<story><title>Don’t Look Now, but the Great Unbundling Has Spun into Reverse</title><url>https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/business/dealbook/bundling-online-services.html?ref=dealbook&amp;_r=0&amp;referer=</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gydfi</author><text>Nobody ever looks at Netflix and complains &amp;quot;I never watch most of these shows, I shouldn&amp;#x27;t have to pay for them&amp;quot; because Netflix doesn&amp;#x27;t encourage people to think in those terms.&lt;p&gt;Cable companies caused the demand for de-bundling via a partial de-bundling. If you could get all channels for $50 then nobody would complain. But if they force you to buy half the channels for $25 and half the channels for $25, people start to wonder why they can&amp;#x27;t just get a quarter of the channels for $12.50.</text></item><item><author>cortesoft</author><text>I think the really interesting point from this article is about why bundling is so attractive when marginal costs are close to zero, for both the consumer and the seller. In the digital world, almost all services have a near-zero marginal cost, so bundling has a clear advantage.&lt;p&gt;It is also interesting when thinking about WHY people get so  attached to the idea of &amp;#x27;unbundling&amp;#x27;, even when it might not be in their best interest. I think most people look at some of the large cable bundles, for example, and think &amp;quot;man, I am paying for so many things I don&amp;#x27;t watch!&amp;quot; What they don&amp;#x27;t realize is that even if the channels they didn&amp;#x27;t watch were removed, the cable company wouldn&amp;#x27;t be able to charge them much less, since the marginal cost for additional channels is near zero.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>robert_tweed</author><text>This is true, but the problem I have with bundling is that it creates a distorted market. If I like, say, Firefly, I want to essentially vote with my wallet and encourage the creation of more like that. If I&amp;#x27;m paying for a bundle, the networks get to churn out whatever garbage they want and I&amp;#x27;m either locked in or locked out. While I can elect to just not watch what I don&amp;#x27;t like, I can&amp;#x27;t prevent my money being used to make more of it.&lt;p&gt;With the old networks, a lot of the decisions about what to make are based on advertising. For now, Netflix can decide what to make based on accurate viewing stats and their only motivation is to increase and retain subscriptions. As long as things stay that way, they are motivated to prioritise good content, which is a step in the right direction.&lt;p&gt;I do worry however, that they still need to serve a lowest common denominator mass market, so bundling leads us back to where we started, with a few high quality exclusives per channel (e.g., Stanger Things, Game of Thrones, Mr Robot), but ultimately we&amp;#x27;re still paying for a lot of unwanted garbage.&lt;p&gt;With this model, the &amp;quot;channels&amp;quot; aren&amp;#x27;t incentivised to do what IMO they should be: curating high quality content to specific demographics (anime fan, sci-fi fans, romcom fans, etc). Instead, they will just do the minimum needed to retain each of them, while not really doing a very good job for any of them.</text></comment>
<story><title>Don’t Look Now, but the Great Unbundling Has Spun into Reverse</title><url>https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/business/dealbook/bundling-online-services.html?ref=dealbook&amp;_r=0&amp;referer=</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gydfi</author><text>Nobody ever looks at Netflix and complains &amp;quot;I never watch most of these shows, I shouldn&amp;#x27;t have to pay for them&amp;quot; because Netflix doesn&amp;#x27;t encourage people to think in those terms.&lt;p&gt;Cable companies caused the demand for de-bundling via a partial de-bundling. If you could get all channels for $50 then nobody would complain. But if they force you to buy half the channels for $25 and half the channels for $25, people start to wonder why they can&amp;#x27;t just get a quarter of the channels for $12.50.</text></item><item><author>cortesoft</author><text>I think the really interesting point from this article is about why bundling is so attractive when marginal costs are close to zero, for both the consumer and the seller. In the digital world, almost all services have a near-zero marginal cost, so bundling has a clear advantage.&lt;p&gt;It is also interesting when thinking about WHY people get so  attached to the idea of &amp;#x27;unbundling&amp;#x27;, even when it might not be in their best interest. I think most people look at some of the large cable bundles, for example, and think &amp;quot;man, I am paying for so many things I don&amp;#x27;t watch!&amp;quot; What they don&amp;#x27;t realize is that even if the channels they didn&amp;#x27;t watch were removed, the cable company wouldn&amp;#x27;t be able to charge them much less, since the marginal cost for additional channels is near zero.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pmalynin</author><text>No the problem is why do I have to pay for cable and still get ads every 20 minutes.</text></comment>