It’s an ironic end to the streaming wars. After pouring billions and billions of dollars into constructing supposedly revolutionary streaming platforms, and decimating the business models that had offered the industry stability for decades, the ultimate product looks awfully similar to what companies and consumers were trying to break free from in the first place.
I’ll still take streaming any day over cable.
No contract and you can put everything in rotation. Sign up for a month, binge, cancel, next.
The streaming companies are starting to get wise to that. They’ve started splitting seasons and releasing them separately so that you have to be subbed for 2 months.
Or they could release one per week, two batches isn’t really “starting to get wise to that” imho.
Either way, being patient is the best and only paying for one month
I think it’s just the beginning. They’ll split seasons eventually into 3 or more parts. Or if you wait till all seasons are released, they’ll paywall earlier parts. They know people won’t wait that long, especially with how easy it is to have things spoiled by social media or among friends/co-workers.
Might seem stupid, but it’s actually much more enjoyable to be watching something at the same time as others because you can sit and discuss it, come up with theories for how things will play out, and avoid having things spoiled for you. Nobody is going to be excited when you tell them you just started Game of Thrones last week because the show ended years ago and many people have already seen it all.
That’s a real concern if you’re at all worried about spoilers. It’s so easy just to have shit spoiled even if you try to avoid it. Passively hearing about it from school/workmates, social media, or even radio. The stupid radio spoiled the ending of Breaking Bad for me and I never got over it, I guess.
Sure until they start adding game mechanics like daily login rewards and episode “loot boxes” that give you a chance to increment your streaming battle pass so you finally have a shot at rolling for the show you actually want.
If you look at the world of Gaming, you see plenty if not most people being unable to refrain from instant gratification and just “having to have” the latest installment of some game series NOW at full price instead of waiting 6 months or a year go get it much cheaper.
I think there’s still some post floating around in Active in lemmy bitching and moaning about how this year’s installment of some (american) football game is $70 and a few about how great Baldur’s Gate 3 is (which you can only really know if ypu bought it full price in the first week as it just came out)
It seems to me that effect is even worse for things which are a social phenomenon (essentially, those things that people like to talk about it with each other) and that applies to TV Series and Films, not just games.
I mean, kudos for being able to refrain from Instant Gratification (I do the same too), it’s just that nowadays that doesn’t seem to be what most people do.
The difference between watching something programmers and on demand is big. I still detest the newer prices though coupled with the decline in interesting content.
What an unusually comedic yet depressing final comments in the article:
It’s an ironic end to the streaming wars. After pouring billions and billions of dollars into constructing supposedly revolutionary streaming platforms, and decimating the business models that had offered the industry stability for decades, the ultimate product looks awfully similar to what companies and consumers were trying to break free from in the first place.
Im just gonna parrot what the other person remarked because what they said is pretty on point: I mean this is basically inevitable. We know that capitalism doesn’t actually seek the lowest price as its evangelists usually preach, but the highest - and so there is no way that streaming will not balloon over time to a price comparable to the cable TV plans of the past.
Am I the only one that remembers the “cut the cord” and “stop feeding the cable pig” nonsense? What happened to all that? Thankfully, none of this has affected me, then or now. I don’t usually bother with “programming” of any kind but, when I do, “arr mateys.”
I mean it was nonsense to think it would solve your costs, but streaming is superior to cable TV from a tech standpoint for sure.
People should expect that yeah, new software is cheap when it’s rolled out, but it’s gonna get more expensive as time goes on, but I can understand why that wasn’t quite as apparent to people 10 years ago as it will be 10 years from now
That’s literally the opposite of how it’s supposed to be, new tech is expensive and only early adopters can buy in, then when the EA’s money comes in, it is spent to improve and make the tech cheaper, which allows it to be adopted by the masses. With streaming, all of the fat cats decided to start it cheap to get everyone hooked and moved over, then jacked up the prices because the shareholders aren’t satisfied with their draconic gold hoards.
I think the model that you’re referring to is generally more applicable to hardware, but since you can make free copies of an app, Uber for instance can keep things low cost till they eat the competition
I mean this is basically inevitable. We know that capitalism doesn't actually seek the lowest price as its evangelists usually preach, but the highest - and so there is no way that streaming will not balloon over time to a price comparable to the cable TV plans of the past.
In fact, consumers who bundle just a few streamers together in 2023 will find that the final cost is effectively the same as basic cable. Couple that reality with the introduction of ads into streaming and the end product eerily resembles on-demand cable.
