The big question is what is the solution to all this that doesn't involve 3 big players buying out all the rest? Is it even possible to get these guys to all play together in some kind of shared space.
Like you know... how your local store was allowed to sell you VHSs of the Terminator and you didn't have to pay subscription to Warner Bros store (which only existed in swamps of Florida) to get it? And how you could then give it to another person without restriction or tax to the said corporate lord?
Monopolization and integration of multiple markets into single corporate entities always hurts the consumers. Maybe it's time for US government to pull thumbs out of their bums and take out their cartel breaking hammers?
Comcast is probably the only one making and delivering media.
It's remarkable how there are still industries that don't know how to take advantage of the internet to give a great user experience, and whose greed only hurts their bottom line.
It's very simple: I want to watch any content from wherever, whenever, and however I like. Make it cheap and high quality, and I'll pay you for it. Screw this up, and I'll get it from somewhere that offers this experience instead.
Piracy is generally really quick and frictionless, but even so I do have to wait a couple minutes sometimes before I've found enough peers to start streaming something. If I could pay a couple bucks to just get the file off a fast CDN I absolutely would.
It would be a better world, IMHO.
If society wants more people to be able to watch more TV, then society should just give people cash so they can buy access to more streaming services. Or reduce copyright terms to something reasonable like 10 years.
Because market competition is what makes capitalism a liveable social order for most people. Adding market competition makes everything better. Command economies (corporate or socialist) don't.
Disney can charge $15 to an individual, or $15 to a middleman, it makes no difference to them. It is just a waste of society’s resources.
Reducing copyright length so old Disney stuff enters the public domain quicker would increase supply and drive down price for the media.
Right now, if you want Disney content through a streaming service, you have one option. If it sucks, well, that's too bad for you, take it or leave it. And same for HBO, for Paramount, for all of them. Splitting up distribution and production creates a better competitive environment, given the existence of copyright.
Anything that doesn't use system-provided UI elements is simply constitutionally bad. It's incredible that things that can't scroll smoothly pass basic QC.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/07/us-judge-ends-decades-old-mo...
And as far as I can tell, the only people fighting to keep car dealerships separate from car manufacturers are car dealership owners. I would like to be able to just order a new car online and have it be delivered directly from the manufacturer.
What’s the business model for a content production company that doesn’t have such sugar-daddy?
Super price sensitive - subscribe to one service and switch service every month. $5-10/month.
Typical - subscribe to three services and cancel one every few months and swap another one in. $20/month.
Super price insensitive - subscribe to everything and pay as much as you used to with cable.
The ideal is for Apple TV, Fire TV or whatever to create a unified search and discovery mechanism.
ADDED: But per another comment, things are better than the cable world, much less the pre-cable world that I actually grew up in. So some combination of fragmentation and consolidation is fine for me.
You couldn't do this with tv on cable since it was not on demand but if one can schedule properly, more customers can be supported with fewer licenses.
In countries where Disney+ doesn't exist you can watch it on Netflix.
When Netflix streaming was just starting they had a lot of great content from Starz, HBO, and their Anime selection was extensive. Gradually all that content was removed and locked behind different paywalls.