Hacker News Reader

Comment by ArlenBales | Hacker News Reader

One upside to streaming services is how easy they are to cancel and resume.

I regularly suspend and resume Netflix, HBO Now, etc. based on what I'm currently watching. It's very easy to do this, especially if the service is paid for using Google Store / Apple Store subscriptions.

Compare to the hell you go through trying to contact Comcast and cancel service.

View on HN

I picture a meta-service that manages this. When you click to play a show, it quickly and automatically signs you up for whichever service, and if you haven't watched a show on that service for more than 2 weeks, it cancels your subscription. Presumably the problem would be that streaming sites might not like customers canceling their service 4 or 5 times per year.

> Presumably the problem would be that streaming sites might not like customers canceling their service 4 or 5 times per year.

Maybe they "bundle" to avoid the constant cancelling.

Sure, bundle, but it would probably be done by a 3rd party aggregator. Hard to imaging competing content providers joining forces, and anyway it could be seen as monopolistic market manipulation. This 3rd part would probably want some clever branding for this. All streaming generally enters the home through a wire, so maybe they call is Wire? Though big wires are often called a cable, so maybe they just call it Cable? :)

Provided cancelling ends your service at the next billing period you should always cancel immediately rather than wait 2 weeks.

And if people start doing that they'll implement 'eary cancellation fees' just like the cell companies.

It's a better alternative than consumers turning to piracy. Let's be real, it's making a comeback because of this. The market is getting too saturated for everyone to charge $15/mo. Prices have to drop or another option is needed, or else we'll again see the piracy that Netflix "destroyed".

Not to mention that there are still gaps in various TV shows on any online service.

I can't remember the show, but a year or so ago I saw like seasons 1 to 3 on Netflix, season 4 was available on Amazon for $1.99 an episode, and the current season episodes 8 through current were available via a cable subscription's on demand service.

So even if you paid for it all using multiple different services, you still couldn't legally watch the first 7 or so episodes of the show.

I'm normally very against pirating, but I had absolutely no qualms about doing it there.

I would much prefer a blanket ban on production and distribution in the same company.

We would have none of these problems if Netflix couldn't produce its own shows and Disney couldn't make its own streaming service

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_P....

Would you also be okay if software developers couldn’t distribute their own software?

You mean software companies owning their own aggregator storefronts? Yes. I'd for banning Steam or Epic from both making games and owning the storefront if it meant Apple and Google had to give them up too. No one says music companies or even movie companies can't sell their own stuff on their own site. What they are saying is that just like the antitrust laws made it illegal for movie companies to also own the theaters, no one in thIe digital age should be able to vertically or horizontally monopolize either. I.E. The law that already exists should apply today too.

Let’s take that to the next level.

Microsoft couldn’t sell third party software that integrates with Office. GCP and AWS couldn’t run marketplaces that sold services from third party companies like ElasticSearch and Mongo labs. Who would be hurt worse if AWS stop selling ElasticCo and Mongolabs hosted services and just sold their own ElasticSearch service and Mongo compatible DocumentDB?

Walmart couldn’t sell Walmart branded goods. CVS couldn’t sell cheaper versions of name brand drugs, restaurants couldn’t sell name brand sodas and their own food.

How far do you want to take it?

Seeing that if Netflix couldn’t create their own content and had to buy content from third parties do you think that would help Netflix more or give other studios even more leverage to raise their prices?

What if Apple said fine - we can’t offer Apple Music and Spotify so we will just kick Spotify off the platform and not allow third party games and only allow games through Apple Arcade.

They could also kick off Office and force everyone to use iWork.

But why stop there? Let’s also make a law that says Apple can’t sell third party accessories and Apple products in their physical Apple store and Google can’t sell Pixel devices along with third party phones on their website.

I would be okay with all of this.

How about we just enforce the law that already exists. You completely missed where I said outlawing aggregated storefronts, and just went to a straw man argument I didn't make. Netflix making their own content and being a distributor is against vertical integration laws, it's just not being enforced. Microsoft selling their own product isn't an issue. Amazon/AWS/Kindle publishing should be forcibly broken up. Amazon controls the entire vertical it's a monopoly that positions it's own products at an advantage. The Microsoft store controlling the only access to Windows would be a problem.

Your AWS example falls flat on it's face the product you're still buying is hosting, not an Elastic license. That's like suggesting because a television comes with a free soundbar it's illegal. No one is suggesting that. Stop using the slippery slope against common sense policies that would prevent the market concentrating on the hands of a few gatekeepers.

You completely missed where I said outlawing aggregated storefronts, Netflix making their own content and being a distributor is against vertical integration laws, it's just not being enforced.

Because that law doesn’t exist.

If it did do you think that every media company could blatantly break that law and the government do nothing?

Microsoft selling their own product isn't an issue.

Microsoft also sells third party products that integrate with their offerings....

