cable back in the day? Was on-demand streaming a thing? 4K quality with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos?
People want a la carte, on-demand, quality apps, better paid writers/crew, and access to decades worth of back catalog, but even when presented with a price less than what people were paying ten/twenty years ago before accounting for inflation, there's still this notion that we're owed more.
Disney’s decision to license more TV shows to Netflix this year marks a turning point in the expensive battle for supremacy in online streaming. Under pressure to stem losses, entertainment companies are opting to sell more of their content to Netflix. By waiting out its rivals, Netflix has eclipsed them.
I know the popular sentiment is to shit on Netflix, but it's the only service I have and it gets used everyday in my household, mostly by my kids. I don't use it too often, but when I do, I can...
I know the popular sentiment is to shit on Netflix, but it's the only service I have and it gets used everyday in my household, mostly by my kids.
I don't use it too often, but when I do, I can usually find something to watch, especially because I'm not in the habit of binge watching stuff, as I just don't have the time.
That said, I never stopped sailing the high seas. At this point, my own movie and TV collection is somewhere in the realm of 3Tb. I never stopped because it wasn't always the case, even when Netflix was at its best, that I could find what I wanted to watch. Even moreso these days, because I'm not going to subscribe to a dozen different services just to watch Star Trek TNG.
I also never stopped because I'm a..80s? 90s? Kid. I just assume my Internet/services might go down at any moment or be otherwise unavailable due to corporate manipulation, so I like having a vast library of stuff to choose from at any given time. I do the same with my music, where I regularly purchase entire albums from Bandcamp and Amazon to download and back up both on my server and have stored on my phone for listening any time.
My only subscription is to dropout.tv for a few bucks a month and will probably be my only subscription for 'tv' for everything else, there's the high seas. Which I probably pay equally as much...
My only subscription is to dropout.tv for a few bucks a month and will probably be my only subscription for 'tv' for everything else, there's the high seas.
Which I probably pay equally as much between powering the servers and storage but I want to horde a bit as I enjoy going back to watch stuff like shuffling thru a DVD collection as I never have to worry about it "going away" without a massive set of hdd death. Plus it's a bit of neat experience for my work side of life with setting it up in docker and setting up flow automation and hosting it all for friends and family.
I still have a bit more to do as I eventually want to tie in LLM subtitling via whisper for shows that can't be found with a subtitle and just be happy with it being 'good enough' plus some reducing in the size of the servers that things are running on and setting up a bit more in a docker swarm/k8 style as now it's a bit more dedicated things that just talk to one another with mild backup redundancies.
The whole thing, mess even though I feel that's way too strong of a term here, is at the feet of the studios. They made it. They're who dug the hole, dropped themselves into it, and filled it in up to their necks and beyond.
Back in the 00s, Netflix was considered this cute little thing that was adding a little to the studio bottom line by licensing shows. It was basically a new syndication outlet. Then they (studios) started reading about Netflix's growth, and how much they were raking in on subscriptions. And thought, inevitably as capitalists do, "we should get in on that."
Netflix, very wisely and cleverly, saw the writing on the wall. Their business model depends (then and now) on having material available to stream to consumers. When studios started making noises about wanting their piece of that pie, Netflix got into the content creation business. To safeguard their business. Before they just licensed stuff, but when studios wanted to stop licensing, Netflix could either die, or make content. Obviously they chose to make content.
Before, Netflix was just modern TV on demand. You liked The Office or Friends or whatever, Netflix might have it. After, studios were yanking licenses and spinning up their own services. And rather than just stick with their back catalogues, they wanted to make waves and entice customers. So they started spending and spending and spending on streaming content. Digging that hole.
Would they have spent the kind of money on TV they decided to for their streaming? Old-school traditional TV outlets? No. Not regularly anyway. Maybe a prestige event series, occasionally, but not everything. And the networks would have been paying, which was being supported by advertising. Which, we now know, is dropping because it turns out (insert surprise face here) people really fucking hate trying to watch their shows with advertising jammed in interrupting it.
