I've been thinking about CNN+ a decent amount recently and wonder if the primary issue with the product was that it wasn't primarily a live product. It's my thinking that the best aspect of CNN is when it covers live breaking news in a way that feels like the story is unfolding before the viewer's eyes. CNN+'s reliance on VOD content and news personalities is not that captivating. A product that revealed the raw journalism in real-time would be really compelling.
Good. This is likely an unpopular opinion but the internet was supposed to bring knowledge, creative expression and so much more to the masses. Instead it devolved into a dopamine delivery machine with non-stop binge consumption and addiction to everyone.
Likely to be unpopular because it's likely to be false dichotomy. The internet is both of those things, at the same time, as you can choose how you use it, whenever you want.
Sometimes it gives me dopamine, sometimes it brings me knowledge, sometimes it allows me to express myself creatively and sometimes it allows me to consume other peoples creativity.
The people involved in making the dopamine delivery shows also consider that an expression of their creative abilities. Just to throw a different perspective into the mix.
How does "knowledge, creative expression and so much more to the masses" differ from "dopamine delivery machine"? Is it actually worthwhile for everyone to have deep knowledge of X if they're not actually going to use that knowledge?
There's a distinct effect to knowledge inflation, and knowledge and skills are not the same though related. A lot of people who are, to use a loaded term, " Too Big for their Britches", but also a lot of people who how immense access to know their lot in life isn't good but without the skills or opportunities to actually make use of that.
Personally, I'd prefer frictionless fragmentation to centralization. I'm never going to subscribe to Paramount+ (or Whatever+) to see one or two shows I'm interested in, but I'd gladly pay $3-5 to stream a season of Star Trek: Discovery. If there's also a Paramount+ bundle that includes all of their original and licensed content, that's fine too.
Frictionless fragmentation would be that services adhere to some standard API and that viewing tools (we optionally build ourselves) can simply sign in to an arbitrary list of services. If that were possible, then yes.
For many streaming service, I can't even figure out if the support Linux (e.g. HBO does not explicitly state I can use their service with a browser on Linux). So, it makes no sense to sign up even if I thought it was worth the money.
They 'guarantee' things work on particular browsers on particular OSes, not on 'modern web tech'. Well, I'm not going to spend money on something that has no legal guarantee or even promise to work.
Web browser is the standard API. And the viewing tool is Windows.
I know you wanna plug in your $20 to $50 dongle into an HDMI port and hope for the best, but your laptop will work fine, and I'm pretty sure your phone (Android / iOS) will also work fine.
> support Linux
Well there's another problem. Linux isn't a standard (Debian, Fedora, CentOS, Ubuntu all have different quirks). By the time we start looking at those weird hardware codec accelerators and whether or not Linux supports those drivers, you would have been done with your Windows + HDMI port.
This would shift the inventives back to where they should be for producers.
The old box office/TV rating systems were relatively public. Content producers had clear incentives and knew there was an advantage proportional to viewership.
I think you can do this on Amazon, but you have to "buy" the season. I did try this with one or two shows. But the price point is a little high considering I usually only watch once.
The price is a little high PLUS they can pull the licensing and remove that content from your account. The "buy" option is a "lease" with an open ending to when the lease expires.
Yes, I'm aware of the available pricing/packaging options. What I want is à la carte streaming access to TV seasons for $3-5. What I don't want is a bunch of extraneous content I don't care about and another subscription to have to remember to cancel.
Yeah, I guess where I landed is just subbing and unsubbing when a show I want is on. Sometimes I also watch a movie or two from the service while I'm at it. I follow few enough shows that it's not unmanageable.
There are currently 55 episodes available for $10 per month on paramount+ or $3 per episode via Apple’s TV app, or $30 per season for seasons 1 thru 3 in Apple’s TV app.
On Amazon, lower quality episodes are available for $2 each for seasons 1 thru 3.
The seller wants $30 per season and you are looking to pay $3 to $5.
The seller is also offering $10 to rent 4 seasons assuming you binge watch 55 episodes in a month. Or $20 in 2 months, or $30 for 3 months if you watch one every other day.
