2020 Bundles
stratechery.com
stratechery.com
Tableau, which I believe is a more sophisticated data visualization application is getting squeezed out from enterprise accounts. Why? Because Power BI is "free".
Bundling is a huge power.
Hey! Power BI is free! But we don't need it. Too bad! Try to put together a license bundle that both doesn't include it and cost less than our E5 and we'll make you wish you hadn't.
Which is especially galling because we paid for an E3 because "it was all in there", but we found out quickly we'll, yes, the product is there, but the feature of the product you need is an up-sell license. So we pay for individual up-sells, and then get hit with "hey, why not just cave and get an E5...whether you need it all or not".
I'm sorry, but Microsoft's enterprise licensing is simply a nightmare. We're months into trying to make decisions about whether to go to E5, and we still get evasion from the Microsoft folks and the discussion quickly devolves to "just pay for the E5...it's easier". Don't even get me started on the "what of our huge investment in on-prem licenses are applicable to Azure/O365?". The Microsoft sales people just chuckle.
How can we discourage them in the market? Is 'no sale' all we have to employ against these tactics?
Maybe exerting our collective power for the public good through democracy? Some kind of new commerce regulation that would disallow bundling in general? I wonder, are there arguments that there would there be any downsides to doing that? Does anyone believe that bundling is a net positive in any sector?
But actually, Ben references his prior article about the benefits of bundling
If Microsoft is simply using bundling as an advantage of market share and undercutting the price of a competitor to drive them out of the market, then the consumer is harmed by the reduction of competition. Once the competitor is gone, what do you think is going to happen to the price and/or competition of that bundle? This isn't new.
edit: autocomplete mishap
As a side note, i dislike how schools tend to push students to learn Office (e.g. Word) sp specifically...I feel as though generations of children are being taught only how to drive a Ford Escort car, but will be confused the day that they have to use, say a Honda Civic, or heaven forbid a non-automatic automobile. As a tangent to this, while the following has never come up when I've interviewed job applicants for my teams...but if all things were roughly equal with candidates, and the only difference between candidates is that one only knows how to use Windows and Office, and the other one knows how to use Windows, and Mac, and Linux (or at least LibreOffice or other office suites, or some combination thereof)...I'll be picking the person who was able to use/learn more than just Windows/Office! </steps down from soapbox>
An entire generation of kids is growing up without ever having watched TV thanks to Youtube and Twitch.
So, yes, the economics of it is fascinating, and horrifying, as billion dollar companies exist to create the artificial scarcity information requires to monetize. But the side effect should always take center stage: we relegate each other and ourselves to staring into the glowing abyss in our pockets, each compulsive viewing rightly characterized as a suicide in miniature.
I'd argue that broadcast TV was an okay middle ground, because if you were addicted you were a couch potato. Now, we are all couch potatoes but without the couch, and without the social opprobrium, or even the opposite!, the world is a generally worse place. I mean, I love 3blue1brown, but is he worth the societal cost?
And I think books were ruining kids these days in the 1600’s
In 1800’s it was populist flashy newspapers with clickbait headlines
1900’s was radio
1950’s was TV
Now it’s social media
There’s always something. People who want to escape their lives will find a way. The solution is to make the world better, not to gripe about coping strategies.
My wife is into regional language soaps and there are a myriad of apps that stream them. I have Amazon Prime for my Seinfeld binges. Some movies that I ahem get from the interwebs, I stream from my PC using VLC player app.
And all this in India, with a capped (200 GB a month) broadband connection. Never once experienced delays / lagging / buffering. And the base cost is Amazon Prime (15 USD per year, plus it has Prime benefits, Prime music, etc), internet (12 USD per month), misc apps (30 USD per year).
On average, that is about 20 USD per month (but that includes cost for Internet that I would pay for anyway, so actual incremental cost is 5 USD per month), for almost unlimited content.
A standard Cable connection would alone cost me about 10 USD a month.
Son: Dad you said you've never lied to me...
Me: I don't believe I have.
