Streaming is cable now | Seventeen years after Netflix and Hulu kicked off a streaming revolution, it’s looking more like cable than ever.
Streaming is cable now | Seventeen years after Netflix and Hulu kicked off a streaming revolution, it’s looking more like cable than ever.
When the ideas run dry for infinite growth, everything old is new again.
You're correct.
Social Media is the perfect example of this. Everytime a new social media network arrives, they always boast about being able to do things you could already have done with the other 9 social media networks. Sharing pictures and video, chatting .etc. They're all things we could've already have done far way back in the days of messaging software like AIM. It's nothing new, it's just recycled ideas being treated as new.
The only things that have ever improved were the amount of size of videos and pictures we can share and the speed in which we're able to do it with. That's it.
The well of finding new ideas has ran dry, because they've all been tried and done before many times. New name, same old shit.
That article was worthless.... basically streaming is expensive and not as awesome as it once was. There you go whole article
The biggest change to me is how much the streaming services are pushing commercials now. Paying to watch commercials really completes the transition back to cable.
Paying to watch commercials will be a no from me. I remember people did this but it is still hard to believe. 1/3 of the content per hour is ads, they are all repetitive and stupid. Except now they are repetitive and stupid despite selling all your data to the advertisers.
It's still way more awesome than cable ever was. Sure you can have all the services all at once and pay as much as a cable bill, or you can rotate your subscriptions and pay way less.
I’m not sure about that. Popular shows get canceled, unfinished. Huge price hikes, and you can’t jump to another provider to watch the shows at a new rate or call and threaten to cancel to get a new rate. Sure, there are a few good series, but it’s still mostly crap. Sure, you can watch some older movies on demand, but plenty aren’t available, are available on some other service, and/or require you to pay a rental fee if you can find it. Prices keep climbing, ads are constantly a threat, and they place more restrictions on how many devices you’re allowed to watch on.
They are doing everything they can to re-insert the worst aspects of cable.
I sure soon they will introduce contracts making sign up for 6 to 1 year up front to prevent just that.
@teamevil, the hero we need, not the hero we deserve.
Yes, but no. Cable didn't used to let you watch all seasons of a specific show on any given day and time of your choosing.
I'm old enough to remember when cable didn't have ads. I was really young, maybe 5ish, but even then it was confusing to me when they started adding commercials. That was for bad TV with the antenna. Then it was only HBO that didn't have ads, but we couldn't afford that until I was much older.
EDIT: I guess my memories of being 5 years old aren't very accurate.
Until the show you want to watch gets removed because they don't want to pay the licensing fee for it anymore.
The original content is often very mid.
Pretty much.
If you missed an episode of a show on cable television. Well, you're shit out of luck unless it's a show that the network didn't mind running re-runs of, but re-runs only applied for shows that were popular. And if you missed an episode of a show that wasn't popular, again you were shit out of luck and hope to one day acquire it through a VHS or a DVD or these days, blu-ray or on streaming.
Network programming was always like this.
That is also the reason everything reset to the status quo at the end of every episode.
Permanently Deleted
On the up-side, I can cancel subscriptions whenever I want and only subscribe to one or two at a time when they have something I want to watch. I could never do that with cable.
That said, pricing is getting way out of control. I will not tolerate ads and we're getting to the point where purchasing content makes more financial sense than subscribing to things that load you up with caveats unless you pay premiums.
The "best" part you forgot , buying probably won't be possible or available
Unfortunately, you are absolutely right. 😞
And also, even when it is... it's "buying" (with quotes), because in this brave new digital world... you don't actually own anything you "buy".
I fear the change from monthly to annual only subscriptions is on the horizon
I hear you're tired of monthly payments. How about....
What we wanted: a-la-carte channels.
What we got: seven expensive streaming services and they all still somehow have ESPN bullshit.
What we actually need: !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
The music industry figured it out. Now the video streaming industry needs to. Until then, arrrrrr.
The music industry figured it out: I listen to way more music than ever before and I willingly pay more than ever before
Video streaming keeps trying to make my experience more frustrating, less value to me. They’re scrounging for dollars is driving me away. I’ve considered my options for making video entertainment enjoyable again, and I’m just tired of the whole thing. I’m spending more time in projects, more time online, more time reading ebooks from my library. I’m watching less video than before, enjoying it less, getting less value for my money and it’s just all not worth it. Their efforts to profit more from my attention are getting them less of it and losing my willingness to pay
The big difference is exclusive content. Music has a few exceptions but in general sign up for one service and you can listen to anything.
