Exactly, subscriptions cost a consumer willing to pay was the most he could spend on a Movie for a month.
And that's how i have been following unless a good series/movie comes up there is no reason to subscribe for a month. Just plug in the subscriptions when the movie is available. And have complementary streaming for that month.
The streaming wars remind me of the pre-1983 crash era of home video games. Very similar setup with an overwhelming market leader (Atari) who had one of its key content creators strike out on their own (Activision) while myriad other competitors sprouted up to invade their market (Mattel, Coleco, Commodore, etc.). The key difference is that the streaming competitors all led with exclusivity as their main selling point. It would be like if Konami, Capcom, and Namco games only played on that company’s specific box. That sounds insane when you put it like that, but as you noted here, every Hollywood company did that with their streaming service and expected that people would just…pay for all of them, I guess?
Bingo. I've heard a similar tale with what a wrestling company tried to do.
What all of these companies and people miss is that they are LUXARY products. They are something people enjoy when they have enough time and wealth to do so. Going into any stage of the game believing that people will "just have to" have your product is a doomed venture because when bellies growl, they'll realize immediately how unneeded you and your product are.
Reflecting on it, you could actually use this whole mad period of business as people do the Romance of the Three Kings, the War of the Roses or the Warring States. There's probably even a non-trival amount of real world dead people because of all this.
Just a lick of fantasy, sci-fi or what have you and most people wouldn't have a clue where the car came from.
That said, we haven't come to the fat lady singing yet.
I NEVER understood the whole fascination with all the streaming services. The thing that made netflix great was that EVERYTHING was on it. You could find anything you wanted on it and only paid one "reasonable" fee. Deal. When they all started taking back their content and all wanting to charge separate fees for each, well none of them were worth it.
I will admit that after many years, I hung up my pirate hat and went with paramount this year (at $8/month) only because the one thing I like to watch (UFC) moved over there. And because there are basically an event a week (more or less) it's worth buying rather than sailing the high seas. (GenX BTW, I ain't paying for anything if I don't have to. I don't understand the whole younger "tech savvy" generation who pays out the behind for EVERYTHING but claims to be a rebel). But beyond that one sport, I really don't watch anything on there.
all the sports leagues are gonna migrate to the streaming services over time. more money to pay them and it sucks in the addicts. But it also means that everything becomes a niche sport. There's even less of a common ground.
The Millennials are the Convenience Generation. Doubt that GenZ and GenA are going to trend that way. They are asking for retro tech and physical stuff -- no networks.
Technology was a big factor in both the rapid adoption and decline of DVD. The first DVD I ever watched (Aliens: Special Edition) floored me with its sharpness, color, neat special features, and additional detail in the widescreen image that decades of watching pan and scan VHS tapes had been hiding in all my favorite 80s and 90s movies. For enthusiasts, “upgrading” your tapes was worth it, and you could further justify “double dipping” certain DVDs as digital film tech got better over time and improved the image quality (any early Warner movie on a “flipper” disc that came in one of those stupid cardboard snap cases went straight into the trash once a later version came out).
By the mid-2000s the effort needed for piracy also became trivial with the widespread adoption of DVD drives in PCs alongside broadband internet and larger standard HDD sizes, making acquisition and storage of more than a handful of pirated movies feasible. Scarcity also became a non-issue because the weekly game of “when is [favorite pre-2000s movie] coming to DVD?” was largely over.
Blu-ray tried and failed to re-inflate the bubble, but that’s another story entirely.
I've said in the past that there's room in the market for about one and a half streaming services.
It's like computer operating systems, but worse. Each market (phones, laptop/desktop, and servers are all separate markets) has one system with the vast majority of installs, plus some others which are marginal by comparison.
But operating systems at least inter-operate. You can do anything you want to do in any given system, even if it's less convenient because not as many others who have that system want to the thing and so less effort has been expended on making it possible.
Streaming services don't do that, because it's all about getting paid by the streaming service.