Capitalism seeks the highest profit, but what that means depends on the customers.
With the Netflix password sharing crackdown risky bet, customers answered loud and clear: they are more than willing to pay more money to access the same content instead of standing their ground on the decision.
When there is actual competition and customers are demanding of what the offering should be, that’s when we see prices go down.
There are an increasing number of markets where monopolies and deals between companies leave people without any choice to make at all, but I don’t think the market of streaming services is an example of this.
I stepped away from having any home infrastructure other than a proper firewall about a decade ago when streaming was so affordable and content was so bountiful on the few streaming platforms that existed. Now I finds myself considering diving straight back into setting up a NAS and hosting locally at home again. Is Plex still a decent choice to stream from your collection while traveling?
Plex is still a good choice. I find that Jellyfin has better performance, recognizes and organized my media better, but it’s more complicated to set up remote access on jellyfin.
I would prefer to move to Jellyfin long-term but I need to get access to port forwarding from my landlord first.
Thanks for the recommendation, I had not heard of that but it looks like a common solution so I may try that later! Here is a helpful looking guide I found in case anyone else is curious too.
https://www.ethanmad.com/post/jellyfin_remote_access/
Well, this time they have Google and Microsoft on big brother duty to make sure you don’t get crazy ideas. And I’m not seeing enough people jumping away from Chrome and Windows to stop it.
But so far google and microsoft are incompetent big brothers, to the point that most people will find free streaming sites just by searching “free streaming epx of show”. Now we are not talking good streaming, or even safe but if you want an example just look at any place with poor users (like a school or library).
I’m on Windows and it’s never hindered me when I needed to go download something that would make a studio exec cry. Granted, I use Firefox, but I’m not sure what Chrome would do differently - it’s just a matter of clicking links that get sent off to qBittorrent to handle. What “big brothering” do they do?
It was wonderful when everything was on one, maybe two providers. Could watch everything in a very easy, very affordable way.
But everyone saw that, went “I know, I want that money!” and spent billions building their own individual infrastructures so make their own streaming services, and right around we go right back to the absolute worst days of cable and bullshit.
Only thing stopping me from saying fuck it and downloading shit I want to watch, is the fact that I no longer know what the good sites are… since I havent pirated since the heyday of the bay.
And the irony is that people switched to cable for the exact same reason. They got tired of the nonsense that broadcast TV pulled with subscriptions for different channels and all the ads and everything, and went to cable because you paid one bill for every channel. Then, everyone moved to streaming because you had to buy 50 different cable packages for the one channel on each you actually cared about, and there were just too many ads to deal with, etc.
Something something, those who don’t listen to history are doomed to lose profit margins or whatever.
I may be remembering that wrong, as it was before my time, but I had heard that people moved to cable for the same reasons that people moved from cable to streaming services. You bought one cable package, it gave you access to everything, and there were no ads. Then came the ads, and eventually, the packages you have to buy in addition to your cable subscription for the channels you actually care about.
People went to cable because it had no ads and let you have the opportunity to watch stuff you’d missed because they looped content regularly. Missed an episode of the Simpsons? All good, it’s on again in 12 hours. It also has movies and shows long before free to air because they paid for it. Cable was the start of subscriptions and paying for individual channels.
That and movies just suck nowadays. This is partially old man yelling at cloud stuff but also true since the death of DVD’s means studios won’t take risks anymore since they can’t recoup funds after a poor box office.
This isn’t yelling at clouds, it’s check l correct.
It’s also not quite so much “recoup funds at a poor box office” as it was “count on DVD sales to make up fifty percent of revenue for certain kinds of movies.”
I prefer torrents because it’s totally free, unlike Usenet. I don’t even pay for a VPN since I don’t care about a few love letters in my inbox. It’s not about the cost; it’s a matter of principle that I disagree with commercialized piracy.
No, thanks… As long as I can download whatever I want whenever I want (add it to nas and watch through Kodi having like Netflix experience), there is no way that those people will get my money. Most of it is just bullshit anyway. And if I like or want to support some quality release I’ll go to cinema.
Here in Australia I remember when we were told that every free to air station was working together to make a single streaming app, was very excited and it would have made me actually watch more free to air stuff.
Then those talks broke down and Insta we got 6 different streaming apps all requiring their own accounts and with differing levels of quality in their apps.
Couldn’t you just subscribe for a month, download the videos and cancel the subscription? Just slap a new 2 TB hard disk on your computer and start downloading 24/7 until the disk is full. Surely that’s enough stuff to watch for several months.
