<story><title>It&apos;s hard to say who&apos;s winning the streaming wars, but customers are losing</title><url>https://apitman.com/27/#losing-the-streaming-wars</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>citizenkeen</author><text>On the one hand, we got what we asked for: _a la carte_.&lt;p&gt;I think what makes people frustrated is that cable channels were _themed_. I was frustrated that I was paying for TLC and Bravo because I didn&amp;#x27;t watch reality tv. I was paying for Discovery even though I didn&amp;#x27;t watch nature shows. I was paying for Lifetime even though I didn&amp;#x27;t watch cheap shows for women. I was paying for ESPN even though I didn&amp;#x27;t watch sports.&lt;p&gt;I wanted to pay for the comedy, the scifi&amp;#x2F;syfy, the cartoons, and the kids programming. That was, like, five or six channels.&lt;p&gt;Which streaming service do I go to now for the science fiction? Which streaming service do I go to now for the horror or the feel-good sitcoms?&lt;p&gt;Streaming arose during the collapse of genre channels. There are now three genres of programming: prestige, drek, and children&amp;#x27;s.</text></item><item><author>II2II</author><text>People seem to forget how bad things used to be. We are extremely fortunate with the ability to watch what we want, when we want, without being interrupted by commercials, for an extremely low cost. There also appears to be a great deal of progress with respect to being able to view programs&amp;#x2F;movies produced for foreign markets. But the best thing is:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; you can bounce between streaming services at will, and they&amp;#x27;re all still far easier to cancel than cable.&lt;p&gt;Add to that cheaper, since you don&amp;#x27;t have to deal with connection fees. If you know that you&amp;#x27;re not going to have the time to use the service for a couple of months because you&amp;#x27;re too busy with work, you don&amp;#x27;t have to pay for it. If you have decided that you are going to spend most of your summer pursuing outdoor recreational activities, you don&amp;#x27;t have to pay for it. If you&amp;#x27;re going on the road for a few weeks (vacation or business), you don&amp;#x27;t have to pay for it. If you decide that you want to watch programming on two different streaming services, you can simply rotate through the services on a monthly basis and only pay for one service at a time.&lt;p&gt;Why do I bring all of this up when it&amp;#x27;s not directly related to the article: it&amp;#x27;s because these articles reek of entitlement. Yes, there are times when licensing causes shows or movies to fall through the cracks. On the other hand, the situation is also far better than it used to be when using the same metrics. Not only that, but it can be a heck of a lot less expensive even when factoring in the cost of an Internet connection.</text></item><item><author>majormajor</author><text>If you look at twenty years ago, there&amp;#x27;s far more content available now, for far less money. Your minimum cable outlay back then would still cover the cost of a couple streaming services.&lt;p&gt;What there &lt;i&gt;isn&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; is a good way to get a single subscription to watch anything you want. The cable bundle was close to that for TV content, but very lacking for movies. So if you want to watch a really wide sampling of TV content, it can feel like we&amp;#x27;re going backward, since there&amp;#x27;s no more one-stop-shop.&lt;p&gt;Careful what you wish for? The big desire then was a la carte, and right now you can bounce between streaming services at will, and they&amp;#x27;re all still far easier to cancel than cable.&lt;p&gt;Some things have fallen through the cracks, particularly long-running (going back to the pre-streaming era) major-network content like the aforementioned Survivor (a random missing episode seems like a weird problem, would love to know what was going on). And getting US content stuff internationally is often sub-par, although... I don&amp;#x27;t recall stories of this being easy at all two decades ago.&lt;p&gt;So consumers are overall definitely winning, but it&amp;#x27;s not a perfect victory for everyone.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>II2II</author><text>Cable channels were themed, but cable packages were not. There was not a realistic chance of that changing. The technology was not good enough for that. If I recall correctly, analog cable depended upon bandpass filters that were rarely perfect so it was best to group channels in blocks. When digital cable entered the fray, the other motivation entered the forefront: it simply didn&amp;#x27;t make business sense to sell individual channels.&lt;p&gt;When it comes to that business sense, we probably have the closest thing to perfection today. Streaming services are forced to compete against each other, with the only real constraints being the cost&amp;#x2F;restrictions of licensing content and the cost of distribution (i.e. not controlling infrastructure to the home). It is very easy and relatively inexpensive to pick and choose, provided that you are willing to defer your viewing. You also have the choice between large streaming services that offer a broad range of genres and smaller ones that offer more specialized programming.&lt;p&gt;Yes, that closest thing to perfection is far from perfect. On the other hand, I very much doubt that we are going to get anything closer unless we are willing to pay the price.</text></comment>