Disney, probably Warner Bros, and probably Comcast (who own NBC/Universal) have the back catalog to hook up a service to. But this thing where they spent a billion, or billions, in a year producing new content just for their streaming service ... how did they think that was going to end? If my math is right, at twenty bucks a pop, you need fifty million subscriber months to pay back a billion dollars. Which wouldn't even include the cost of actually running the service, just the content cost.
We're not quite in the dawn of a TV new age anymore, but we're in the messy mid morning of that age I think. Where you've had your coffee, but the sugar rush from breakfast is wearing off, and it's Monday anyway so you're grumpy from the weekend being over. And the boss is knocking on your door screaming about the meeting you're dreading. That's where TV is right now.
Advertising is gone, unless streaming manages to successfully hook the majority of consumers into ad supported streaming plans. Which doesn't necessarily look like a sure bet. The services want it though, because capitalism. More. More money. Advertising is more money from the same subscribers. Marketers are like lobbyists; always ready to sit down with you and explain how you can fuck up what you've been doing without issue just to get more.
If, it turns out, most consumers will sign up for a service plan that includes ads along with the stream ... okay I guess. I mean, I wouldn't sign up for that, but I hate ads passionately. But we're talking about averages and the unwashed masses, and maybe they might.
But if they don't, TV as we know it is down to the collective income that can be derived from the monthly subscription, plus whatever sponsorships and tie-ins and marketing schemes the services can hook in.
Apple and Amazon, for example, sort of look like they're doing their services more or less to support their mainline business models. And Amazon bought MGM, probably specifically so they'd have something of a back catalog to depend on. That was the value of MGM, their catalog, and Amazon controls it. For now, Apple seems quite content to focus on well funded genre content, which is positioning them as a new-age HBO of sorts, and there's no particular reason they can't afford to keep doing it. The only real danger there would be that some bean counter in Apple decides the money being spent on Apple tv is "wasted" and cuts it back. But, again, Apple clearly can afford it.
But the rest of the TV market needs to tighten their belts. Netflix is winning because even they managed to not go completely nuts with spending. They ramped it up, sure, but they had the subscriber base to do it with. The other services were going with the tech playbook of loss leader, pouring money down the bottomless pit hoping to fill it and rise to profits. Which hasn't worked because, again, you can't spend a billion with a b dollars a year on content hoping to make it back on subscriptions.
They're all going to have to dial it back. I saw Anson Mount at a convention this past summer, while the strike was going on, and he said something I haven't forgotten. And it appears to be coming true only months later. The entire industry has been spending and spending and spending, on borrowed money. And they're all terrified about those loan payments coming due. He said there would be a huge realignment that was going to be ugly, and that's definitely what's starting to happen.
Where will the money come from? Well it seems clear old style TV is dying, and will probably be a cute little afterthought within the next ten to twenty years. Streaming seems to be the new model. But it also seems kind of clear the market can't support twenty some-odd different streaming services, all at 10 to 30(?) bucks each, per month.
The littlest ones will die, poof. Some will manage to merge. A handful will survive, either alone or via merges. But they'll all have to live within their means. No more stocking the entire slate with prestige budget projects.
For decades, TV meant "low cost." You didn't spent tens of millions of dollars on an episode of TV. You might not even spend tens of millions on the entire 24 episode season.
And that was when there were three, three, networks that divided the viewing public between them, backed by advertising, and saw their ratings counted in the tens of millions of viewers per hour of prime time. When a prestige network event saw hundreds of millions of viewers glued to that hour of TV. For example, the MASH finale in 83 had 105million tune in. Seinfeld in 98 got 76mil. Friends six years later got 52million. The OJ Bronco chase in 94 pulled 95million people.
A meteor would have to level New York for a TV network to get those kinds of ratings now, as everyone tuned into watch the aftermath. Modern shows don't command viewership in those numbers.
I like slick looking shows as much as the next guy. But they're all spending way, way too much. Dial it back. Go back to the "special two parter" kind of episodes, mixed in amid the less expensive ones. Take Strange New Worlds for example.