Son: You told me you loved Looney Tunes when you were my age, but you also told me that YouTube didn't exist when you were my age. So how could you have loved Looney Tunes when you were my age?To me, I see this as a finance play. Since rates are near zero (and will be for some time), you can effectively leverage your revenues on both ends: servicing debt and factoring accounts receivable.
Since Apple's customers are usually high income buyers, the AR ratings are already high, combined with low rates, means Apple gets 95%+ of the revenues up front. I'm not sure what period for the new subscriptions they have (whether its a quarterly or annual period), but whatever it is, it's genius.
I wonder if that's a GS element in the contract, if less than X number of primes (or some metric on the campaign), then we reserve right for sub.
Semi-side note but I feel this will go soon too. Amazon are starting to show sports, inclusive with Prime Video, in the UK.
The real reason that sports fans should remain with their traditional bundle is the UX. With cable, if I want to flip between a dozen college football games, no prob. The lack of a traditional remote and the channel-changing latency is a big problem with these new services. Also, they don't make it easy to record past the end just to be sure the game doesn't go long (granted they try to "catch up" by later learning it went long, but I hear it's often later and not when you want).
There is one feature I do appreciate, time-synced stats. You don't get spoilers on recorded games you're watching with their stat info in the app, it remains in sync w/ the progress. Granted, I don't see in-game stats as a killer feature anyways.
What's most frustrating is being able to glimpse a better future and realizing that it's only business concerns that keep it from you. If you use the ESPN app on AppleTV (and probably other platforms, but I don't have any of them), you can easily swipe up to see what else is going at any one time, change between them, and even set up to four streams at once on your screen. It's awesome! Unless one of the games you care about is on Fox or CBS.
I may be in the minority here, but I really like the chromecast UX. So much easier to search on my phone - a familiar interface - than fiddle with a remote that I constantly lose, or is out of batteries, or lags with the TV, or makes it hard to scroll, or or or
Am I really a cord cutter with Hulu Live TV just because my TVs get TV streamed over an Ethernet cable (all of my TVs are connected to Ethernet directly or via a set top box) instead of coax?
So in baseball, you can get all games streamed for $60 a year. The NBA, you can get all games streamed for $60 a year. But for the NFL, most people can't get all NFL games streamed. You can get a DirecTV subscription, for something like $800 a year, and if you aren't in the DirecTV area you can pay $300 a year to watch NFL games. The cost is just way out of line, because it's priced by the DirecTV people, and their goal is to get you subscribed to DirecTV, not to help you cut the cord.
In a couple years I expect this deal will be renegotiated along lines similar to the other major American sports, and then it will be far easier to cut the cord for sports fans.
The local sports rights for non-NFL teams are tied up in long, long deals in many markets, and separately for each team. It will take a while to unwind all that.
Anyone who wants to be sports-specific for their streaming choices can find a lot of major sports organisations have their own apps for streaming.
There are a lot of choices without cable TV.
Of course since we all forget things, eventually you'll let Game pass keep recurring while sparsely using the service. This Gym like model is what every subscription service strives for.
I'm not complaining, if anything I might buy a new Xbox since I'm already entitled to tons of Gamepass games as well as Xbox live.
Edit: Might also just play everything on my PC. Good job Microsoft. Took them 3 generations , but they've finally merged the PC and console. Nothing on the Series X isn't coming to pick
"Be among the first to play the latest titles from Xbox Game Studios and ID@Xbox, available to Xbox Game Pass members the same day as their global release."
By which I mean, this was the plan (as long as you have now bought the game).
Interesting to see some Substack authors countering this trend by re-bundling their products. Notably: https://everything.substack.com/
These gaming franchises are really the only thing bringing people to these platforms, and the one Achilles heel of the apple ecosystem.. even if apple developed its own franchises, just doing something to elevate gaming on the platform beyond a few indie games would be a long lasting competitive advantage.
The best selling consoles of each generation usually don’t sell more in their entirety than Apple sell’s iPhones in two or three quarters.
"There are thousands of competitors in this highly-fragmented market vying to entertain consumers and low barriers to entry for those with great experiences."
Focusing on a better experience is one way.
examples in the realm of streaming: indie/arthouse: https://mubi.com/ horror: https://shudder.com/ anime: funimation or crunchyroll