Your AWS example falls flat on it's face the product you're still buying is hosting, not an Elastic license.

That is also incorrect. AWS offers its own ElasticSearch hosted service where it can only offer the open source subset,

https://aws.amazon.com/elasticsearch-service/

but ElasticCo also sells the full license through the AWS marketplace where they host the commercial version on AWS.

https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/seller-profile?id=d8f5903...

There aren't problems with shops selling their own product as long as their core competence is making that product.

There is a problem when a store with significant market share starts paying to produce product it controls.

In that case Disney is in the clear because they are only selling content on their streaming service that they own. So are you saying that Disney shouldn’t be able to sell their own digital content on the Internet? Their “core competence” is producing video content.

In that case neither should any other software company.

Are you also against Showtime Originals and HBO making “Game of Thrones”? Do we really want to go back to the era where all of the cable companies basically just showed reruns from network TV and a few syndicated shows?

There is always a problem if a shop has exclusive right to sell a non-commodity product.

In that case all software vendors should have to use third party resellers? No one should be able to exclusively sell their own products on their own site?

I assume you implicitly mean that exclusive streaming deals shouldn't be allowed either. If so, I agree (if not, then the whole scheme can be trivially worked around).

Movies (or games, music, books) aren't commodities. When single vendors can get exclusive distribution rights, the space becomes much less competitive, and this removes the benefits customers are supposed to get from competition.

Perhaps something a bit more flexible, such as statutory licensing fees and availability 1 year after initial distribution. Everything being available for anyone to license without restriction at a set price structure. Distributors of course would be free to negotiate cheaper rates for more obscure content.

I thought about something similar in a previous post [0]. What if you ran a service that floated a large number of accounts and circulated logins for a larger number of users? At the moment it looks like sharing accounts is legal [1] but I'm sure the services would clamp down on it they thought it costs them money.

0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20732231

1. https://www.androidauthority.com/netflix-account-sharing-100...

I would settle for a meta-recommendation service by subscription. Subscriber and housemates list 40 to 100 things they want to watch over the next few months to a year, and set a monthly video budget in money and time, and the service suggests: subscribe to streaming service A for N months & watch <list of shows>, and in some future month subscribe to service B and watch <list>, C, D, etc. with suggestion updates every month, and additions to the “want to watch” list whenever. Service subscription can overlap, of course.

Viewers/subscribers get to watch what they want (and perhaps a bunch of other stuff from service A, B, etc.)

As time passes, want-to-watch lists get longer, or pruned, and recommendations of other shows to explore, like TiVo or Netflix, can improve.

Prime Video and maybe Apple TV are already close to this.

Or maybe an arbitrage/all you can eat buffet where you pay x per month to watch y shows from z services?

I now think of HBO (for GoT/The Deuce/Silicon Valley) and Showtime (for Billions) now as billed toggle switches that get flipped every few months and not really as continuously available channels.

It could even try to optimize the cost by buying/renting movies on others platforms like Google Play. I can get GoT season 8 for 23.99$ CAD on Google Play while it would cost me (and it did) 2 months of 19.98$ CAD service over Crave + HBO.

Another nice thing is you can find out the actual price on their website. No "introductory price" with an unmentioned actual price. No potential installation fees, etc...

Netflix has slightly reduced the value of this because it now resets your viewing history each time you do this. This means losing recommendations, which personally I find valuable.

Interesting, I wonder if that is driven from a business aspect or as I suspect - some data regulatory aspect. Can easily see why they would not want to keep data on somebody who had in effect canceled there subscription.

May I ask, with netflix - do you cancel your account or just suspend subscription and just re-enable with your account later? Not used the service but trying to ascertain if it's a case of paused subscription or canceled account to achieve that. As if the later case, then I'd say it is due to your GDPR, data protection acts throughout the World and they are working with best interests, albeit against the grain in this instance. Solution would be the ability to export and import history - pushing the data retention aspect for the customer firmly into the customers hands. Again I see no business case for them doing this other than outlined and be more in there interest to retain said data in case you did resub.

EDIT ADD - had a look and you can export your viewing history, though no ability to import later that I can see, did raise it on feedback with them, maybe it will change. https://help.netflix.com/en/node/101917

When I click on Cancel Membership, I see this message:

> If you restart within 10 months, your profiles, favorites, viewing preferences and account details will be waiting for you.

Aha, thank you. Seems a reasonable way of them handling it.

That just means I'd be less likely to restart my subscription

I currently subscribe to HBO Now

I currently have Amazon Video, Hulu and Funimation

Amazon Video comes with my Amazon Prime Hulu comes with my Spotify Funimation comes with Hulu

I currently have access to Netflix via sharing

so for movie only consumption I only pay for HBO Now

for all media consumption I pay for HBO Now and Spotify

I was thinking the other day that it would make sense to rotate services so I have a different one every three months.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com