The rumor is it's running as much as $9mil per ep. Sure the eps look great, movie quality, but something's gotta give. Would I draw a line, would most fans draw a line in the sand, that says this quality or nothing? I bet not. I really bet not. And we're getting ten episodes, every eighteen to twenty four months. Used to be, you could count on 24 starting every September, running through May with an irritating dead zone around the holidays.
Star Trek Next Generation famously included a scene in the pilot set in the engineering room, because the producers found/figured out they probably couldn't afford to build that set if they didn't already have it. For TV in general, used to be you had a few sets (which was why genre stuff was more expensive; you couldn't just film in known reality but had to make it from the ground up), hired your actors, hired your writer's room, staffed the production, and you were off and running. Week in, week out, cranking out the show.
Genre famously cost more because it did cost more. A cop or medical drama never had that big "special effects" line item. Babylon 5's JMS, on numerous occasions, talked about how he would fill in "little" episodes to save budget for the "big wham" episodes that needed effects. That mentality needs to come back to TV production.
Strange New Worlds would be my example of a show that needs to dial it back. TNG and DS9 and the others are beloved, even though compared to modern Trek they look like hillbilly cousins. If SNW is going for $70-90million a season, either dial that back or stretch out the run time. The sets and cast are probably half, about half, the total production cost. Use that.
They could take four of their $8-9 mil episodes and turn them into sixteen modestly priced episodes. Where they lean on the writing and the actors, on sets they already have. Where they don't splash expensive CGI and hugely complicated practical effects across the screen. Where they don't do movie style shoots with dozens of takes per scene. And so on.
Some of the most memorable Treks had little or no effects. Inner Light is one of the best Trek stories of all time, and it's the bridge set, and then a sandy village plus a flute, filled with some day player actors to fill scenes for Patrick Stewart. Measure of a Man is a courtroom drama, so they needed the regular sets plus a "space courtroom" and then, wait for it, used writing and their cast to make the magic happen.
Money doesn't mean TV is great. Money gets headlines, but right now the money in the headlines is "bankruptcy" for the studios. Spend less, make the money go further, and stretch seasons back out. They want subscribers to stick with them longer anyway. I hate ads, and vastly prefer the binge model (to the point that I basically wait for the show to finish before I go looking, so I can binge it), but a lot of people like that social media effect where they watch weekly and then wade into the comment chains.
If the goal is to keep subscribers, stretch the seasons back out. A SNW (or any show) with twenty episodes, instead of eight or ten, holds onto more subscribers longer. Right now, that seems insane since the studios have somehow managed to convince themselves subscribers will only watch expensive shows full of movie budget level content. But if they stop spending six to ten million per episode, and go back to writing and actors rather than spectacle (which was always the playing card movies had), I really think that'll do what they want.
Keep people tuning in. People like actors, and good writing. People like interesting stories. Effects don't make a story great. Effects make a good story better, frame it more interestingly; but shit writing is still shit writing. For what a fraction of SNW spends on ten episodes of effects, they could keep the writer's room fully staffed and putting out great episodes for the production to film.
Basically, TV needs to be brought back. Even if it's streaming, it's still TV. Treat it like TV.
I really started getting into k-dramas a couple years ago and frankly haven't felt a single urge to watch any Hollywood stuff I've been seeing out recently. K-dramas just have a very effective format that I really dig. They tend to be around 16 episodes on average. While the genres definitely have very dialed-in tropes, a lot of the stories themselves still end up approaching those tropes creatively. And the acting can be absolutely phenomenal. Stories also aren't strictly beholden to a single genre. Fantasy stories can have romcom elements. Romcoms can have murder mystery side plots. There's a lot of interplay with the k-pop scene as well, with big music groups contributing to soundtracks, and idols getting into acting.
Another major aspect I appreciate about it is that k-dramas tend to wrap up stories in a single season. Occasionally, they might run for 2. But the stories are written with an ending in mind, and loose ends tend to get wrapped up neatly. Contrast this with the trend in US productions to end seasons with a giant question mark and no guarantee of a continuation.
