The era of cheap streaming is officially over | CNN Business
www.cnn.com
It’s the end of an era.
    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.eeEnglish
      7·
      3 年前

      Especially since these services will drop their original content after awhile…

      Is Willow considered lost media yet?

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      19·
      3 年前

      Honestly people should probably be thinking about future-proofing things and putting as much media as physically possible on to drives in anticipation of whatever the next wave of bullshit. At some point Samizdat2.0 will probably be the only way to preserve and share media under the capitalist censorship regime. They’re just going to keep cracking down and cracking down and cracking down until no one can move without bleeding for the privilege.

      As they said in the bad old days: Keep circulating the tapes.

      Until we can pull this whole bullshit edifice down, kick it in the kidneys a few times, and set it on fire the only way to protect media from the companies that “own” it is going to be little people with really big RAID arrays.

      • The_Grinch [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        3·
        3 年前

        It certainly feels like we’re on the precipice of something breaking what with computers rapidly getting more locked down, these secure enclaves and/or TPM chips verifying that you’re watching on an approved OS and web browser before allowing you to stream, and then the video is encrypted until it gets to your actual TV. Crazy what they’re getting away with.

        In the near future I foresee pirates pointing cameras at TV screens then using AI to clean up the video, then media companies responding by creating randomized slightly different versions of videos so they can trace them back to the account holder who shared it (move some tree branches around, slightly different colored hat on background actors, etc) and perhaps getting legislation passed to stop cameras from being allowed to record IP protected material, and so on.

    • Album@lemmy.ca
      77·
      3 年前

      Is that true? Most of the best public trackers got shut down. Anything left has bots recording your IP and you’re getting a letter from your ISP.

      If you’re not on a private ratio tracker or paid tracker it’s basically a non starter. So I’m not sure about unaffected era the last 10 years have been brutal for pirates via torrent.

      • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
        274·
        3 年前

        VPN has been necessary for pirating for a long time. And fortunately a VPN is cheaper then any streaming service, and has other benefits besides.

      • Whirlybird@aussie.zoneBanned
        14·
        3 年前

        If you’re torrenting without a VPN you’re doing it wrong. Also you should look at Usenet instead.

        • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          5·
          3 年前

          What’s the situation with usenet these days ? I preferred nzbs over torrents for several years but it just became impossible at around the time nzbmatrix chucked it in.

          • Whirlybird@aussie.zoneBanned
            10·
            3 年前

            Better than ever! Seriously.

            Indexers like NZBGeek, Drunkenslug, and NZBFinder have resulted in me getting almost anything I want, short of some obscure Australia series from the 80s. Providers are doing 2000+ days retention and I’m only using 1 myself, never even needed to get a backup on a different backbone.

  • s20@lemmy.ml
    631·
    3 年前

    Well, hell. I guess I’ll go back to watching less and buying DVDs. I’m not watching commercials on a service I pay for. That’s a non starter.

    Worst comes to worse, I can dust off my eye patch, grab my parrot, and take to the high seas. I don’t wanna, I prefer to pay for stuff, but ffs, if they can’t be reasonable, I guess it’s back to arrr me hearties.

  • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]@hexbear.netBannedEnglish
    581·
    3 年前

    It is inevitable, every industry grows to destroy itself through contradictions. It is just annoying how fast this business model took to do it.

    • Parent [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      38·
      3 年前

      Have to keep the profits increasing every quarter, otherwise shareholders will sell and buy your competitors and line go down. The article talks a little about how a lot of the streaming platforms have raised prices this year since right now shareholders want to see more profit instead of growth with interest rates up.

    • r_thndr@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      11·
      3 年前

      To be fair, capitalism seeks the lowest market clearance price. Until price hikes start showing a lower net return, prices will go up.

      Not that I care, me cap’n’s hat never left the boat.

  • GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml
    521·
    3 年前

    But Wednesday’s move to significantly bump prices, marked an acknowledgment by Iger of the media giant’s intent to squeeze more revenue out of streaming by pushing consumers to the advertising-supported plans, which have proven to be more profitable.

    “The advertising marketplace for streaming is picking up,” Iger told investors on the quarterly earnings call. “It’s more healthy than the advertising marketplace for linear television. We believe in the future of advertising on our streaming platforms, both Disney+ and Hulu.”

