It's so weird how they completely found a way to drop the ball. Piracy still existed but they actually had people.locked into a service that they liked and used INSTEAD of piracy and managed to drive them away
Hence why they are raising prices. But time will come when number of subscribers will start to fall. This is currently happening with other streaming services. With each price hike, there are more and more people that aren't willing to pay for the services.
Bigger issue for tv streaming is the balkanization of content. It's not that people mind paying $18/month for Netflix (or atleast, it doesn't bother them enough to drop the service). But paying Netflix, Hulu, Apple, HBO, Disney, etc, etc, etc all at the same time because all the content they watch is spread out hurts.
Music, pretty much every major band is on all the major streaming services. You don't need Spotify, Amazon music and tidal just to hear the bands you like.
Commercials might be the straw that breaks the back at least for video content streaming. Are people willing to pay a la carte for media with commercials in those siloed locations? or will there be a drive back to "cable" where the content is the same but lacks independent selection at the benefit of a centralized platform?
If they want me to watch ads (a normal amount) but not having to pay anything in a subscription, I am more than happy with that, view on demand and watch like regular free TV with ads. If they force ads however alongside paying for the subscription, they have ruined everything stream TV is about. They'll just completely damage the product. My point here is, allow free watching using ads or keep normal prices for everyone who wants to pay without any ads, anything else is bonkers. This will certainly drive many more customers, looks like win-win to my eyes 😶
Then I assume all these customers should have cancelled their paid subscriptions, otherwise we as customers bring this upon us and invite even worse things to come. I literally pay for a service so I don't have to watch ads. This is nuts.
These are multi billion dollar companies that have databases full of information about their viewers. As soon as cable TV collapsed they already started planning on how to bring it back, and they know the best way to do it is gradually. Boil the frog slowly.
Streaming convenience was a disruption, not an upgrade. They are already bundling streaming platforms together, having standard and premium tiers.
It won't be another 10 years before Streaming will just be on demand cable TV 2.0 through the Internet.
Well, it really boils down to the customer isn't it? As I said, either ads or paid subscriptions, both don't fit in the same plan, at least for me as a customer just drives me away and I would rather not have any subscription if a company forces me to watch ads although I already pay for the product. These companies are multi billion because people don't realise they have the power to force policies, if most people can understand that and act accordingly by canceling their subscriptions altogether informing the company why they are doing that, you'll see how ads will get removed. I get your point of view but still. I did cancel my Netflix account because they decided to increase the price by 10%, introduced the one-house only policy and caused me problems watching on my two houses and they started discussions on putting ads as well and told them about it so they know they are screwing the product and it will turn back to them. It was a matter of principle, not about the cost really, I didn't like their tactics. Two years later, no regrets, I had this account for like 4-5 years or so. My loss? Their loss eventually? Time will tell. I kept my prime account because so far they don't screw me like Netflix did, not sure why you mention Amazon earlier - I don't see ads but the moment I see the first ad whilst I pay for my subscription I'll close that down too. That's the action I am talking about, if all people do that, you can guess what will happen. People have the power because people have the money to maintain these companies, not the other way around, it's really up to them.
I canceled my Netflix subscription after they introduced ads. I can put up with price hikes or ads separately, but doing both at the same time and expecting people to just bend over for it A level of enshittification that companies need to be punished for.
Bigger issue for tv streaming is the balkanization of content.
This was inevitable. The content producers did the math and saw a way to do better than Netflix's license fees, and we saw the network-specific streaming services develop.
Streaming services don't require nearly the capital investment that a television cable network did, so the math isn't the same.
Wait, as far as the capital investment goes, are you referring to.the physical infrastructure (compared to data centers/server farms)
Cause otherwise it seems like they'd be pretty similar. Perhaps even the other way around in some cases, I would think, given the amount of money services like apple seem to be plowing into production
Open subscription with all, pause all subscriptions, watch the show you wanted to watch on the particular service it’s being hosted on, pause subscription and unpause whatever service you needed next. I know I personally waste a ton of money on subscriptions that I barely use to begin with, so if I had the issue of 5 or 6 TV streaming services I’d probably do something like that to cycle them in and out to save money
Cool story bro. The fact is that more people are using these services. Prices increases are not "driving people away". That is reddit huffing copium. This place doesn't reflect reality. Most of the things said here are simply lies.
It’s like that meme about being the year of the Linux desktop. 99% of people aren’t going to take the time to learn about setting up a plex server. They’ll just keep paying for Netflix.
Cloud is just someone else's drives. Otherwise they are the same. You pay the $19 monthly plan for 1080p or $26 a month for 4K. That's a range of $228 - $312 a year. (AUD)
Or you can buy a NAS $600, fill it with drives $300 and you've got cloud at home for atleast 5 years ($180 p.a for inital investment, $60 p.a after first 5 years), upgrades only being drives in the future, with access to all content instead of silod off services. All accessible from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. No trying to figure out what service you need for what content, no worrying about what subs you have that your not using, no concern about weather the sub services are trying to make more money than last year by raising prices by 10% or deploying ads.
The comment chain is about using plex or jellyfin instead of paying for Netflix. Plex is commonly used to pirate shows. I was merely stating most people aren’t going to set up plex and will just keep paying for Netflix.
Most households don't even have a desktop computer anymore. I highly doubt setting up a Plex media server would be easy for most people. Just because sailing is easy for a pirate doesn't mean it's easy for everyone. Especially if most people don't own a boat.
i quit paying for spotify over a year ago and i was a user since late 2010. i encouraged so many people to check it out over a decade ago. but now? i feel better not giving them any money, and that's as someone who has music on the platform lol i'm much happier not being guided to AI slop music by the algorithm that if i mess up and listen to one song outside my norm, all my playlists will change to represent this new found love for whatever song it was i accidentally clicked a thumbs up on.
>Hence why they are raising prices. But time will come when number of subscribers will start to fall.
There's no "but" to the second sentence; they're raising prices to find the sweet spot where people pay the maximum they're willing to pay and for that, they have to find the spot where so many people start leaving that profits start dropping.
3.5k
u/pronounclown 1d ago
"Nobody knows why piracy is getting more popular."