Streaming wars are over and Netflix won | Hacker News Reader

Streaming wars are over and Netflix won

ft.com

25 pointsmfiguiere29 comments

No one has won the streaming war, most certainly not the consumer.

We're living in a nightmare of market segmentation and separation now that each content owner has tried to go and roll their own service. Its hard to even have water cooler conversations about a show without getting derailed down "wait what service is that on?" and "oh crap I don't have that one I only have x, y, and z"

I actually thought about the water cooler conversation a few weeks ago.

I remember how not that long ago you could debrief the last GoT or TWD or whatever show was the hot stuff that everyone watched.

I dont think that happens anymore. Too many shows just to create content, too difficult to see them all, nobody is watching the same at the same time. Most can just be binged in a weekend and by Monday you already moved on to the next content.

None of the streaming sites have Dollface anymore and we pay for all of them. But torrents do and it’s a terrific show. Perhaps torrent sites are winning this war instead?

So... Disney licensing content to Netflix means Netflix won?

Yeah, no.

Netflix's content has been on a downward spiral for years now. It's mostly the same rehashed true crime dramas and low budget trashy content. They're rarely willing to pay for good original content anymore.

Compare it to eg; Apple TV+ that has a bunch of amazing originals. From "For All Mankind" to "Severance".

I wish you were wrong. But it's one service I repeatedly open and realize there's surprisingly little I want to actually watch.

I end up re-watching some older content instead, which is at least something, but so little feels...worth it.

When the option is between regular TV with 20 minute breaks, and Netflix, I will take Netflix, even with old content.

Many of my friends have cancelled their streaming services. The prices are too high and being gaslit about what to watch where and when is not very convenient. Of course, these are all tech people but I was shocked to hear it. Some have gone plex or even back to physical media.

If I didn't get paramount+ for free with my internet provider I would have no streaming. DVDs checked out from the library + Kanopy meets all of my requirements without some stranger watching everything I do over my shoulder.

My friends are all setting up Plex servers that we are sharing with each other.

It's like having constant access to your friends' media collections. Because it is.

People are still setting up plex in 2024? That sounded like a bad idea a few years ago and even more so now. Having to pay and route login through a third party doesn't seem smart.

We are talking about ordinary people who until recently have been sharing account passwords between each other. Sometimes the owner did not know how many people were using the account.

And self hosting a complete independent solution seems too technical for average person. If they have this knowledge they probably will go off with piracy too.

>And self hosting a complete independent solution seems too technical for average person.

The OP said their friends were all technical people. Setting up Jellyfin is pretty easy.

Oh no, these friends are the gamer type, not software people.

I don't use plex, but I should set up Jellyfin for sharing my collection with friends... Thanks :3

> People are still setting up plex in 2024?

Some techies do it, the host needs to have a paid Plex plan, the consumers can just use the free Plex App and connect to the host and stream.

Some Banglore ISPs used to have private file servers with movies so save some internet bandwidth.

Some ISPs in Mumbai used to do that too. ISP customers would use DC++ to get movies/songs. Good times :)

PBS is still $5/mo and has some reasonable stuff. Apps for most platforms. Also nice to support the local college that runs the station.

Thanks, I think I've now just found my favorite streaming service.

https://archive.is/bHHHt

Story from last week.

When there were related stories and discussion:

Netflix is turning into cable TV

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39111600

Netflix adds 13.1M subscribers, tops revenue estimates

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39111287

Netflix Hammers the Last Nail into Linear TV's Coffin

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39149036

Unlikely. Compare it to quality TV shows, where HBO revolutionized various genres with expensive, proper series. It's just that nobody tried that segment in streaming yet. Apple+ went for movies, Disney+ for their trash, a future Netflix competitor will likely win it with HBO like series. Esp. since Netflix has no idea about quality TV.

> Disney’s direct-to-consumer unit, which includes streaming service Disney+, is still reporting large operating losses.

Why? Isn't most of the content on Disney+ their own productions? And is maintaining the streaming platform not a largely fixed cost? Where are they struggling?

They have to spend money to produce content (a lot of it Disney+ only or not successful in the theater). They also buy content, it must be a huge cost sink for them.

They've been losing subscribers and Disney have been suffering severe cost control problems lately, where productions require far larger budgets than they should.

Really? I just canceled in favor of Paramount +, which I will likely cancel soon as well.

This is the way folks. Sign up and then cancel so you only pay for a month at a time.

Honestly, I probably would have stuck with Paramount + for quite some time if they had their own freaking show on their streaming service. I got Paramount + because I wanted to watch Yellowstone, which is a show created/published by Paramount (so I assumed that it would most certainly be on Paramount +, silly me). I found the two prequels 1883, and 1923 but no Yellowstone itself. So I watched the prequels, but now that I am done with those, I want to watch Yellowstone, which appears to be on Peacock for some ungodly reason, instead of on the Streaming service that made/produced/published the damn show.

Piracy. Piracy has won.

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