How is subscribing to HBO inconvenient?
It's a combination of price and convenience. There's some upper limit to the monthly price you (and everyone else) is willing to pay for content.
It's a combination of price and convenience. There's some upper limit to the monthly price you (and everyone else) is willing to pay for content.
It wasn’t the price that moved me away from HBONow, it was their lack of convenience compared to a torrent rig.
It ended up being HBO’s design was more for themselves rather than me (“we want to show you ads” vs “you want to watch your shows”). It was still very old in its philosophy of content.
Netflix however is awesome because it’s very UX focused.
Ultimately, I think only OSS/pirate are closest to the use desires.
Except for the thousands of A/B experiments that incessantly drive you to spend every ounce of attention on Netflix. E.g. the auto-playing preview that starts whenever you stop moving the active selection. It strongly encourages you to start playing the thing rather than being thoughtful about whether you actually want to or not. Personally I hate this - it drives my anxiety nuts - and I find HBO's tactics much less user-hostile (although agreed the ads for HBO's own content are outright stupid).
I find the Netflix UI, especially the one for Xbox utterly slow and too jammed with information. Its not that great.
In jurisdictions where it is available it's often only available as a part of a larger cable package. If you're signed up with another provider that's pretty inconvenient also.
There is a well worn cartoon on this topic that sums up the position of many quite well [0]
EDIT Actually, I'm going to put aside disingenuity for a second.
I actually have the closest equivalent of HBO with my provider, it's called "Sky Atlantic" and it's only available through Sky, of course.
So I'm fully paid up and legit as far as GoT is concerned but only coincidentally. If a competing network were to start showing $competing_popular_tv_show you can be guaranteed I wouldn't be switching, or taking on a second subscription ...
Take my $$$ by all means, but if you get greedy you'll get nothing.
When this comic came out(2011) HBO Now (confusingly separate from HBO Go) did not exist.
click
"To access HBO GO℠, you must reside within the fifty states of the United States of America."
Some time ago while traveling I actively tried to find a way to pay to watch Game of Thrones. I failed miserably.
Also I really don't like having to have and manage subscription for various providers, nor do I like to be locked in with one. I would love to have a single subscription or even better pre-paid option somewhere which can be used across services and my money gets distributed accordingly.
Same with news media. I would be more than willing to pay a set amount per year for consumption, but I'm not willing to pay that amount exclusively to you.
I think stuff like Netflix, Spotify, Steam, etc have proven that when content is priced right and delivered in a convenient manner folks are more than happy to pay.
News media is one of the worst for not figuring out how to adapt. I'd love to read some newspapers, watch a couple news networks, etc - but i'm not willing to plop down $100 a month and deal with a bunch of different apps to do this so I stick with online.
There is indeed an upper limit for everyone. If I need to pay >50 euros/month and still get ads, no thanks.