Technology

Ahoy there, high seas mateys!

Sorry I am not rooting for streaming increases but this is a bunch of baloney. One, few people have all the services listed in the article concurrently. And secondly, they are comparing to the average cable bill which wouldn't include content like HBO and would likely be well over $100 probably much more for an equivalent amount of content. Hulu alone covers like three quarters of cable content in most markets.

Seems to me like they could still raise another 20% before they are truly on an equitable par.

The whole of the TV industry has lost their damn minds. I saw this shit coming when studios started pulling their content from Netflix without any obvious reason, sure enough, they all made their own version of Netflix and turned it into an idiotic turf war. The only ones that are losing, are the users.

But this is par for the course, looking back, TV started over the air, it was the only feasible way to deliver fast scan image content with sound to a large number of people. First for news, but eventually, for other entertainment content, but people need to make money, so ads. So many ads.

Anyways, cable comes along, now you can get perfect reception of all the ad filled stations all day every day, and we'll even throw in stations you wouldn't otherwise be able to receive, just pay us for the privilege of getting the ads.

Rinse and repeat for every cable or TV technology or service. Pay us for ads. Justify it how you want, that's what's happening.

Streaming enters the market, finally, no ads.... Streaming wars. Now your favorite shows are on entirely different platforms.... Is there a new stranger things? Go check Netflix, nope, nothing new here, what about the mandalorian? Go log into dickney+ and see.... Nothing here, ok, let's go over to paramount+ or MAX or whatever.... Oh, by the way, we all cost more than your cable, but at least there's no ads....

Meanwhile OTA still exists, and you don't have to pay for it. Everyone not going OTA, is ending up on the pirate ship. Yo ho ho, me maties!

Back to sailing the seven seas.

I think at least for me it would be cheaper to rent or "buy" movies à la carte on YouTube and similar platforms than subscribing to that amount of services.

Other thing I see is that people fall on the trap that they NEED to watch what everyone is watching.

Just don’t. Rotate if you need to.

I pay Netflix one month per year, most other services even less.

YouTube Premium is the only I pay full year. It’s my TV now.

If anyone is old enough to remember when cable first showed up, it followed a similar path. They had to complete against "free" over the air TV, so cable had to be a good deal at first to get subscribers.

Once they got the frog in the pot, they slowly turned up the heat.

The next stop for streaming will be the prominent platforms jockeying to be the next "cable" monopolies.

The sales pitch will be "buy a package of channels at a discount" over individual.

It has already begun. Amazon, Apple, Hulu all resell other channels. HBO re-branded their entire channel just to start carrying non-HBO content.

Bigger platforms will leverage subscriber base to lock in content deals so the smaller ones won't be able to compete.

Consumers will get some deals until smaller players are choked out, but as soon as they can companies will start the dry anal rape that only a near monopoly can deliver.

I wish we had a viable alternative where we could bypass the corporate system and allow the actual creative people to do their thing.

And this is why we 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

I sit back and laugh as my Plex server streams my 4k video to any device inside or outside my network for free. And it has content from every major streaming service. My monthly fees for streaming are $0.

unplug, unsubscribe, enjoy the silence

I think what a lot of people forget is that what Streaming did was allow you to watch what you want when you wanted it. No need to TiVO it and worry about space. No need to pay a separate fee for OnDemand. Now I can choose to watch 6 seasons of a show day in and day out at the time I want.

It was inevitable that they would start to package streaming services together. It's still better than old school cable. There's always the High Seas for those that have the technical chops necessary for that.

A bit odd that the article doesn’t mention advertising on cable/sat/fiber/traditional(?) media delivery into the home.

The single biggest draw, to me, isn’t that I can watch when I want (that’s second). It’s not having to spend my time watching ads. Life is just better without someone trying to sell me something for 20 minutes out of every hour.

I’m willing to pay for that privilege.

I value my time - or at least the opportunity to spend it how I want when I’m not making someone already rich, even richer.

All of these services are trying to justify the price hikes for their poor decision to make their own streaming platform instead of adding to established ones. We went from cable (+100 channels), to paying for every channel's stream. Its illogical but if consumers are stupid enough not realize it, then more power to them. You know its a problem when theres apps to make sure you canceled subscriptions to apps.

Torrents haven't changed either