Comment by FractalParadigm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by FractalParadigm | Hacker News Reader

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FractalParadigm

> * Steam has already shown how to "best" piracy to the extent that a business can. It's not via copyright laws. Everyone thought rampant piracy would mean Steam won't work in Russia. That aged well.

What's ironic to me is that, movie piracy was steadily falling and effectively dead after Netflix launched their streaming-video platform, very similar to how video game piracy started to taper off as Steam gained traction. For a single low monthly fee you got access to movies from all the major networks, and a good selection of TV shows as a bonus. The networks started getting greedy - HBO Max, Paramount+, Disney+, Peacock, Discovery+, the list goes on - all wanting their own $5-$15/month cut on the action. It's a wonder why piracy has been back on the rise[0].

I agree that the quasi-monopolies of early Netflix or Steam through most of it's history are arguably bad, but the irony is that they're the most consumer-friendly ways to distribute media while effectively curbing piracy. The fragmentation of services; managing potentially a dozen subscriptions and the apps the accompany them, gets tiring for users who just want to sit down and watch Star Trek without hunting for it.

I'll throw in my two cents, that my personal experiences line up with this 100%. Before ~2010 when I was introduced to Steam I pirated virtually every game I played, but since then have only done so in very extreme circumstances. Similarly with music, as soon as Spotify, then Tidal were introduced to Canada, I haven't pirated a song since. Movies on the other hand, there was a several-year period where I didn't pirate a single movie- nobody I knew did anymore. In the past ~2-3 years I've been having people ask me about torrenting movies again, and I've caught myself doing it a lot more often than I would like to, but I just can't bring myself to spend $15/month on Netflix, $12/month for Disney+, $10/month for Crave, $6/month for Paramount+... While you can setup Radarr/Sonarr and Emby to accomplish the same for $0 (you could argue the cost of storage, but the $43/month saved on services gets you 3 brand new 4TB hard drives each year with money to spare).

[0] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/piracy-is-back.html

The problem is that Hollywood doesn't understand "commoditize your complement."

Having more than one streaming service isn't a big problem, assuming they're priced reasonably. Going from one service with everything for $15 to ten services with a tenth of everything for $15 each isn't really that, but that's not the root of it.

Their problem is that people are going to want a single interface to view everything through. If you actually subscribe to three different services, you want to turn on your TV and see everything available to you.

The companies in the best position to do this are the likes of Google, Apple, Sony, Microsoft. Hollywood isn't too stupid to realize the dangers of that, but they're missing the obvious solution to it.

Publish a standard streaming API, so that anybody can make a streaming client, the same as anybody could make a VCR. Then the dominant consumer of the API won't be a big monopolistic corporation that will then be able to use its power against the movie producers, it will be a zillion different companies selling dirt cheap HDMI dongles with WiFi who each individually has no power at all. They'll all end up running whatever open source software somebody publishes to consolidate all the different services into one interface, which Hollywood could then improve themselves the same as any other open source project. It competitively atomizes a third party middle man that they don't want.

But it's basically the opposite of DRM. Security through clarity -- make everything open so nobody powerful can insert themselves between you and the viewer. Because big tech companies are more of a threat to them than The Pirate Bay. And they have to realize that before they're willing to do it.

> Their problem is that people are going to want a single interface to view everything through.

I mostly agree with this. I know you're talking about a single streaming service, but just to expand your point, for me, my single interface is Roku. From it I can access Netflix, HBO, Amazon, Hulu, and a ton of others - all with the same remote on the same TV. One of my favorite permaculture Youtubers even has his own Roku app/channel. I've been looking into creating my own Roku app and the process doesn't seem overly burdensome. You need video content, an HLS or MPEG-DASH streaming webserver (I'll use nginx and HLS), some json, and maybe something minor I can't remember now.

But I like your idea of a standard streaming API. If it actually happened the resulting ecosystem would be awesome.

> Going from one service with everything (*) for $15

(*) Regional restrictions may apply

Instead, they are fighting against windmills - adding more layers of DRM, incompatible clients, weird limitations...

99% (thin air statistics irrelevant) of the people won't save a copy of your stream and share it unless there's a dedicated GUI for it. The remaining, well, pirates gonna pirate.

As you said in more detail, they are fighting totally the wrong battle. It feels like an even dumber version of the war on drugs.

> Their problem is that people are going to want a single interface to view everything through. If you actually subscribe to three different services, you want to turn on your TV and see everything available to you.

Google's & Apple's TV interfaces do that now. Search for a show, it tells you which streaming apps have it, including a CTA to maybe buy / subscribe one you don't have. There is a recommended show stream on the front page for google that is service agnostic too.

Yes you still have to download and login to an app, but people are used to downloading and logging into an app for their phones already and it's only a 15 minute procedure every 5 years you buy a TV, if that.

I mean once Google or Apple own the customer why even need to login, you can just use your Google or Apple account. They promise not to take 15% :-/

This is what Roku is attempting -- to control the point of contact (physical TV in living room) and commoditize streaming services. They've been able to squeeze some concessions out of streaming companies in exchange for customer access.

> I agree that the quasi-monopolies of early Netflix or Steam through most of it's history are arguably bad, but the irony is that they're the most consumer-friendly ways to distribute media while effectively curbing piracy.

I doubt that would remain the case indefinitely. There would be too much temptation to increase revenues once they were established.

Perhaps the question should be: what would the market look like if there were multiple providers, each of which had equal access to license content they felt best fit their customer base?

This isn't a case of we need providers to license. The issue is providers thimking of all money not collected as left on the table, leading to the jacking up of prices, for ever diminishing quality of product.

This is where government could perform a useful function. Content creators selling to the government and the government reselling full access of all that content to distributors is a realtopian dream of mine. It seems win-win all around to me. Consumers could go with the provider that has their favorite interface/content/price, creators would have a choice to sell to the govt and receive full draconian protection or sell on the open market and forgo legal protection of their works, and govt could feel good about running such a snappy program that serves all its citizens.

>For a single low monthly fee you got access to movies from all the major networks, and a good selection of TV shows as a bonus. The networks started getting greedy - HBO Max, Paramount+, Disney+, Peacock, Discovery+, the list goes on - all wanting their own $5-$15/month cut on the action.

It's funny to think that the platform, which is pretty easily replicable, is nearly as valuable as the content.

Why should the content creators hand over all over the margins to Netflix?

Sony just signed a massive content licensing deal with Netflix. Funny thing is, if you asked me which companies should have their own streaming service, Sony would be towards the top of the list. They have the content and very relevant tech expertise for it. Yet they ran the numbers and realised that there probably isn't room in the market for yet another ground-up service. Paramount, NBC, Showtime, Shudder, Epix, Discovery, CBS, Starz, AMC all apparently didn't.

Amazon has the best compromise for this IMO. Users have a single account and payment method, and can subscribe to different "channels" from the Prime Video app itself. Content owners don't need to license stuff to Amazon, just pay them a cut of the add-on fee.

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