Ask HN: To how many streaming services do you subscribe? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: To how many streaming services do you subscribe?

3 pointsnobody99994 comments

I've been wondering how the fragmentation of the streaming media market affects usage and spending.

As more content providers start their own streaming platforms (Disney+, Paramount+, etc.) and streaming platforms are increasing their content creation efforts (Netflix, Amazon, etc.), it seems like the fragmentation is going to get worse and if one has eclectic tastes they'll need to subscribe to more and more streaming services to get everything they want.

Especially as these services hoard their libraries and don't license them to other services.

At what point does that fragmentation hit a limit? How many USD$10-$15/month streaming subscriptions are too many?

In the past, cable TV subscriptions bundled so much stuff that folks didn't want together with the stuff they did want, driving prices through the roof.

Then, getting Netflix/Amazon Prime and (possibly) an OTA antenna was plenty for most people to "cut the cord" (or never connect that cord in the first place) because it was significantly less expensive and had extensive libraries licensed from the content providers.

Now, it seems like we're heading in the opposite direction. More and more streaming services with libraries they don't license/share are coming online, pushing folks to subscribe to additional services.

At some point, the costs may rival the old-time cable subscriptions. Is it worth it, or should we just cut our losses and limit subscriptions to the stuff with the new/shiny and all the older stuff just becomes obscure?

Or, perhaps, does this give folks more incentive to actually buy physical media so it can't be taken away if/when various streaming services/content providers have a spat?

Or will more folks just torrent their media (with the same result) as some already do?

The nice thing about streaming that nobody seems to remember is just how hard it was to cancel subscriptions added to a cable service. You had to call the cable company! Wait on hold for an hour! Be embarrassed talking about what you were cancelling! It was... weirdly hard.

So, yeah. I mean, I subscribe to a basic Netflix and Amazon Prime account like a modern person. I have a $35/year HDHomeRun DVR subscription, which is cool. Every year, I re-up on Hulu's Black Friday for a few bucks a month. In the end, it's $30/month in 2021 dollars. That's cool. Way more than I can watch.

But if I really feel FOMO? Like, I'll subscribe for a month to something else and Just Cancel It. That's it! I don't need to call anyone, I don't need to explain, I just take literally two minutes to just log in and cancel.

Things are so much better than things were in the '90s or aughts where it was impossible to do anything without arguing with people you can't even imagine.

Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, and the streaming service offered by one of the local networks here.

I find the fragmentation irritating, especially when some of the shows I want to watch straight up aren't available (eg. HBO Max isn't available in my country) despite having subscribed to pretty much every big streaming service. I don't get why they can't figure out licensing and distribution beforehand.

I agree that at some point the costs will rival cable subscriptions, but the lack of ads, ability to pick what I want to watch, option to cancel on a whim and availability of actual good content (even if the library is diluted by a ton of nonsense) is appealing to me for streaming services. I have no doubt though that as costs go up adoption will likely go down across the board as people either give up or resort to account sharing or piracy.

We cut the cable cord 10 years ago. We have Netflix. And Prime video because it's bundled. Used to have HBO but let it lapse. And the only thing Hulu was good for (for me) was to feed my guilt-ridden Law & Order SVU/OC addiction.

It's death by a thousand subscriptions if you want to capture all the gated content out there. And even then, you'd still be left wanting if you like non-mainstream or obscure stuff. Streaming services cull their non-original content all the time too, so it can be a frustrating experience chasing down an old movie or TV series that you swear was there several months ago.

That "Hello, old friend" meme pretty much describes our experience with streaming. And Bill Watkins was kinda right but wrong, all that storage is also for movies. :-)

Amazon Prime is a constant, and I’m usually subscribed to 2 other services at a time. Those 2 rotate, e.g. by the time I’ve exhausted what there is to binge on Hulu, chances are there’s something new and decent on Netflix. I don’t mind the rotating. I feel like I’m getting a far better deal on entertainment than in any previous era.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com