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Comment by anonytrary | Hacker News Reader

I think it depends on the distribution of content amongst the services. If it's a Pareto distribution where the top few services own the majority of the content, then I think people will pay for the top services. On the other hand, if the good content is highly fragmented amongst dozens of services, then the torrents will win.

It also depends on the business models. Right now, Netflix is "all or nothing" e.g. you can't pay 50 cents a month for a grab-bag of the content you want; you pay the full monthly subscription for all of the content. If every service was like this, and the content was highly fragmented, I don't see why people would overpay for content they don't even want.

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The mistake you’re making is thinking there is a such a thing as “50 cents a month” of content. HBO was never going to sell you Game of Thrones for 50 cents. Netflix was never going to sell you House of Cards for 50 cents. They are selling you [your favorite show] for $10 and throwing in the rest of the catalog. Digital content has zero marginal cost. That means that a provider would rather sell you every show in their catalog for $11 then just the one show you want for $10. Turns out most consumers prefer that option too. If they don’t, they can still buy the individual unbundled seasons.

> Digital content has zero marginal cost.

In Netflix’s case, I’m not sure this is true. I’ve heard that some of the content is paid based at least partly on usage.

That has never been true. Just take a look at all of their announced content deals.

The obvious solution seems like some kind of service which tracks all of the shows you watch and are interested in, and changes what service you subscribe to every month.

If there is a new season/show coming out on one service that you are interested in your next subscription will be that service, otherwise it is some kind of random/RR and you get a notification of which app to use this month.

All the shows are available to watch when you want, why bother to have all the subs always?

Because the argument for streaming services is _convenience_. And that's especially true when we're comparing them to piracy.

Having to switch streaming apps/programs every month is not convenient.

Having to wait up to a month to change services if I learn about a new show I like is not convenient.

Having to pay for multiple streaming services if I happen to like content by multiple producers is not convenient (or cheap).

The streaming industry honestly seems like a "prisoner's dilemma" like scenario. Each streaming company (presumably) benefits over their competitors by having exclusives and limiting where certain shows can be watched. But the streaming market as a whole is held back by this.

It also depends on whether content quality/quantity develops to where 1-2 services can satisfy someone by providing closely tailored content. Right now, a few streaming services can provide more than a person has time for, but only if they watch somewhat indiscriminately. This could satisfaction could be achieved with a power law distribution or perhaps a 3-4x increase in spending per service if the market grows sufficiently.

I feel like this story has played out before but with a slightly different technology set...

The issue is there is very little good content out there. Cable before video games and the internet could charge a huge premium, but spread things out and you end up with a ‘History’ channel showing cheap ‘Ancient Aliens’ crap.

Similarly, break modern content among 5+ services and the content will be worse and simply not worth paying for. Just look a Hulu which has been free on PC and they still can’t compete with Netflix.

In the end my retired 70+ year old mother has Netflix, Amazon prime, and a premium Cable subscription, yet mostly just watches YouTube videos. For people with less free time and less disposable income their not going to maintain a subscription unless their watching something every month.

Hulu is only available in the US. It has 28 million subscribers compared to 60 million US Netflix subscribers.

Hulu is also not racking up a ton of debt trying to stay relevant like Netflix is.

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