The normal use case for these apps is you download, then you only have access while you’re paying for the service. If you put your plane in airplane mode for Netflix, I believe you have a few days to reconnect or you won’t have access to your downloads.
If there’s a system for doing something, there’s always a way to make it do things it isn’t supposed to do. I can’t imagine that I’m the first person to think that there must be a way to save those files in a nicer format. Surely someone has already made a program that either saves the files or converts them into mp4 or whatever.
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I’ll still take streaming any day over cable.
No contract and you can put everything in rotation. Sign up for a month, binge, cancel, next.
deleted by creator
The streaming companies are starting to get wise to that. They’ve started splitting seasons and releasing them separately so that you have to be subbed for 2 months.
Or they could release one per week, two batches isn’t really “starting to get wise to that” imho. Either way, being patient is the best and only paying for one month
Not if they start to limit you to 3 episodes of a particular series per week
Don’t.Give.The.Mouse.Ideas.
I think it’s just the beginning. They’ll split seasons eventually into 3 or more parts. Or if you wait till all seasons are released, they’ll paywall earlier parts. They know people won’t wait that long, especially with how easy it is to have things spoiled by social media or among friends/co-workers.
I’d just wait until the second part is out, sub one month.
But you won’t see it at the same time as some others, the horror!
Might seem stupid, but it’s actually much more enjoyable to be watching something at the same time as others because you can sit and discuss it, come up with theories for how things will play out, and avoid having things spoiled for you. Nobody is going to be excited when you tell them you just started Game of Thrones last week because the show ended years ago and many people have already seen it all.
That’s a real concern if you’re at all worried about spoilers. It’s so easy just to have shit spoiled even if you try to avoid it. Passively hearing about it from school/workmates, social media, or even radio. The stupid radio spoiled the ending of Breaking Bad for me and I never got over it, I guess.
Sure until they start adding game mechanics like daily login rewards and episode “loot boxes” that give you a chance to increment your streaming battle pass so you finally have a shot at rolling for the show you actually want.
I got a holographic original extended Daenerys sex scene!
Well I’ll subscribe for the second month.
If you look at the world of Gaming, you see plenty if not most people being unable to refrain from instant gratification and just “having to have” the latest installment of some game series NOW at full price instead of waiting 6 months or a year go get it much cheaper.
I think there’s still some post floating around in Active in lemmy bitching and moaning about how this year’s installment of some (american) football game is $70 and a few about how great Baldur’s Gate 3 is (which you can only really know if ypu bought it full price in the first week as it just came out)
It seems to me that effect is even worse for things which are a social phenomenon (essentially, those things that people like to talk about it with each other) and that applies to TV Series and Films, not just games.
I mean, kudos for being able to refrain from Instant Gratification (I do the same too), it’s just that nowadays that doesn’t seem to be what most people do.
Congrats. Patience is a much-neeeded virtue, especially when it comes to TV series you like.
The difference between watching something programmers and on demand is big. I still detest the newer prices though coupled with the decline in interesting content.
That’s not going to last. As soon as they run the numbers and decide it’s worth it, they’ll create ways to lock you in.
My use of Kodi and debrid says otherwise.
What an unusually comedic yet depressing final comments in the article:
It’s an ironic end to the streaming wars. After pouring billions and billions of dollars into constructing supposedly revolutionary streaming platforms, and decimating the business models that had offered the industry stability for decades, the ultimate product looks awfully similar to what companies and consumers were trying to break free from in the first place.Im just gonna parrot what the other person remarked because what they said is pretty on point: I mean this is basically inevitable. We know that capitalism doesn’t actually seek the lowest price as its evangelists usually preach, but the highest - and so there is no way that streaming will not balloon over time to a price comparable to the cable TV plans of the past.
Yarrr
To be fair, capitalism seeks the lowest market clearance price. Until price hikes start showing a lower net return, prices will go up.
Not that I care, me cap’n’s hat never left the boat.
removed by mod
Ya’har me matey!
deleted by creator
Frear and the illusion of convenience is what makes them pay.
The internet is much faster now too
Am I the only one that remembers the “cut the cord” and “stop feeding the cable pig” nonsense? What happened to all that? Thankfully, none of this has affected me, then or now. I don’t usually bother with “programming” of any kind but, when I do, “arr mateys.”
I mean it was nonsense to think it would solve your costs, but streaming is superior to cable TV from a tech standpoint for sure.
