People (including me) complain about monopolies all the time for various reasons. At the same time, I’ve noticed a ton of complaints about the existence of multiple streaming platforms. But isn’t that a good thing at the end of the day? If streaming platforms consolidated into 2-3 companies, there wouldn’t be much stopping them from raising prices even more.
I don’t mind multiple streaming platforms as long as all they do is stream content
My issue is each and every streaming platform produces their own exclusive content or they sign exclusivity contracts so only one platform streams a particular show or movie at once.
If Netflix and amazon video had the same content, you would just have to choose the service that is cheapest and has the best benefits like great user interface, customer support, features, and other stuff like that.
When there are 12 different platforms which each have their own library with barely any overlap you have to sign up for multiple all at once, and some that have terrible customer support or user interfaces if you want to watch one of their shows.
Like Netflix shoving mobile “games” in my face when I sit down to watch a show. 🙃
The problem is exclusive rights.
If you wanna watch 3 different shows but they are all on different platforms, then you gotta go and pay for all 3. You can’t just watch the Netflix version of Loki, or the Disney+ version of Ted Lasso.
You mentioned monopolies but the problem is that each platform holds hundreds of monopolies, each for one specific show/movie.
In a perfect world, there would be some sort of law or agreement against exclusive rights, where every service can show any product they bought the (non-exclusive) rights to.
In that scenario, streaming services would have to compete by being the cheapest or offering the best service.
But alas, this is not a perfect world
If the content was a commodity like oil or food it would mean all movies and series would be available to all streaming co. Then you could save money and choose the one that best serves your needs.
Since it’s not the case it’s more like worst case monopoly: if I want Star Trek I must suffer the bad experience that is paramount plus. If I want mandalorian I have no choice but to engage Disney Plus. Etc etc.
So not only you pay more, but there’s no incentive to pick the best ones and improve experience of the bad ones
If they made the media realistically affordable (a couple bucks a movie or like 5 bucks a season of show) many people would just pay that bill and be happy.
I often end up downloading stuff I already have access to on streaming, that way it’s just all in one place.
They don’t compete with the same content but different features or pricing… they compete by forming fiefdoms of exclusive content. So the user still only has one option per show - not a real choice.
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Because the services are still only owned by a handful of corporations.
Disney owns Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+.
Amazon owns Prime Video and MGM+.
Warner Bros Discovery owns Max and Discovery+
Those three companies own 7 of some of the largest streaming services with a little over a half a billion subs between them. Netflix is the only exception to that trend, being independently founded, but they have their own issues regardless.
If there was an aggregator of sorts that would charge let’s say even $25 to watch whatever I’d pay happily. That’s what Netflix kinda was before other streaming services started popping up and each asking for a hefty fee.
Yeah we need Spotify-like video streaming services already. Let them compete over features and price rather than exclusive content.
And yet even Spotify has started having exclusive content in the form of certain podcasts. Only a matter of time before they do it with music too.
I would be happy to use a service that auto subscribes for a month when I play content but also auto cancels renewal.
I’m happy to pay for them when I use them but if I don’t happen to use one for a month it would be great to skip that bill.
Id even settle for a “master” app that just lets me log all my accounts into it and lets me search for whatever I want and if it isnt on something I have tells me what service its on.
You may already have this. FireStick does this, Apple TV so does this, I’m pretty sure Roku does this …… my problem is the opposite: I want to search only the content accessible with what I already pay. I’m tired of search being an upsell
It killed the promise of affordable content we had for a decade. When Netflix was the only game in town, you paid less for it and got more.
Because each of them are charging you $15-$20 per month to access their platform that realistically only has one or two things that actually provide you the value for what you spend.
So now, instead of spending the $100 or whatever it was with your cable TV company to get access to all those channels (which, while you couldnt pick what was on when, they were all included together), now you have to spend like $150-$200 to be able to access the same kind of content as before.
And to make it worse, you used to be able to buy a Laserdisc/VHS/DVD/etc of a movie you really liked. One time purchase, not a monthly subscription. And you didn’t have to think about what youre going to do when the streaming service decides to remove your purchased content from their servers (spoiler alert, they almost never will refund you or give you a copy, it just disappears along with your money you spent to buy it).
Because they are “competing” with content exclusivity instead of quality of service, if every show was on every stream we would actually have competition.
I literally torrent everything like a normal person
If the studios were smart they would put out there own high quality torrents and just charge a couple bucks a movie and send people a bill. I bet a lot of people would pay it. I would.
I wouldn’t. I torrent to get stuff for free
Because the service is worse with multiple streaming services?
Everything is not in the same place, it’s more expensive, and it’s less convenient.
It used to be cheaper with one. It’s more expensive with multiple.
Piracy has become more convenient than streaming platforms. As least all the media can be consolidated to one place, one frontend.
Yeah, you rarely hear people complain about music streaming apps because they don’t have (as much of) an exlueitivy problem. Apple/Google/Spotify/etc. Are competing on service/cost/features.
It’s probably because they can remember how convenient and cheaper it was to see any movie or show that could be streamed. Streaming was supposed to disrupt TV by eliminating ads and allowing you to choose whatever you want to watch. Nowadays, in order to get the same amount of choices, you need to spend about as much as you did for a TV subscription and now many platforms have ads.
I think it’s more a frustration at what we lost than anything else.
It’s a matter of convenience. If you wish to ethically watch various shows then you have to either pay for many streaming services or finish some content on one, cancel, and switch to another.
I’ve had similar thoughts, and I don’t have a great answer for you.
On the one hand, it seems like we consumers are really spoiled. On the other hand, a lot of these platforms only have a small number of offerings people find worthwhile.
I’m not as disciplined about it as I should be, but I try to limit how many I have at one time. I will regularly unsub from ones I haven’t watched in a while.