Looks like the options are there, just not at the desired price.
It actually sounds pretty terrible to pay $10/mo to watch a single show. Sure, they will let you watch other stuff, but if you just want the one show you still pay what amounts to almost an entire netflix subscription. You can own the blurays of all 3 seasons (a much higher quality video stream) for under $60 and likely even cheaper on a special which you can then keep or sell.
>You can own the blurays of all 3 seasons (a much higher quality video stream) for under $60 and likely even cheaper on a special which you can then keep or sell.
That is great, an additional option for people that want to watch,
My point is people’s problem is not accessibility, it is price. When I was younger, accessibility itself was the problem, but that problem is resolved for almost all popular media now.
I once spent 20 min trying to find which streaming service had the latest season of the Orville in New Zealand. Turns out none of them do. I tried to find a digital copy on every store I could think of and failed. I looked for the Blu-ray and learned that Fox isn't ever releasing one.
The whole time in the back of my mind I knew exactly where I could find it for free without any pain at all.
In my book if there's no legitimate way to get a digital copy then I'm sailing the high seas. The golden age of streaming is over.
I see two — subscribe to Yet Another Streaming Service or buy. YASS is a non-starter for me (at my limit + subscription fatigue), and buying is out for me because seasons are priced for ownership/repeat viewing. IMO there's a significant pricing/packaging gap here.
> but I'd gladly pay $3-5 to stream a season of Star Trek: Discovery. If there's also a Paramount+ bundle that includes all of their original and licensed content, that's fine too.
That's how I treat it already. I subscribed to it for two shows, cancelled immediately after. They actually have other stuff I would like to watch, but their player/app is so awful that I was forced to go to pirate streams multiple times to watch what I paid for.
That's the real irony of the situation. Paying just a bit a month to not break the law and have easy access to good quality streams was amazingly attractive. Now the tech is more accessible and everyone wants to own their own piece of that revenue instead of renting their content out. That fracturing though is recreating a very similar situation to the height of piracy though where it's every expensive to get access to all the media you might want to watch.
That is the part that really gets me. Content owners are desperately trying to recreate cable model. I am not exactly a full blown pirate ( I mostly stopped after Netflix delivered a decent experience at negligible cost ), but my buddy is a hoarder for lack of a better term. Steam/GOG made me stop game piracy altogether.
Now, I am slowly starting to face a very simple question with streaming. Do I want to maintain 3-4 active membership on the off chance something is there or do I just ask my buddy?
If it were not for my wife, Amazon would already be my only streaming service and even that only, because it is currently included.
I think my final straw was Dexter being locked behind Hulu's Showtime additional subscription. Just in case you are wondering, I did not ask my friend for it nor did I pay for it. Not yet anyway. I may have some free time coming in a couple of weeks to indulge.
Make it convenient for me. Make it goddamn one place. Do not try to nickel and dime me. You will lose. You are fighting against superior quality at zero price and with people, whose entire existence is collecting for no other reason than collecting.
You NEED to deliver minimum fuss to me. 20 streaming services is not minimum fuss.
Netflix was that. It had almost complete library, but you chose to blow it up in a panic of greed. Now, I don't care how you do it, but you ( media conglomerate ) better recognize this reality.
Signed.
At this time, still a customer.
edit: I forgot one more thing. Side bonus of moving back to piracy will be that my watching habits will not be up for sale to the highest bidder.
Then when enough business is lost to pirating company's will start pushing for pointless laws to stop pirating because as we all know pirating is purely the result of people not wanting to pay and has not to do with the free thing providing better quality and greater convenience. Eventually some brilliant person will come up the idea of not making the consumers life difficult and the whole cycle will start again.
> as we all know pirating is purely the result of people not wanting to pay and has not to do with the free thing providing better quality and greater convenience.
Speak for yourself. What about those in locations where access to various forms of media is prohibited? Or those who are in poverty/in impoverished areas?
Because they're unable to pay to access media forms they should be prevented from accessing them?