People should expect that yeah, new software is cheap when it’s rolled out, but it’s gonna get more expensive as time goes on, but I can understand why that wasn’t quite as apparent to people 10 years ago as it will be 10 years from now
That’s literally the opposite of how it’s supposed to be, new tech is expensive and only early adopters can buy in, then when the EA’s money comes in, it is spent to improve and make the tech cheaper, which allows it to be adopted by the masses. With streaming, all of the fat cats decided to start it cheap to get everyone hooked and moved over, then jacked up the prices because the shareholders aren’t satisfied with their draconic gold hoards.
I think the model that you’re referring to is generally more applicable to hardware, but since you can make free copies of an app, Uber for instance can keep things low cost till they eat the competition
The cable pigs moved into the streaming game, and used licensing to enshitify streaming
I don’t know, my stremio app and torrent client is still working. The era of cheap streaming may be over, but the era of free streaming never ended!
I mean this is basically inevitable. We know that capitalism doesn't actually seek the lowest price as its evangelists usually preach, but the highest - and so there is no way that streaming will not balloon over time to a price comparable to the cable TV plans of the past.
🏴☠️ yo ho yo ho a pirate’s life for me 🏴☠️
Capitalism seeks the highest profit, but what that means depends on the customers.
With the Netflix password sharing crackdown risky bet, customers answered loud and clear: they are more than willing to pay more money to access the same content instead of standing their ground on the decision.
When there is actual competition and customers are demanding of what the offering should be, that’s when we see prices go down.
There are an increasing number of markets where monopolies and deals between companies leave people without any choice to make at all, but I don’t think the market of streaming services is an example of this.
I stepped away from having any home infrastructure other than a proper firewall about a decade ago when streaming was so affordable and content was so bountiful on the few streaming platforms that existed. Now I finds myself considering diving straight back into setting up a NAS and hosting locally at home again. Is Plex still a decent choice to stream from your collection while traveling?
Plex is still a good choice. I find that Jellyfin has better performance, recognizes and organized my media better, but it’s more complicated to set up remote access on jellyfin.
I would prefer to move to Jellyfin long-term but I need to get access to port forwarding from my landlord first.
you could set it up on a non standard port like 99. you have to manually add “:99” at the end of your domain name, but it works.
Tailscale is going to be much easier to setup. No permission from your landlord needed.
Thanks for the recommendation, I had not heard of that but it looks like a common solution so I may try that later! Here is a helpful looking guide I found in case anyone else is curious too. https://www.ethanmad.com/post/jellyfin_remote_access/
note that you can run your own headscale server rather than paying tailscale for the privilege.
This is where I’m at.
I suggest also setting up Radarr and Sonarr for automatic downloads.
The era of free streaming is still going strong.
Pirating went down when paying for streaming was more convenient. Well, you are making it far less convenient.
Well, this time they have Google and Microsoft on big brother duty to make sure you don’t get crazy ideas. And I’m not seeing enough people jumping away from Chrome and Windows to stop it.
Time will tell…
But so far google and microsoft are incompetent big brothers, to the point that most people will find free streaming sites just by searching “free streaming epx of show”. Now we are not talking good streaming, or even safe but if you want an example just look at any place with poor users (like a school or library).
What exactly are you talking about? Google and Microsoft have literally nothing to do with any of this.
I’m on Windows and it’s never hindered me when I needed to go download something that would make a studio exec cry. Granted, I use Firefox, but I’m not sure what Chrome would do differently - it’s just a matter of clicking links that get sent off to qBittorrent to handle. What “big brothering” do they do?
Google is implementing a new scheme that verifies your browser (correct DRM, etc.) and sites won’t allow access without it.
Basically you have to have Chrome and without extensions they don’t like.
I’m preeeeetty sure that the Pirate Bay isn’t going to implement that scheme.
As lord Gaben has said, “piracy is a service issue”
It’s not really any less convenient, just more expensive
True as long as they keep an ad-free tier.
Arr
Streaming has become cable 2.0.
It was wonderful when everything was on one, maybe two providers. Could watch everything in a very easy, very affordable way.
But everyone saw that, went “I know, I want that money!” and spent billions building their own individual infrastructures so make their own streaming services, and right around we go right back to the absolute worst days of cable and bullshit.
Only thing stopping me from saying fuck it and downloading shit I want to watch, is the fact that I no longer know what the good sites are… since I havent pirated since the heyday of the bay.