Customers want to pay for *one* subscription, plus *maybe* a second for stuff they know is a limited market.
Your points about the varying amounts of friction causing the switching back and forth between "yar" and paying for it are things I hadn't thought about before. They make sense.
People will pay for stuff. If it's not too hard to pay for it. If the paid stuff isn't too much harder to use than the pirated. And if the paid for stuff doesn't go away before they're done with it.
The DVD Netflix years were the best years. The only downside was DVDs that were damaged in the mail.
What's that? Copying DVDs? Who does that? What's is that stack of DVD-R on my desk? Oh, that's for backing up important files from my computer. Yeah, that's the ticket!
~~It’s human nature to believe that your success is the result of your own efforts~~
This has been on my mind lately as i observe so many who now seem to have taken the opposite view and believe succes "just happens" and nothing you do matters.
I've gone to using the metaphor of the farmer. There's no guarantee the crops will grow. But you will DEFINITELY have no crops if you don't plant the fields.
Success does require you do SOMETHING. You won't find it doing nothing. But yeah, the rest of reality (what some would call God) has a say too. The wise man does the work, and remains humble and thankful that the rains still came.
~~It’s human nature to believe that your success is the result of your own efforts~~
This has been on my mind lately as i observe so many who now seem to have taken the opposite view and believe succes "just happens" and nothing you do matters.
I've gone to using the metaphor of the farmer. There's no guarantee the crops will grow. But you will DEFINITELY have no crops if you don't plant the fields.
Success does require you do SOMETHING. You won't find it doing nothing. But yeah, the rest of reality (what some would call God) has a say too. The wise man does the work, and remains humble and thankful that the rains still came.
There are some weird formatting errors in this post. Look for triple slashes.
Oops. Fixed.
Good summary and strong thesis. The broadcast networks (as opposed to the studios) also lost out. At least they have live sports.
So is piratebay a a millenial thing mostly?
Exactly, subscriptions cost a consumer willing to pay was the most he could spend on a Movie for a month.
And that's how i have been following unless a good series/movie comes up there is no reason to subscribe for a month. Just plug in the subscriptions when the movie is available. And have complementary streaming for that month.
The streaming wars remind me of the pre-1983 crash era of home video games. Very similar setup with an overwhelming market leader (Atari) who had one of its key content creators strike out on their own (Activision) while myriad other competitors sprouted up to invade their market (Mattel, Coleco, Commodore, etc.). The key difference is that the streaming competitors all led with exclusivity as their main selling point. It would be like if Konami, Capcom, and Namco games only played on that company’s specific box. That sounds insane when you put it like that, but as you noted here, every Hollywood company did that with their streaming service and expected that people would just…pay for all of them, I guess?
Cocaine is a hellofa drug.
Bingo. I've heard a similar tale with what a wrestling company tried to do.
What all of these companies and people miss is that they are LUXARY products. They are something people enjoy when they have enough time and wealth to do so. Going into any stage of the game believing that people will "just have to" have your product is a doomed venture because when bellies growl, they'll realize immediately how unneeded you and your product are.
Reflecting on it, you could actually use this whole mad period of business as people do the Romance of the Three Kings, the War of the Roses or the Warring States. There's probably even a non-trival amount of real world dead people because of all this.
Just a lick of fantasy, sci-fi or what have you and most people wouldn't have a clue where the car came from.
That said, we haven't come to the fat lady singing yet.
Great analysis…and history lesson, that will probably be ignored.
Whoopsie daisy.
Ted Gioia bringing some bad news for streaming, or just some questionable "streaming fatigue" like that pesky "Superhero Fatigue" rumor?
Couldn't be true, could it?
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/did-streaming-subscription-prices
I NEVER understood the whole fascination with all the streaming services. The thing that made netflix great was that EVERYTHING was on it. You could find anything you wanted on it and only paid one "reasonable" fee. Deal. When they all started taking back their content and all wanting to charge separate fees for each, well none of them were worth it.