That goes hand-in-hand with the amount of volume. For big hit actors who are popular at the moment, it's common for them to be in multiple projects per year. So instead of watching a show and being left wondering if and when a season 2 comes out, I end up just searching for the actors I like and finding other projects they're in. And invariably, while watching other shows I will end up finding more actors I like, and searching for more works they've been in. It makes for a very engaging cycle of consumption.
Lastly, the writing quality can be fantastic. Not all, for sure. But by and large, I've really enjoyed the various methods of storytelling. It seems like there's a lot more willingness to experiment with different ideas instead of just relying on tried-tested-trusted stuff that's been recycled so many times people are tired of watching it. Again, yes there are cookie cutter genre dramas (edit: these can still be worth watching because the different actors bring different characterizations to life, even if other plot devices are set in stone). But there's also a lot more that go out on a limb to try something wacky and end up blowing people away.
Netflix started getting pretty invested in the k-drama scene. I hope they learn from the methods. At present though, it seems like they're more interested in trying to get k-drama productions to adapt to netflix's methods (many get trimmed down to less than 10 episodes and it's not in a good way, leaving massive voids in the story that are noticeably absent) instead of taking lessons of success from k-drama production methods.
Well, last I checked they're making Squid Game 2, right? Even though the original had wrapped up everything in a neat bow already.
To be fair, the ending of Squid Game S1 was almost completely neat with a bowtie and everything. The "cliffhanger" seems more tacked on than anything else. Could be studio interference.
The squid game game show was a lot of fun. I was addicted to that. I would love a lot more seasons of that.
There are a handful of dramas that run for 2, or very rarely 3 seasons. From what I've seen, it's usually planned for that duration from the beginning. Squid Game ended on somewhat of a cliffhanger. It is also getting more common for a single drama to be split into Part 1 and Part 2, differentiated from full seasons of 16 episodes. The Glory is a good example. Aired in 2 parts of 8 episodes, totaling 16. Death's Game is very recent one that tried out a format of 2 parts of 4 episodes.
edit: To clarify, "I hope they learn from the methods" was intended to mean Netflix learning from k-dramas. Not sure if that came across clearly.
I'm an extremely causal Trek watcher but I know exactly what episodes these are: I would sooner re-watch each of these and maybe try to watch all of TNG before I pay for a single episode of shiny soulness garbage.
The studio's unfortunately learned entirely the wrong lesson from Season 1 Game Of Thrones. It had the best story of any season, but they through we tuned in to watch big monsters and CG dragon and armies cutting each other up.
And they will go forward with the wrong lesson: replace all the humans, cut writers further, more shiny garbage, LLM scripts, generated images, starve the effects teams....
That's okay, new independent writers, short film makers artists and musicians have never been more empowered than now to publish their own content. If Netflix survives, they'll still have enough money to sponsor 100 x $100,000 new shows every year.
I want Netflix to start giving $100,000 grants to self-made YouTubers to produce movies/TV. Give it to people that have proven they know what they're doing and can make something entirely on their own.
That’s what YouTube did essentially, but the YouTube premium exclusives were, to be honest, pretty mid.
I think it could be done right. They clearly didn’t know what they were doing.
Lately I have been watching Young Sheldon and I find it rather baffling how they decide to spend the budget. It’s supposed to be a sitcom - a genre with famously limited locations and budgets - and yet the second season has fantasy segments where the characters are all given fancy costumes and are in a green-screened CGI set. I just have to wonder why they chose to do that. Does it really make the show better? The drastic change in tone and visuals takes you out of whatever state you were in before.
How's the characters and story?
Everything's a bit of a mixed bag; there's a real lack of consistency in the quality of certain aspects. It's a fairly formulaic show so there's not really an overarching plot, through the last few episodes of the first season following into the first few episodes are introducing a new character that all start with a "Previously on Young Sheldon" segment because they break the format and refer to previous episodes.
Most of the appeal to me is the Radio Shack nostalgia and the cuteness of young kids being dorks, but it does have other appealing things about it. It also has a lot of "Texas vibes" that occasionally remind me of King of the Hills.
