With the increasing fragmentation of commercial content networks, I can easily see a resurrection of public interest in non-legit ways of consuming content.
Well....guess what, they're very much alive again. As a European I don't have access to Hulu, HBO etc. The Netflix catalogue range here is still a fraction of Netflix US. I doubt we'll see Disney for years to come, if at all.
So I'm back to the torrents again, despite wanting to pay for content. Maybe I sound like an entitled brat (I'm kinda not at 51), but I have the money burning in my pocket to pay for content (one-off rentals - I'm fine with that) and the studios still just don't seem to get it.
I’m happy to pay if it’s easy. But I would like to own access to my music/movies/tv. Even if it costs a bit more.
I reckon that all the streaming services should agree on a standard for distribution via their API's so that third parties can write better front ends that can connect to and search all of the services you are subscribed to.
So I would: - Subscribe to Netflix - Subscribe to Disney - Install my streaming frontend of choice - Connect both services either using an API key or PIN or SSO, etc
Now I can give them my money every month and have one interface to access all the services.
Sure, they may want to offer different features to differentiate their brand but that can be accounted for to some degree in the agreed standard.
Or something. I dunno what's going to fix this miss.