That forces music services to compete on the overall experience (and price), while video services pretty much exclusively compete based on what content is available and literally none of them offer all of the things a person wants to watch. So nobody will ever be happy with any streaming service.
Yo ho ho my friend. Yo ho ho.
Oh sure, great idea! Henceforth, actors don't get paid any more. that's what you're advocating, that's what the music industry has "figured out" - how to steal all the money and give it to people who had no involvement with actually making the music.
You should be pirating the fucking music not supporting the pricks who walked in off the street and stole everything and who make nothing at all themselves
edit: bitching about the facts just makes you more wrong
No problem, friend. I have time for both.
Spotify pays more to artists than physical stores selling CDs ever did. And they certainly pay better than FM radio.
Sure - if you were one of he top 1000 artists in the world the old system paid more... but it's not like those artists are starving now — Spotify alone pays millions per year to the top thousand artists, and they also get paid by YouTube, Apple, TikTok, etc etc.
The real way to make money in the music industry is and always has been live performances. A solo artist can make a couple hundred bucks a night doing simple cover songs, and a popular band can make a lot more.
🏴☠️
*arr!
Arrrrrrrr
I stopped using Hulu when it introduced ads over a decade ago and never looked back. The stock of that company did really well despite the cable-like inconveniences.
Um, duh?
Is the author just noticing this? We've been piecing this together for the past 7 some odd years. The day hit us was when YouTube decided to be cute by adding in it's own network via YouTubeTV and with it's onslaught of ads.
Lessons from movies that streaming services didn't learn:
"You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
We know, Verge.
Now go build an PC...wait nevermind.
nah, just get a thinkpad
Look up "Verge PC build" on Youtube to get it.
With the current state of streaming services mess, I think I would have signed up for disc rental by mail. Access to nearly 100% of media at highest quality for around 10 to 15 bucks a month seems like pretty good deal right about now. Sadly Netflix killed that part of their business so I can't even go back to that.
It's not like netflix is the only one that can offer that kind of service. You've still got gamefly, 3D Bluray Rental, cafedvd, redbox (if you're fine with going to a kiosk), your public library, and probably others if you care to search for them.
What is this "world of content" the author is talking about? 17 years ago, the streaming options on Netflix were the previous season of Friday Night Lights, and... that was it. A few years later they got The Office, but never the current season. So you were always behind. These articles never seem to include a graph of available content over time.
I’ve just gone back to pirating and buying DVDs. I don’t watch much of anything anymore.
same, i also abuse free trials pretty hard.
(virtual credit cards and visa gift cards with little to no money on them work great)
I went from cable to satellite in 2008 and then went strictly streaming in 2010. I've had Disney + and Netflix off and on over the years but I've found that I don't need any of them. There are plenty of things to watch for free elsewhere and plenty of other things to do than watch shows that will be canceled after the first season.
I won't watch a show unless it's done. This bullshit of cancelling after one season is ass.
Dvd's are still free at the library if you don't want to pirate.
Hulu is owned by cable companies, they didn’t learn everyone hates advertising
now it's mostly Disney or even fully disney, i forgot
I have a reminder to cancel Amazon Prime in a month. I never really used the TV portion until a few months ago and was like, fine ... the selection sucks but it's alright. After they introduced the ads now, it's unusable to me. I'm getting rid of it entirely and not rewarding this type of behaviour.
It’ll be cable when they start making you contact customer retention in order to cancel.
The convenience you required is now mandatory.
Three things:
- Governments need to regulate exclusive third party content so that the platforms compete on quality instead of just amount of content.
- Companies should go back to pay as you use. I hate subscribing to things.
- Users should push back hard on new bad things that the corporations do.
My hot take, in the digital age, all direct marketing should be opt-in with the platform. Opt-in for industries with the ability to ban specific advertisers.
What is that Hulu you are talking about, we never got that in Mexico (nor Pandora now that I am talking about it).
In this day and age where everyone wants its piece of the cake it is weird to me that they never cared about more countries xd.
Another streaming service that started around the same time as Netflix's. More focused on TV shows and now owned by Disney.
It may have been more difficult and expensive than you’d expect. My understanding was distribution contracts tend to be per country. Netflix can’t just stream all the stuff from north of the border, but have to start over with buying rights to everything in a new country
This made more sense when distributors were all per country but not so much for streamers
And just like the good ol days, pirating is back in fashion.
Rizen IRC
Do you mean Rizon? What about it?
Tizen IRC chat ??????????
MUuuhhaaaaa. I worked for a cable company for a little over a decade. I remember commenting when people everywhere were talking about its death that streaming would soon be just like cable. They called me a fool. MUuuhhaaaaa!
This is what you made me think of
