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Comment by soldehierro | Hacker News Reader

Ultimately, the result of this fragmentation in streaming will only be that more people turn to piracy. Yet again the media industry shooting themselves in the foot. The solution is a spotify for films and tv, not an ever-expanding myriad of niche streaming services.

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This is similar to what happened with studio-owned movie theaters. The right solution is to outlaw exclusive distribution deals and production-company ownership of streaming platforms (yes, that means Netflix would have to split up).

Depends on how much this Video Spotify would pay them, versus how much they can charge for their own offering. If you can get $10 * N subscribers, that's a better deal than $1 * 5N subscribers. They're only shooting themselves in the foot if the amount they're losing to piracy (which I think is vastly overestimated by HN readers, most people wouldn't know how to pirate a movie if their lives depended on it) is greater than the amount they're gaining by charging more.

(The reason Spotify is able to work is because in several large media markets, like the US, there is an existing regulatory regime and contract situation built for AM/FM radio, which allowed Spotify to get large catalogs at predefined rates. Spotify works because ASCAP and BMI existed.

I think you'd be suprised by how user-friendly piracy has become. Often, it's just as simple as appending "watch free online" and finding some shady video player site. If you have a VPN, or just don't care about being DMCA'd, there are plenty of user-friendly video torrenting apps out there - PopCorn time, for example. People don't always know it's piracy, but make it hard enough for the common individual to find the content they want legally, and enough people will persist until finding what they want illegaly.

Look at these directions for using Popcorn Time with a Roku:

https://rokuguru.com/popcorn-time-on-roku/#/?playlistId=0&vi...

Compare it to the onboarding process for Netflix or Disney+ on Roku. I know, that for the median Hacker News user, this rises to the level of "nuisance," not a serious impediment. The median Hacker News user is not a very good model for the median consumer.

Speaking of Spotify, on one hand, I think publishers will drag it down while raising royalties as they see Spotify making profits. Essentially choking Spotify’s profit.

On the other hand, I don’t see them doing that so much that the only player left in the market is Apple who then will get to call the shots again like it did before streaming.

So, I think Spotify will survive, but barely. And that’s what the networks should’ve done to Netflix if they don’t want piracy in the future. Except Netflix doesn’t have to have everything in its catalog. It can certainly say no to certain media if the terms are unfair. Maybe the studios saw that and think there is no other option. Just thinking out loud at this point.

Spotify shouldn't be compared to Netflix, no, but the core product is the same: convience. If I pirate, I have access to a larger catalog than any streaming service, but I have to slog through ad infested sites, constantly remember where I am in the shows I am watching, and face difficulties with localizations or subtitles, and wait for things to download on shady sites. A netflix subscription is very much worth the convience of not having to pirate - but only if they have a vast catalog. No matter what Netflix thinks, though, Netflix originals aren't enough for most users.

Eventually piracy will become the more convient option for enough users.

Comparing the way Hollywood is going as compared to Spotify, imagine if each of the big three music companies (Universal, Warner, and Sony) had their own streaming services. Unline movies though, nobody usually cares what label their favorite band is on, let alone which supergiant owns that label so you'd never be able to find which streaming service each artist is on.

It is a really good point. I am a bit skeptical though as they seem quite different -- I can listen to a lot of different music in a single sitting, and if a streaming service did not have the vast majority of what I wanted to listen to, I would more likely purchase the individual albums than pay for multiple services. Particularly if I could not make an in-genre playlist because artists from the same genre were split across services. It would make it unviable.

Video feels quite different from that, though I am at a loss to describe it. I would either subscribe to multiple (I do now), or alternate subscriptions. Maybe that's because people don't re-watch shows nearly as often as they re-listen to the same songs. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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