I don't know that Netflix won, but I know that consumers lost
I've seen a lot of comments with this sentiment, and I disagree. To me, it seems like things have gotten significantly better overall if you don't forget that we are transitioning from cable tv (which still exists with 76 million subscribers, according to wikipedia).
Sure, there was a short time when netflix had a massive catalog of nearly everything, but that was never really going to be sustainable in the long run. We know that $10-15/month is definitely not enough to support all that content if streaming is the primary delivery method. We know Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, and Peacock are all reporting significant losses. So it's likely that if we just had one streaming service with everything, it would probably cost roughly as much as all of them combined anyway. Based on this, I feel like the current ecosystem of streaming services is pretty good.
Back in the day when everyone had cable, everyone on the internet was clamoring for "a la carte" options, where we could pick the types of channels we wanted to subscribe to. A big one among the nerds was something like avoiding sports channels, since ESPN alone was known to be a significant proportion of your bill. Now we kind of have that in streaming form. I can subscribe to various services easily, and I can unsubscribe almost as easily. I'm not stuck in contracts like cable used to force on you. I can buy the sports package during football season, and I can stop paying for it when the season is over. I can subscribe to a service for just one month to watch the movies and shows I'm interested in, then rotate out to a difference service the next month.
Yeah I think the issue is actually that consumers won a bit too much, to the point where literally everyone in the industry lost money. The streaming companies besides Netflix lost insane amounts of money, actors lost money, writers lost money. I’ve watched all the TV and movies I’ve wanted to and haven’t paid more than $10/month. I usually only watch a single series at a time, so I subscribe to whichever one has it, cancel at the same time so it doesn’t auto renew, and get on with my life.
If I compare that to prestreaming costs it’s not even close. Even besides cable, I often had to rent or buy DVDs for old content. A handful of dvd rentals would cost more than what I currently pay for a month.
Did they actually lose money, or was that just Hollywood accounting?
I agree. I think that consumer price expectations are too low.
The streaming era and the drying up of viewer money means that productions have to be leaner. Just in another Tildes thread about dubbing vs subtitles, the Vox article notes that films used to have dubbing turnaround times of 6 to 8 weeks in 1997; now they get mere days from Netflix.
I imagine that this affects other areas of production too: smaller budgets, much more rushed schedules.
The problem is that even if we spent cable-levels of money to get streaming stuff, due to the way things are price structured, only publishers and distributers see a real benefit. Residuals go poof.
I saw a indie music streaming site that seems to have a fair model: Resonate
Essentially you pay $0.0025 for the first time you stream a song. Every time you stream it, the price goes up. After you've paid about $1.40 total for the song, you own it and can stream for free.
I could see that applied to TV shows easily...the first 2 episodes of a season are free, increase by $0.10/episode, after you've paid $10 for a season you own it. Movies would have a tougher time adopting a model like this....but if Redbox is any indication $1 per full play would be reasonable.
The problem is that consumers are highly averse to any kind of usage-based billing.
Kind of, but that's usually because usage based billing is designed to screw over the customer the most.
Although I know (and am one of) many people who loved data bank cellphone plans...where unused data rolled over to the next month....funny how those mostly evaporated.
Maybe something like paying a $10/mo subscription, where $8 goes towards your credit bank and $2/mo is 'insurance' in case your bank runs out.
No, it's because no one likes having to make micro-decisions all the time. You want to open up Netflix and relax, not think "hm, is it worth it to watch this movie when I have to pay $1.50 to it? I'm probably just going to watch it like 15 minutes... oh wait, but I remember, this is the fourth time I've watched it, so if I watch it again, I don't have to anymore... does that change the calculus... hmm...".
I guess, but I'd treat it a lot more like my toll booth provided rates were reasonable.
We used to pay $5 a day to rent a movie from the video rental store. I hardly blink at $2 streaming rentals these days...if they were integrated into Netflix and my rate was $10 less a month I'd be down for that.
I think the problem is more psychological. On paper, I love (well implemented) usage-based billing. In practice however, I don't like every interaction with a service tainted by the thoughts about whether it is worth the added cost it will incur, even if that cost is essentially negligible. In the case of streaming, it would make my choice paralysis even worse.