    This is extremely important for them. Netflix’s excellent deal for most of its streaming existence was obviously a thorn in the side of many other businesses. Even if streaming services can get you to pay an exorbitant amount of money on an ad-free tier, advertisers are frothing for the chance to advertise to you regardless. They want you to see their ads so badly. And let’s not forget all the big tech companies, Netflix included, were riding high during the free money days of 0% interest loans. Those days are over, and the bill is due. Wall Street wants its money. And we are all the ones who have to pay up. Cheap streaming is officially over.

    This is why these companies, including Netflix, have all introduced ad tiers. Not only is it a great way for them to juice their revenue streams, but also every other company wants a permanent residence in your brain, and then some. Given the way things have been going since duo-eras of the COVID pandemic and corporate profit-based inflation, they don’t even need to collude on prices. All the execs need to do is look at the business press and say, “Hey, they’re getting away with increased prices and password sharing crackdowns. We can do the same thing. The pay pigs keep paying!”

      • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        232·
        3 年前

        Big advertising budgets that are funded from the value alienated from exploited workers and consumers. Information asymmetry in the marketplace means that even if you make a superior product at a lower price, you could still be outcompeted by an expensive inferior product if more people know about that worse product and don’t know about your product.

        That’s for most basic products anyway. Luxury products like bags and clothes are almost all marketing since the cost to create them is so low compared to their sales price. People buy them because of perceptions created by marketing and not any inherent value in the product itself.

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        181·
        3 年前

        As far as I know internet advertising is an economy destroying sunk cost fallacy. No one makes money off of it, but if they stop basically everything collapses catastrophically, so they just keep pouring more money in to it in hopes that someone will find a way to make it profitable before the bill comes due.

        • fox [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          11·
          3 年前

          Ehhh, not really. If showing 10,000 people an ad costs you $10 and even one person made a purchase off that, you’ve paid for the ad buy. Internet ad conversions are considered unbelievably excellent if 1% of viewers click on the ad and 1% of those people make a purchase.

          Also, if you don’t advertise, then your competition that do advertise are going to eat your lunch.

      • Eccitaze@yiffit.net
        12·
        3 年前

        You know it’s coming. Why would a streaming company want a consumer buying one month, binging a single show they’re interested in, then immediately cancelling the subscription after, when you could guarantee a 6- or 12-month revenue stream for them?

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      201·
      3 年前

      Might fuck around and start invoicing companies for attention time, comprehension time, storage capacity, and of course the 500$ per instance recall fee.

  • FakeNewsForDogs [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    511·
    3 年前

    I realized a year or so ago (after a letter from my isp) that I didn’t actually need to torrent anymore. There are websites like bflix.io (and I’m sure many others) that have basically everything streaming for free. Fuck subscriptions. Would maybe go back to torrenting if I got a vpn sorted out, but you’re not gonna get in trouble for streaming shit on a pirate website, so for now it’s the best solution I’ve found. Certainly not paying any of these assholes. Lol. Fuck outta here with that.

    • ℛ𝒶𝓋ℯ𝓃@pawb.social
      18·
      3 年前

      Proton mail has a free VPN that works really well. Switzerland is part of world coverage tier, but Netherlands is just as good at hiding torrenting from ISP’s. And it can even use a ‘stealth mode’ that works fairly well to get around VPN blockers by using unusual protocols for the traffic.

        • LiiTheBaddie@lemmy.ml
          3·
          3 年前

          It should but I never tested it. I don’t torrent much. I’ll need a torrent that is almost guaranteed to get an email from an isp to test it.

          • comfisofa@lemmy.ml
            1·
            3 年前

            It will just refuse to download anything in your client, plus there are sites that let you check your IP when you torrent.

    • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
      5·
      3 年前

      Is there something like that that works on an nVidia Shield (Android TV)?

      Rather not have the Uberspreadsheetboxen running just to watch Village of the Damned again…

    • JustSomePerson@kbin.social
      2·
      3 年前

      Is there a good way to watch on a proper TV? I find that all such sites are browser based, and I’m not keen on typing in urls with the remote control.