<story><title>It&apos;s hard to say who&apos;s winning the streaming wars, but customers are losing</title><url>https://apitman.com/27/#losing-the-streaming-wars</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>citizenkeen</author><text>On the one hand, we got what we asked for: _a la carte_.&lt;p&gt;I think what makes people frustrated is that cable channels were _themed_. I was frustrated that I was paying for TLC and Bravo because I didn&amp;#x27;t watch reality tv. I was paying for Discovery even though I didn&amp;#x27;t watch nature shows. I was paying for Lifetime even though I didn&amp;#x27;t watch cheap shows for women. I was paying for ESPN even though I didn&amp;#x27;t watch sports.&lt;p&gt;I wanted to pay for the comedy, the scifi&amp;#x2F;syfy, the cartoons, and the kids programming. That was, like, five or six channels.&lt;p&gt;Which streaming service do I go to now for the science fiction? Which streaming service do I go to now for the horror or the feel-good sitcoms?&lt;p&gt;Streaming arose during the collapse of genre channels. There are now three genres of programming: prestige, drek, and children&amp;#x27;s.</text></item><item><author>II2II</author><text>People seem to forget how bad things used to be. We are extremely fortunate with the ability to watch what we want, when we want, without being interrupted by commercials, for an extremely low cost. There also appears to be a great deal of progress with respect to being able to view programs&amp;#x2F;movies produced for foreign markets. But the best thing is:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; you can bounce between streaming services at will, and they&amp;#x27;re all still far easier to cancel than cable.&lt;p&gt;Add to that cheaper, since you don&amp;#x27;t have to deal with connection fees. If you know that you&amp;#x27;re not going to have the time to use the service for a couple of months because you&amp;#x27;re too busy with work, you don&amp;#x27;t have to pay for it. If you have decided that you are going to spend most of your summer pursuing outdoor recreational activities, you don&amp;#x27;t have to pay for it. If you&amp;#x27;re going on the road for a few weeks (vacation or business), you don&amp;#x27;t have to pay for it. If you decide that you want to watch programming on two different streaming services, you can simply rotate through the services on a monthly basis and only pay for one service at a time.&lt;p&gt;Why do I bring all of this up when it&amp;#x27;s not directly related to the article: it&amp;#x27;s because these articles reek of entitlement. Yes, there are times when licensing causes shows or movies to fall through the cracks. On the other hand, the situation is also far better than it used to be when using the same metrics. Not only that, but it can be a heck of a lot less expensive even when factoring in the cost of an Internet connection.</text></item><item><author>majormajor</author><text>If you look at twenty years ago, there&amp;#x27;s far more content available now, for far less money. Your minimum cable outlay back then would still cover the cost of a couple streaming services.&lt;p&gt;What there &lt;i&gt;isn&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; is a good way to get a single subscription to watch anything you want. The cable bundle was close to that for TV content, but very lacking for movies. So if you want to watch a really wide sampling of TV content, it can feel like we&amp;#x27;re going backward, since there&amp;#x27;s no more one-stop-shop.&lt;p&gt;Careful what you wish for? The big desire then was a la carte, and right now you can bounce between streaming services at will, and they&amp;#x27;re all still far easier to cancel than cable.&lt;p&gt;Some things have fallen through the cracks, particularly long-running (going back to the pre-streaming era) major-network content like the aforementioned Survivor (a random missing episode seems like a weird problem, would love to know what was going on). And getting US content stuff internationally is often sub-par, although... I don&amp;#x27;t recall stories of this being easy at all two decades ago.&lt;p&gt;So consumers are overall definitely winning, but it&amp;#x27;s not a perfect victory for everyone.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>henrikschroder</author><text>One thing I actually miss from themed channels is that they selected content for you, which is actually nice sometimes.&lt;p&gt;Yes, sometimes you just want to watch a specific show and you want to watch it &lt;i&gt;now&lt;/i&gt;, and the streaming services are great for that.&lt;p&gt;But sometimes you just want to turn on the TV and watch something, anything, without really making a choice. I still have cable because it&amp;#x27;s included in the rent, and sometimes it&amp;#x27;s nice to just switch the channel to FXX or something and get maybe an old episode of the Simpsons, or a new episode, or maybe some Family guy, or maybe an old episode of some other comedy series, or maybe something completely new.&lt;p&gt;And that&amp;#x27;s nice and has value, but streaming services absolutely suck at that, because you always have to make a choice yourself with them.</text></comment>