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Comment by paul7986 | Hacker News Reader

Umm no need to pay for many or any streaming service then that consumer problem is solved just watch the free outlets like YouTube.

Hollywood's biggest competitor is content creators on Youtube, Tiktok, etc ... my bet is they will need to compete and many paid offerings will consolidate and become free / less expensive to compete with all the free content creators on YouTube, Tiktok and etc. If you look at where the eyeballs are the majority are on Tiktok. Personally after using Reels, Tiktok and tons more of YouTube i have a hard time watching long form content. I just want to watch stuff here and there in the background while im working or right before bed any other time Im far away from tv screen outside or with friends/family enjoying life.

Further .. i use to watch documentaries on the history channel and or other places ... there's tons of solid and good content creators doing that same thing on youTube.

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> free outlets like YouTube

Free and YouTube are not the same. YouTube either has ads or you're paying. Ads are not free. They take your time, which is in limited supply for everyone on the planet. The use of an adblocker does make it free.

I've never used Tiktok so I have no idea if it has ads and what the frequency is.

> i have a hard time watching long form content

I don't know if this is good or bad. I'm older and think this loss of attention is very much a net bad to thinking, but maybe the new way of devouring content turns out to be a plus. I always wonder if 15 second videos turn to 10 seconds, and then 5 seconds, and then 1 second over the next 100 years. Is the future just a video from the A Clockwork Orange rehabilitation scene and everyone is happy about it?

This is why billionaires who could pay to have someone wipe their ass invest in longevity startups.

I'm not convinced that Hollywood really competes with TikTok. Going out for a movie date sounds a lot more interesting than "let's go flop on the couch and watch TikTok/YouTube all evening."

Does Hollywood still make most of its money from theater ticket sales?

If it does look at the box office results this year or lack of them compared to the last few years ... many not opening and or close to 100 million seen in many prior years.

Could be a mix things from attention spans changing in various demographics to economics to increased spending in travel to other things.

You really couldn't have picked a worse weekend to make this call. Barbie, alone, is setting record numbers that are showing a pretty good recovery for the past few years.

I'm open to attention spans changing. Or demographics changing. Or both. My money, though, is pandemic hangover. I'm struggling to see how anything else comes even close in explanation power to, "we were in a pandemic."

Barbie yes ... but what about tons of others released mid may til now. Last summer in 2022 many movies made well over 100 million. So the pandemic?

Also Youtube is the most used streaming app followed by TikTok ... how many are watching for free? See Google results for this data https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=are%20people%20using%2...

My thoughts are based on the data above, other similar data Ive seen, my own shortening attention span and these years lackluster box-office compared to 2022 (movies from 2022 that opened above and or well above 100 million https://www.boxofficepro.com/the-top-10-movies-of-2022-at-th...)

To me Hollywood needs to worry even more so the writers, actors and etc ... a younger demographic the future's attention span looks to be elsewhere and they aren't paying to watch their media.

The numbers for movies took an obvious hit during the pandemic. There could be other explanations, of course; but it will be hard to avoid the elephant in the room that is the pandemic.

This will be true for basically all markets. There was an obvious shock during the past few years that is already explanatory for so many problems. No need to hunt for others.

But, even the article you linked is about how the market "continued its recovery in 2022." By the accounting, with the record breaking weekends we just had, this year seems set to be larger than last. Sure, it isn't larger than the past two combined, but that is hardly damning.

Cool I'll stick to my out of the box thinking ...it's never popular on here but in the end future proves to be on the money

in a few years we will see many streamers Consolidate and to compete against the biggest streaming apps YouTube and TikTok more free offerings will be available and or cheaper ones. Hollywood 'S push to go AI is a smart money saving one

I confess I don't know what you are saying here. :(

I should also ack that I do actually subscribe to some twitch channels. I have no problem saying that these things are growing. Most evidence I am seeing shows not that they will supplant the old guard movies, but will grow along side them.

This is not much different to video games as entertainment. I remember concerns that they would somehow replace physical sports. If that is still a concern, it is hard to take seriously. Traditional sports have continued to grow to unheard of sizes.

Does this mean that hollywood and the like have nothing to fear? Not really. But licensing on movies and broadcasts being what they are, they have quite a moat on things.

Im saying attention spans are changing and in the TikTok demographic they are used to short form content. Heck even youTube added stupid short form content videos which now I watch on there. YouTube and TikTok are the two top streaming apps and they are free. They are more used then Netflix and all the others. Thus all the others will start competing with YouTube and Tiktok by merging .. like Disney Plus merging with HBO Max. They will offer more free alternatives to compete with Youtube and Tiktok too. Hollywood will still make money of course, but not as much as they have use to been making when they are competing against the top two streaming apps (YouTube and Tiktok) that are free.

TLDR summary Hollywood's biggest competition isn't between themselves but YouTube and Tiktok and how they are shaping and changing media consumption habits and thus the media landscape. To me the data I pointed out already shows this including 2023 lackluster box office results compared to 2022.

The evidence just isn't there to believe that any of the small streaming offerings are competing with long form videos. "Funniest Home Videos" is, not shockingly, on the drop. But long form entertainment is literally doing better than it ever has.

Yes, YouTube and the like have more viewers than some of the paid services. They aren't, necessarily, making more money with those viewers. And even odds on whether they could keep the viewers as they try to make money. My bet would probably be no, all told. Consider, radio has been free for ages. Even broadcast television was free. This did little or nothing to prevent paid services from growing.

“Netflix and chill” was coined for a reason.

Very slick Netflix marketing.

But watching netflix and tiktok are totally different experiences. I don't know everyone, but I know no one that watches tiktok on their tv.

Okay I watch a lot of YouTube it it’s several leagues of quality below a lot of TV shows.

Some documentary YouTube channels also clearly just read Wikipedia and regurgitate random online sources. They don’t have the budget to go to the actual source or do any interviews.

Ofc there are a lot of bad TV shows on streaming services too but a world with access to both is nice.

It might be channel specific on YouTube but on one particular channel I think I've had as many as 3 ad breaks for a 10-15 minute video.

I think the worst I've been is 4 breaks in 15 minutes plus a nearly 2 minute sponsor segment. It's a plague.

Youtube isn't free. It is either a paid service or via advertising. Neither of those is free.

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