Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by paulddraper | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

paulddraper

Hell, I don't even need a cheap service.

Take my money! I just want to be able to watch stuff.

"Let's watch X"

"Darn it. It's not on Netflix"

"Not on Hulu"

"Not on Google Video either"

"Try VidAngel"

"No, they got shut down by Disney"

"Oh, doesn't Disney have a service?"

"Not yet."

"Oh look it's on Amazon video!"

"Oh, but we have Vizio Smartcast. Can't get it from the phone to the TV because Vizio uses Google and Amazon has some sort of blood feud."

"F--- it, not worth the hassle. We're pirating this."

View on HN

My work around is to subscribed to one service at a time for one month. Then I switch to a different and catch up on that service's shows.

Right. When I said "cheap", I was actually referring to something reasonably priced, compared to subscribing to several services individually. Unfortunately, the industry seems bent on proving time and again that pirating content is still the easiest, most user friendly (and not user hostile), most device friendly (supporting almost all devices) way to get to content.

Music industry size is 47.5 billion a year and streaming services cost 10$ a month [0]. The movie and TV industry size is 287 billion a year [1]. Paying the same subscription price proportional to the industry size would be 60$ a month. Netflix + hulu plus + amazon prime come in under 30$ a month which leaves you with 30$ to rent the movies/shows that are not covered in those plans.

It sounds like you just don't like how much it costs to support high quality television/movies. Granted, one 60$ a month service that offered everything would be more convenient.

[0]: https://www.statista.com/topics/1639/music/

[1]: https://www.statista.com/topics/964/film/

Except if your taste is not right smack in the mainstream, those services have a terrible selection even combined.

I went to JustWatch and even pretended to be an American, just to make it easier on them.

First option, The Exterminating Angel. It's a classic, part of the list of 1000 best films by the NYT, and less than 60 years old. Nope, not even one service has it.

Second choice, Lore; still foreign, but it's a film from 2012, made already in the streaming era! Apparently I got to subscribe to "Fandor", so the price is now $40/month.

Third, let's give them an easy win: Missing, made in the US and owned by Universal! Yet another service, so called "Starz", for $9/month more.

Fourth, an American classic, they have to have Raging Bull... and no. Now it's something called "MaxGo", which from what I can tell costs another $10/m.

These were literally 4 of the 5 first movies I searched for, and we're already at your $60/month, and still missing one! It's not reasonable.

I'm not going to argue on the stats, but some assumptions you have made are that I (or anyone else commenting here) live or have a livelihood in the U.S. or that I (or anyone else commenting here) can afford the $30 or so a month. I won't go into details, but these three services alone are not adequate, and the remaining $30 as per your calculation wouldn't be enough. There are great shows from HBO, ShowTime, etc. For someone who likes good content from different sources, the current crop of services are not yet suitable (speaking solely for myself).

FWIW, I do have Netflix and Amazon Prime, but still don't get everything I'd like to have (and the bigger headache of knowing what's where adds to the frustration). Of course, I have seen people make the argument that one shouldn't wish for things one cannot afford. For digital content though, I believe the companies are leaving a lot of money on the table by not expanding their customer base and making it easier to subscribe and use (vs. say, downloading content from elsewhere).

Okay... But I'm saying the industry is losing money to far easier-to-use pirating.

I don't see how the current size matters for that.

Buy movies or shows you like on Blu Ray, and use Plex. It takes a few years to break even, but by that point you have hundreds of movies and shows you like. This really only falls down if you want to watch a show within a year of the season ending.

Discovery is good, works on every platform, offline sync with transcoding so you can decide how much space it takes up, hdhomerun for dvr-ing live OTA sports, camera backup on vacation in full resolution. It's amazing if you're a little patient on the ramp-up.

Or, you could just pirate them, and have it in 15 minutes.

This is why I'm still on private torrent trackers.

Any chance asking for an invite will work?

That never works. Just take RED's interview.

FYI VidAngel is still in business. They run on a different business model though.

Caavo seems to have an interesting idea on how to solve that problem. Early reviews are mixed.

Looks interesting, but I'm not sure if people would want yet another box or yet another stick in their rooms just so they can watch what they want, what with all the apps for the streaming services already available on different hardware platforms. At $399, this is very expensive! I certainly don't want yet another box, and the TV app on Apple TV has kind of solved this problem (to the extent that services support the search).

If it's done correctly, the Caavo should effectively make your other boxes "disappear".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com