I think Netflix and HBO are about to change the streaming TV market forever - here's why

[What Hi-Fi?]

Huge changes in the TV streaming landscape could have a big influence on all of our streaming habits.

I think Netflix and HBO are about to change the streaming TV market forever - here's why : Read more

 

[thatguy]

The first few years of streaming were the great ones. So many things to watch on just a couple services. Even subscribing to just one gave most people more than enough to watch. The studios didn't have to do anything other than license the content to Netflix and sit back and make money. Then they decided to cut the middle man out and some didn't seem to realize just how expensive it is to get and keep customers.
Now we are pretty much back to where cable TV was before streaming arrived. We have to pay for multiple "channels" to get a mix of shows we want to see and more and more of them are adding commercials.
Paying for multiple services and watching commercials are two things that nobody wanted when streaming first became a thing.

 

[F8lee]

I agree with @WayneKerr - the explosion of options has choked the market - after all, how many bajilion viewer-hours are there in total that much now be divvied up between umpteen services? And the cable companies (I have XFinity/Comcast in the US) just raise rates while conveneintly lowering quality.

There may be a major shakeout in the industry. I saw in New Mexico, where marijuana was legalize and as a resul there is a dispensary on every other street corner, the store owners were peittioning the government to limit access to licenses because - duh - ore competition led to lower prices.

 

[JR75]

Nobody Wants commercials. Streaming services were a sigh of relief - to get away from TV with commercials, but it seems we are headed back in that direction. Cable TV is out of control with the never ending price increases and junk TV, and Paramount+ is now showing the first 3 John Wick movies, but only with commercials - even if you have an ad free subscription - you have to watch the commercials. I think it was 5 commercials per movie that lasted about 15 seconds each. And poor HBO - for many decades had been the gold standard of non-network TV and now it has been sucked into a pit of rotting garbage with the vapid Discovery channel - and I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually disappears. What a shame. I see a time when ad free streaming will completely be eliminated, and we will all be forced to watch that horror show of commercials again. God help us.

 

[Geoff-W]

Anyone with half a brain could see this one coming. It's one of the reasons I never bought in to the whole streaming idea. Never did, never will.

 

[cryanhorner]

disappointing but in no way surprising. it's the same old capitalist race to the bottom. if you're old enough you might remember that cable tv was originally free of commercials (because you're paying for it, that's the tradeoff), then they just started adding commercials anyway and making it worse and assuming you had no choice, you'd just put up and shut up.

then streaming basically said, we're what cable was supposed to be. and now they're no longer what cable was supposed to be, they're what cable became. just like cable, they also started flooding the market with an endless deluge of forgettable crap, basically drowning high quality content, because it just gets lost in the shuffle and cancelled before it can find an audience. wouldn't it be nice to have about 10% as many shows, but only the good ones?

personally, i think it should be illegal to both charge users for something and and sell ads in it--either the ads are your revenue or the subscriptions are, but you can't double dip.

jokes's on them--i'll just torrent whatever i want to watch. when you put people up against the wall, expect them to make moves you won't like.