Has youtube killed Spotify's business? How about piratebay? Is Hollywood in shambles? P2p media sharing has been around forever and is still conveniently available, yet these industries persist and rake in. They've had little impact to the bottomlines of these industries and will likely continue to have little impact.
The fragmentation of streaming services often conflicts with what consumers want to see. Spotify is a centralized service and people love it. That's basically what consumers want, a Spotify for TV. The other issue with all of these streaming services is varied compatibility based on your platform. HBO didn't work with Roku for a year or two over a contract dispute, other streaming services weren't available on all devices. Granted, I haven't run into this issue lately, but in the era of "smart" (eyeroll) TVs and other entertainment devices, you can't really assume that anything "just works" anymore without checking first.
YouTube didn't work on Amazon Fire devices for a long time because Amazon removed competing Google products from Amazon.com. It was really frustrating. The consumer always loses in these cases.
Because the real reason is that people do not want to pay the amount that the sellers are asking, not that they have to visit a different website or app.
I can easily search and watch anything outside of Netflix in the Apple’s TV app right now within seconds assuming I have no problem paying for it. Whether or not it is “fragmented” makes little difference in user experience.
Hulu itself is about the same costs as equivalent cable for me, except I have to buy the hardware (if I need any) and nobody comes out to hook it up. And then there's issues with the stream so very often...
They're limiting to services with 1M subscribers. Which means they often won't list ones for the current year!
(This methodology means you can be reasonably accurate for past years, but the current year and possibly recent years will miss services that will later get to 1M)
No plans to launch in the UK. Is that because we already have NowTV which those 20 other counties don't? So is this just NowTv outside of the UK? Maybe not so new?
I feel bad for Netflix. They pioneered this market segment and now it reached saturation, people are getting tired of streaming fragmentation, their content took a turn for the worse and we are slowly and surely marching towards the next "Netflix of Streaming Services", which is basically Cable over IP.
I wonder of Netflix could have done anything to keep being so far ahead and offer content from so many other companies, or was it always doomed to last just a few years before everyone and their grandma started a streaming service.
Netflix should have bought out NBC, CBS/Paramount, Discovery, or (most significantly) HBO/WB. Or even just their perpetual streaming rights back in the 00's.
Letting Discovery acquire WB was one of the biggest mistakes they've ever made. Just imagine if Netflix had the HBO and WB slate. Game of Thrones, all of DC, Cartoon Network... HBO has the superior content lineup, and they let that slide through their fingers.
They should have bought the LotR rights. They still don't have a major fantasy, sci-fi, or superhero franchise outside of Stranger Things. And that universe is tiny.
Netflix, frankly, does not have content production as a core competency. Most of the shows and films they produce are terrible. Their in-fighting amongst top exec tastemakers is a testament to this fact.
You say this as if these rights were ever available for purchase. The studios are not dumb. They had the luxury of seeing what happened to the music industry. It was obvious that with the success of Netflix that streaming was the way forward. They also realized they were no where near capable of doing it on their own. When Netflix was first starting the streaming side, studios were still in the process of converting film assets into clean digital video. Streaming wasn't even a thought yet. However, monetize what you already have on the platform available now, and then do you're own thing later to keep all the profits.
Being the first is always harder than being the next as the trail has already be blazed for you. Studios had the blue print laid out by Netflix, but not all of them are as competent, and those issues show from app to app.
> It was obvious that with the success of Netflix that streaming was the way forward. They also realized they were no where near capable of doing it on their own.
For example, Star Trek streaming was originally leased to Netflix, then when they eventually created Paramount+ they pulled out and put it on their own platform.
Netflix couldn’t afford WB or NBC without slowing down the rest of their content production. A lot of the content they would’ve gotten doesn’t work well on streaming, as Warner is finding out. Spending time and money on a major network would’ve put them behind, and scared all their competitors early. By not weighing themselves down, they were able to build their massive library.
Netflix tried hard to get the LotR rights. Just about every major streamer did.
Building critically acclaimed cinematic universes is something everyone struggles with, except maybe Disney.