I will admit that after many years, I hung up my pirate hat and went with paramount this year (at $8/month) only because the one thing I like to watch (UFC) moved over there. And because there are basically an event a week (more or less) it's worth buying rather than sailing the high seas. (GenX BTW, I ain't paying for anything if I don't have to. I don't understand the whole younger "tech savvy" generation who pays out the behind for EVERYTHING but claims to be a rebel). But beyond that one sport, I really don't watch anything on there.
all the sports leagues are gonna migrate to the streaming services over time. more money to pay them and it sucks in the addicts. But it also means that everything becomes a niche sport. There's even less of a common ground.
The Millennials are the Convenience Generation. Doubt that GenZ and GenA are going to trend that way. They are asking for retro tech and physical stuff -- no networks.
Technology was a big factor in both the rapid adoption and decline of DVD. The first DVD I ever watched (Aliens: Special Edition) floored me with its sharpness, color, neat special features, and additional detail in the widescreen image that decades of watching pan and scan VHS tapes had been hiding in all my favorite 80s and 90s movies. For enthusiasts, “upgrading” your tapes was worth it, and you could further justify “double dipping” certain DVDs as digital film tech got better over time and improved the image quality (any early Warner movie on a “flipper” disc that came in one of those stupid cardboard snap cases went straight into the trash once a later version came out).
By the mid-2000s the effort needed for piracy also became trivial with the widespread adoption of DVD drives in PCs alongside broadband internet and larger standard HDD sizes, making acquisition and storage of more than a handful of pirated movies feasible. Scarcity also became a non-issue because the weekly game of “when is [favorite pre-2000s movie] coming to DVD?” was largely over.
Blu-ray tried and failed to re-inflate the bubble, but that’s another story entirely.
I've said in the past that there's room in the market for about one and a half streaming services.
It's like computer operating systems, but worse. Each market (phones, laptop/desktop, and servers are all separate markets) has one system with the vast majority of installs, plus some others which are marginal by comparison.
But operating systems at least inter-operate. You can do anything you want to do in any given system, even if it's less convenient because not as many others who have that system want to the thing and so less effort has been expended on making it possible.
Streaming services don't do that, because it's all about getting paid by the streaming service.
Customers want to pay for *one* subscription, plus *maybe* a second for stuff they know is a limited market.
Your points about the varying amounts of friction causing the switching back and forth between "yar" and paying for it are things I hadn't thought about before. They make sense.
People will pay for stuff. If it's not too hard to pay for it. If the paid stuff isn't too much harder to use than the pirated. And if the paid for stuff doesn't go away before they're done with it.
Why do you define 1990 as the start of the DVD era?
The DVD Netflix years were the best years. The only downside was DVDs that were damaged in the mail.
What's that? Copying DVDs? Who does that? What's is that stack of DVD-R on my desk? Oh, that's for backing up important files from my computer. Yeah, that's the ticket!
~~It’s human nature to believe that your success is the result of your own efforts~~
This has been on my mind lately as i observe so many who now seem to have taken the opposite view and believe succes "just happens" and nothing you do matters.
I've gone to using the metaphor of the farmer. There's no guarantee the crops will grow. But you will DEFINITELY have no crops if you don't plant the fields.
Success does require you do SOMETHING. You won't find it doing nothing. But yeah, the rest of reality (what some would call God) has a say too. The wise man does the work, and remains humble and thankful that the rains still came.
~~It’s human nature to believe that your success is the result of your own efforts~~
This has been on my mind lately as i observe so many who now seem to have taken the opposite view and believe succes "just happens" and nothing you do matters.
I've gone to using the metaphor of the farmer. There's no guarantee the crops will grow. But you will DEFINITELY have no crops if you don't plant the fields.
Success does require you do SOMETHING. You won't find it doing nothing. But yeah, the rest of reality (what some would call God) has a say too. The wise man does the work, and remains humble and thankful that the rains still came.
The arrogance was thick in the movie business when I was in. There was an air of, “we can’t be touched”. How the “mighty” have fallen.