Technology

Compulsory licensing for streaming should be a thing. It exists for radio, why not video? Let services get 1-2 years of exclusivity. After that it's fair game for any streaming service to stream it. All services pay into a pool that gets refistributed to the rights holders. We have been doing that for decades for radio, for the EU blank media tax, etc. It's a solved problem.

Not rethink ... break up.

Yaaar 🏴‍☠️

Seems like for most people they would be better off cancelling most streaming services and only renewing for a month or two when enough new content is there rather than having multiple ongoing subscriptions.

18 years with Plex, and I have zero regrets. I always knew this age of streaming would sour sooner or later. I’ll admit, the good times lasted longer than I expected.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

But with the most recent round of services like Disney Plus, Hulu, Peacock, and Paramount Plus raising their prices — during Hollywood’s ongoing double labor strike, no less — to meet the demand of shareholders for never-ending profits, the time has come for all of us to seriously rethink our relationships with the platforms that have become “the new cable.”

Over the weekend, the Financial Times published a bit of analysis about the current state of streaming that should only come as a surprise to those who haven’t been paying attention to how most of the major Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) platforms, and many smaller ones like Starz, Shudder, and BritBox, have hiked up their prices in the past year.

After years of burning through mountains of cash to fill their catalogs with original programming, the big SVOD services are now charging their subscribers more than ever because it’s increasingly difficult to draw in new customers — and because the mere perception of growth is no longer enough to keep their shareholders happy.

But much like the practice of memory-holing films and series just for tax write-offs, the push to goose subscription numbers by imposing new restrictions on old customers also highlights how this late stage of the streaming wars is being defined by the prioritization of profit margins over user experience.

Even though the streamers love being seen and celebrated as pop cultural tastemakers, Netflix — like its competition — is a company in the business of making money that owes much of its success to the way consumers have bought into the idea of it being absolutely necessary to keep up with every single new film or show that hits the internet.

To make things even trickier, the success of those streaming hits and others like them was undoubtedly influenced by the degree to which viewers were regularly flocking to social media platforms like Twitter to discuss them — a habit that feels like it’s on the decline in the era of Elon Musk’s X.

I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Blaming the shareholders is partly disingenuous. Yes the shareholder problem is real, but yes the corporation has power to address it directly. There is no law that says short term profit must be maximized.

And good riddance to the streaming services. We just don't need them.

Did anyone said Stremio? No? I might have imagined it. All this time out at see and this is what you get.

How come there can be laws about manufacturers not selling directly to consumers for cars where it makes no fucking sense but not for media where it might actually be beneficial.

🏴‍☠️

This color scheme is jarring! Reading mode to the rescue!

Doesn't Time Warner own the verge?

When they all started touting these services back in the 00's I was like "Why are you morons falling for this shit for?!" Because that all the shit inherent to such a platform was gonna happen sooner or later. Then a few years later "QQ - my fav show got removed from the service and now I can't watch it" or "XYZ got censored!" or "These services are getting worse all the time."

The whole time, I've been sitting on my metaphorical Queen Anne's Revenge and laughing at them. And of course, now that they all want to come back, I'm gleefully throwing down the gangplank!