Back in the early to mid 2000's, I had this exact problem with text plans. I knew that, given my usage, a text at $.10 each was cheaper than a $5/mo unlimited plan. But I still could see that dime every time I hit send. I think eventually the plan structure changed so it became part of unlimited talk and text.
Off topic, but it is wild to think how much my usage patterns have changed. I remember being into calling plans for 100s of minutes a month, and now I barely ever call anyone. And sending fewer than 50 text messages a month....
Do you feel that the news about WWE coming to Netflix for $5 billion over the next 10 years reflects and maintains your stance?
Why wasn't that sustainable? The only reason I can think is that because Disney, HBO, NBCUniversal and the like wanted more. They are all gambling big on the question of how high they can raise prices after getting users hooked.
Two reasons.
First, that Netflix catalogue was never as comprehensive as people remember it being. It was populated primarily with second-run shows. You wouldn't see a new season of Breaking Bad or Parks and Rec on Netflix until a year or so after it already premiered on cable/network TV. So the thing you wanted to "keep" never really existed in the way you likely remember.
That leads into the second reason: Because Netflix was not footing the bill for the actual production of their content, their library was comparatively cheap. Outside the most popular shows like The Office, Netflix was paying considerably less to license a given series than its initial production budget.
I'll add a third reason: Cheap debt afforded by perpetually low interest rates after the 2008 recession. It was easy for tech companies like Netflix to under-price their product in the name of growing their userbase as fast as possible.
That's certainly true, but it wasn't that big of a deal IMHO. I watched new seasons when they were available, not when they were broadcast on TV.
Netflix having the old seasons of Succession, Ted Lasso, etc. would make it much, much better in 2024.
This is right on the money. Netflix was ancillery revenue for Networks that had already made a good profit on the shows. It was comparable to selling DVD box sets.
Ultimately the old model could only be made sustainable if most people continued to watch cable/network TV. Once people started cutting the cord, the business had to change.
Think about how much people were paying for content before streaming, then think about how much Netflix was charging in the good era (~$10/month), and you'll see that all the production companies would have had to increase the licensing costs so much to match the same revenue they were losing that Netflix's price increases would have been drastic. 5-10x.
You're right; they made a bet and they're losing that bet right now as the OP's article alludes to. The cost of running the distribution side too when they don't have experience in software makes their attempt to compete unprofitable. Maybe we'll find a middleground, but a sustainable rate could never have stayed at $10/month for a lot of content.
Except that's not what the current streaming ecosystem is. It's a series of a la carte options of what streaming rights a particular company has at the moment. That sometimes lines up with there being a trend on a particular platform, but with the exception of Disney no service is all that cohesive. And even that is simply because they only host their own content.
It's gotten to the point where if you want to watch an entire movie series, or for really bad examples like Pokemon, a single TV series, you have to jump between several different platforms. Either ones that you already pay for or presumably sign up for once you track down where the sequel you want to watch is. If you want to go back and watch the same thing months or years later you have to track down who currently has the rights to it all over again.
Streaming services only briefly competed on features and usability. I believe there were a few ultimately unsuccessful attempts to have "horror" platform or the like. Now they're only competing on the particular pieces of media they have for the current month. That's not a consumer "win".
Not only was it not sustainable, their library was never as comprehensive as people remember it to be. Early Netflix streaming subsisted off sloppy seconds from broadcast and cable networks. With only a tiny handful of exceptions, Netflix was running old episodes. A new season of something you liked would air on NBC or AMC, but it wouldn't make it to Netflix until a year later.
These shows made their real money on broadcast/cable, cheap licensing of reruns to Netflix was just gravy. I don't know how people expected the transition to streaming as the new de facto means of distribution to not also result in a substantial rise in costs, reduction in quantity, or a mix of both.
When you take their DVD service into account, they had a really excellent library.
But even their streaming-only library felt larger than it does today because they had great discoverability back then. It was much easier to find older or more obscure media, and they had a kickass recommendation system.
I'm back to piracy and feel like I'm winning. $2~ a month for pretty much anything I ever would want to watch.