[email protected] Their sidebar can teach you a lot.
And the irony is that people switched to cable for the exact same reason. They got tired of the nonsense that broadcast TV pulled with subscriptions for different channels and all the ads and everything, and went to cable because you paid one bill for every channel. Then, everyone moved to streaming because you had to buy 50 different cable packages for the one channel on each you actually cared about, and there were just too many ads to deal with, etc.
Something something, those who don’t listen to history are doomed to lose profit margins or whatever.
Broadcast tv had different subscriptions for channels? Where? Free to air tv is free with no subscriptions or options.
Lol they are definitely wrong about that.
I may be remembering that wrong, as it was before my time, but I had heard that people moved to cable for the same reasons that people moved from cable to streaming services. You bought one cable package, it gave you access to everything, and there were no ads. Then came the ads, and eventually, the packages you have to buy in addition to your cable subscription for the channels you actually care about.
Cable most definitely had ads though. Special add ons like HBO or Showtime didn’t but basic cable did.
People went to cable because it had no ads and let you have the opportunity to watch stuff you’d missed because they looped content regularly. Missed an episode of the Simpsons? All good, it’s on again in 12 hours. It also has movies and shows long before free to air because they paid for it. Cable was the start of subscriptions and paying for individual channels.
That and movies just suck nowadays. This is partially old man yelling at cloud stuff but also true since the death of DVD’s means studios won’t take risks anymore since they can’t recoup funds after a poor box office.
This isn’t yelling at clouds, it’s check l correct.
It’s also not quite so much “recoup funds at a poor box office” as it was “count on DVD sales to make up fifty percent of revenue for certain kinds of movies.”
Join lemmy.dbzer0.com the piracy instance and ask around about private trackers and if there are any open signups
On the usenet side of the house, I think the only big change was NZB Matrix going away.
I can’t tell if no one talks about usenet because no one knows about it or because they don’t want anyone else to know about it.
I prefer torrents because it’s totally free, unlike Usenet. I don’t even pay for a VPN since I don’t care about a few love letters in my inbox. It’s not about the cost; it’s a matter of principle that I disagree with commercialized piracy.
But Usenet is a good option for other reasons.
Both. It’s a semi secret club.
Galaxy torrents is a newer, solid option friend
Streaming has become cable with micro transactions.
[email protected]
TorrentFreak occassionally posts a list of sites, just use a good no logging VPN.
Oh, so they defederated and y’all complaining about that now. I see how it is 😋
🏴☠️
Yarr Harr Harr, fiddly dee doo!
Avast ye
No, thanks… As long as I can download whatever I want whenever I want (add it to nas and watch through Kodi having like Netflix experience), there is no way that those people will get my money. Most of it is just bullshit anyway. And if I like or want to support some quality release I’ll go to cinema.
It was over the day the studios wanted to have their own services instead of licensing content to Netflix and competitors.
Here in Australia I remember when we were told that every free to air station was working together to make a single streaming app, was very excited and it would have made me actually watch more free to air stuff.
Then those talks broke down and Insta we got 6 different streaming apps all requiring their own accounts and with differing levels of quality in their apps.
I did not end up watching more free to air tv.
Again? How many times has it ended now?
I never left the 7 seas matey
Indeed. The era of cheap pirated content… continues much as it always had.
Couldn’t you just subscribe for a month, download the videos and cancel the subscription? Just slap a new 2 TB hard disk on your computer and start downloading 24/7 until the disk is full. Surely that’s enough stuff to watch for several months.
The normal use case for these apps is you download, then you only have access while you’re paying for the service. If you put your plane in airplane mode for Netflix, I believe you have a few days to reconnect or you won’t have access to your downloads.
Yeah, they all download files in a proprietary format so you can only watch using their app, it’s not just a .mp4 that you can use whenever
Well, that’s obviously a problem. Hasn’t anyone made a program that allows you to download the videos in a more compatible format?
Yes its called Qbittorrent
It’s not a problem, it’s how subscription services work.
If there’s a system for doing something, there’s always a way to make it do things it isn’t supposed to do. I can’t imagine that I’m the first person to think that there must be a way to save those files in a nicer format. Surely someone has already made a program that either saves the files or converts them into mp4 or whatever.
Is there a way to “steal” the content? Yes, that’s how it appears on torrent sites.
You don’t get to keep anything you download from them……
Thats the same as regular pirating with extra steps.
Also that 2TB is going to fill up quick so it’s more “downloading 24/1” until it’s full.