> The Swedish video game and media company Embracer Group has purchased the rights to “Lord of the Rings,” “The Hobbit” and other properties from the Saul Zaentz Co. The terms of the details were not disclosed, but CNBC reports that “the purchase was a part of six acquisitions,” totaling $572.8 million. [1]
> Details picked up by the Daily Mail show that Netflix is paying £370 million (about $502 million) for the rights to Dahl's entire catalog. [2]
> At a budget of $200 million, Red Notice is Netflix's most expensive original film to date. [3]
I don’t see a choice here. They weren’t able to win the comprehensive rights purchase, and they also weren’t able to win the TV license that Amazon won.
All of these major streaming companies are trying to get all of the best deals and never make a bad show or movie.
Road Dahl is probably going to work well for them.
> A lot of the content they would’ve gotten doesn’t work well on streaming, as Warner is finding out
can you clarify? My experience with HBOMax is not the content sucks but the service / site sucks so much it makes me actively not want to watch things. I'm continually offended just by how much it sucks.
Yes, I mean that in addition to the good stuff (Sopranos, Game of Thrones, Batman, etc) Netflix would have to pay for a huge catalog of content that isn’t a draw on streaming. To make the most of it, they would suddenly be in the business of managing TV channels and distribution partnerships. So they’d essentially overpay because they’d be outside their core business when their strategy is maximal focus on the core business. The opportunity cost would be the ability to create and license new streaming content they don’t overpay for.
Warner has recently been culling some of these poorly performing fits from HBO Max (arguably imperfectly), so they also recognize this.
I didn’t mean that people don’t enjoy HBO’s good programs.
The real question is would HBO have made the same amazing content under Netflix as it has under Warner? Netflix can't just bank on acquiring old media forever they need to also create new shows. Hopefully HBO continues to be great under Discovery.
Probably not, because Netflix content leadership sucks.
But the Discovery boss recently claimed he wants more "comfort" programming than "destination tv", and that's a horrible sign. It signals they're leaning into more Honey Boo Boo and Ice Road Truckers-type content instead of Game of Thrones, Euphoria, Silicon Valley because it's cheaper to make.
ATT might have been cash strapped due to having stupid amounts of debt, and an opportunity to wring out some value from an established brand might have materialized at an acceptable price.
ATT had already fired all the old HBO bosses that made and green lot all the great HBO shows.
> I wonder of Netflix could have done anything to keep being so far ahead and offer content from so many other companies, or was it always doomed to last just a few years before everyone and their grandma started a streaming service.
It was always doomed. There's only so far you can go with streaming services from a tech POV. Once you have a system that's fairly reliable at delivering the content, it's the content that matters, not the tech.
Netflix saw that, pivoted to become a studio, and has had very mixed success at that. But that's not the point: What was magical about Netflix was the depth of it's backlog and that it had so much from all over. They were an aggregator, they never had "everything" but they had so damn much that something you wanted to watch but never got around to always popped up.
But it is the point. Netflix could only do that because they had tech that the studios didn't have. The studios don't need Netflix anymore to reach their online audiences.
I find it ironically funny that VOD's panacea of watching anything at anytime just by browsing for what you want has turned into a nightmarish hellscape of horrible browsing experiences to the point of people just giving up and choosing something for the sake of no longer browsing. So much so, the popularity of linearly programmed streaming channels is on the rise. Here's a channel that plays a specific genre of content that can be tuned in at anytime and just watch without a 20min search. What was old is new again, but on a computer and no rabbit ears.
Because Netflix was the competition, the competition for cable and expensive physical media. Now all the companies who took none of that risk are coming into streaming and get to take their IPs off Netflix, copying their system (but worse, Netflix isn't perfect but it has the best interface in my opinion), and taking it back to no real competition just the same big companies there were before with a new platform. And on top of that, a lot of those other companies getting into it are charging a lot more, and some are playing ads even with the subscriptions.
Netflix had a good interface when they had no vested interest. Now they just want to jam their own mostly terrible content down your throat because they don't have to pay as much to show it and it helps their own ratings.
Not only did CNN+ launch in 2022, it also folded in 2022.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN%2B