Same. The "streaming wars", which are really just all these streaming companies knowing they can get away with squeezing us if they all raise prices at the same time (seriously, almost ALL of them raised prices over the last 2 years, despite pricing on many services being the same for years before), is just killing me. It's no longer worth the convenience. I used to be able to pay $80 between a few different services to get everything I wanted (which included sports because I'm a sports nerd) and 2 months ago, I think I was up to $130 between several services. I canceled everything and went back to torrents and streams. I bought a Fire Cube so that I can have a web browser on my TV for streaming and for better in-home streaming via plex and it already paid for itself in a single month (somewhat ironic I bought a streaming box and the only streaming apps I really use are youtube and crunchyroll lol, but it fit my web browser and plex needs).
What are the $2? Private tracker?
I was going to say a VPN subscription with a promo code is around that.
A debrid service. Kinda like a private tracker mixed with a VPN.
Could be either a really cheap usenet indexer, and a number of blocks on a news server.
If a private tracker requires money to join, run
Some private trackers have seeding ratio requirements, maybe the $2/month is putting an explicit price on that.
Yep, I had dropped it for a while. But with streaming becoming more and more like the cable TV subscriptions that I left for streaming in the first place, I fired my NAS and Usenet services back up and now I'm back to downloads and local streaming via Plex.
You can get a ton of entertainment by picking 2 or 3 streaming services and then renting a movie here and there that isn't on the services you want.
Netflix: 22.99
Max: 19.99
2 movie rentals: 3.99 * 2
Total: 50.96 plus taxes
And I picked the most expensive plans on the expensive services. Peacock is frequently $26/year on sale. You may not need 2 movie rentals every month either. Compare this with cable: what were people paying for cable back in the day? Was on-demand streaming a thing? 4K quality with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos?
People want a la carte, on-demand, quality apps, better paid writers/crew, and access to decades worth of back catalog, but even when presented with a price less than what people were paying ten/twenty years ago before accounting for inflation, there's still this notion that we're owed more.
There's a lot of comparisons to cable in this thread, but one thing I'm not seeing that is truly priceless to me is the glory of ad free content.
TL;DR
I wasn’t sure it would work. But in hindsight it shouldn’t be surprising that a steady course and first-mover advantage earn you 1st place.
I know the popular sentiment is to shit on Netflix, but it's the only service I have and it gets used everyday in my household, mostly by my kids.
I don't use it too often, but when I do, I can usually find something to watch, especially because I'm not in the habit of binge watching stuff, as I just don't have the time.
That said, I never stopped sailing the high seas. At this point, my own movie and TV collection is somewhere in the realm of 3Tb. I never stopped because it wasn't always the case, even when Netflix was at its best, that I could find what I wanted to watch. Even moreso these days, because I'm not going to subscribe to a dozen different services just to watch Star Trek TNG.
I also never stopped because I'm a..80s? 90s? Kid. I just assume my Internet/services might go down at any moment or be otherwise unavailable due to corporate manipulation, so I like having a vast library of stuff to choose from at any given time. I do the same with my music, where I regularly purchase entire albums from Bandcamp and Amazon to download and back up both on my server and have stored on my phone for listening any time.
I have won! I have never paid any of the streaming services!
Mirror, for those hit by the paywall:
https://archive.is/bHHHt
My only subscription is to dropout.tv for a few bucks a month and will probably be my only subscription for 'tv' for everything else, there's the high seas.
Which I probably pay equally as much between powering the servers and storage but I want to horde a bit as I enjoy going back to watch stuff like shuffling thru a DVD collection as I never have to worry about it "going away" without a massive set of hdd death. Plus it's a bit of neat experience for my work side of life with setting it up in docker and setting up flow automation and hosting it all for friends and family.
I still have a bit more to do as I eventually want to tie in LLM subtitling via whisper for shows that can't be found with a subtitle and just be happy with it being 'good enough' plus some reducing in the size of the servers that things are running on and setting up a bit more in a docker swarm/k8 style as now it's a bit more dedicated things that just talk to one another with mild backup redundancies.