Streaming Sector Determined To Become Just As Shitty As 1990s Cable
from the learning-nothing-from-experience dept
Thanks to industry consolidation and saturated market growth, the streaming industry has started behaving much like the traditional cable giants they once disrupted. As with most industries suffering from “enshittification,” that generally means steadily worse service at higher prices as it tries to appease Wall Street’s demand for improved quarterly returns at any cost (even long term company health).
Netflix has started acting like password sharing, something it advocated for for years, is a cardinal sin. Amazon decided it would be fun to increase the number of ads it runs, charging Amazon Prime users even more money to avoid them. Consumers are paying more for streaming than ever as layoffs abound, streaming catalogs shrink, and the underlying products steadily get worse.
That’s before you get to the mess that is Warner Brothers Discovery, which has been putting on a master class as to why pointless media mergers are generally a bad idea. The company has been laying off employees, raising prices and degrading product quality left and right as it attempts to recoup merger debt. That has included killing off brands (like HBO) long popular among consumers.
Last week, the company informed subscribers of its standard $16 per month (or $149.99 per year) ad free plan that they’d be losing several features, including the number of simultaneous households streams users can view, and ability to stream 4K content. Those features are being shoveled into a new more expensive, Ultimate Ad-Free $19.99 per month plan (or $199.99 per year).
Sudheer Sirivara, EVP of global technology platform at Warner Bros. Discovery, utilized peak corporate speak gibberish to justify the moves:
“We understand the value of offering our users a cinematic playback experience and to that end, we’ve implemented more advanced technology workflows that allow us to release more 4K content in a faster, more efficient way.”
In reality, they’re creating an annoying new pricing funnel so that users have to pay for the most expensive tier possible to get fairly basic functions like 4K.
To be clear: streaming still has a value advantage over cable, for now. The lower costs, plus the ease in cancelling and restarting services, has been an overall net advantage over shitty old cable bundles. But streaming sector executives seem absolutely dedicated to pushing their luck, meaning they’ll absolutely be taking the same disruption ride cable executives enjoyed.
It’s clear the sector wants to further consolidate, reduce competition, and continue to raise rates hand over fist. That will continue to result in more restrictions and strange fees, worsening catalogs, lower-quality offshored support, and more layoffs. Through the lens of Wall Street myopia, it’s simply not enough to have a quality product people like; resulting in inevitable quality cannibalization.
The end result are companies that are financially conditioned to implode if necessary to provide improved quarterly returns over the short term. And executives poised to learn absolutely nothing from the sector’s long history of tone deafness, opening the door to further disruption from the likes of TikTok (and most notably, piracy) as the cycle continues…
Filed Under: cable tv, competition, disruption, streaming, video
Comments on “Streaming Sector Determined To Become Just As Shitty As 1990s Cable”
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Karl Bode Malding about Inflation
If you are going to make some baseless claims about wall street expectations, at least post something showing what the actual margins of the business are, because otherwise its just the typical commie crying about capitalism in general, and we all know that communism was no better for media.
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“Communism”… you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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The reason is, he’s being led around by the nose, and thinks he so much smarter than others because he has the inside scoop on the conspiracy. He’s perfect fodder for the likes of echo chamber talk show hosts like Hannity. I must admit, there was a time when I listened to Rush Limbaugh. It took me a while to realize that anyone with a dissenting viewpoint was hung up on and called some name, such as “Socialist”. He would warn his listeners that any government regulation is, “an attack on Capitalism!” “But you, Dear Listener are too smart for them.” Limbaugh got extremely rich, and Hannity is making a ton as well. Why, because a lot of people are too lazy to really think for themselves. The next time Hannity has you feeling outrage, check yourself and realize that, that is what is making him rich.
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And then he died. Not only did he take precisely zero of his wealth with him, he left behind no tangible legacy other than being a purveyor of hate. He won’t even be remembered for any great contribution to society/the arts because as soon as he died, a dozen imitators who could do his same schtick but with worse opinions to express immediately took his place.
Rush Limbaugh was a horrible man. I take solace in the fact that his legacy as a person amounts to practically nothing.
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Limbaugh getting cancer is one of the rare times I thought, good, that fucker deserves it about cancer. A bit ironic, cancer for a cancer.
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And here you are, malding over the facts of an article nobody made you read.
Please provide a quote from the article that indicates a support of communism from the writer.
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When has Karl even voiced support for Karl Marx?
Certainly not in this article, and not in any article I’ve read from him…
Methinks our revenge pornographer is talking out of his ass.
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Make that a wall-eyed revenge pornographer.
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Karl Bode is a liar
A cursory search reveals that actually there have been losses for most of the streaming companies, so i guess karl bode was too lazy to do a basic google search, or lives in some communist fantasy world where money grows on trees.
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the “where money grows on trees” remark shows that you know less than nothing about communism
please directly quote from this article where Karl Bode advocates for collective ownership of property, the complete abolition of money, or the complete abolition of government – because those are core tenets of communism
a cursory search reveals this, so I guess you were too lazy to do a basic google search, or you just watch fox “news” all day long
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“The international socialist society where classes, money, and the state no longer exist.”
in Karl Bode’s reality distortion field, It’s “myopic”, to try to stop taking financial losses, and spend less money, so you don’t go bankrupt.
“Through the lens of Wall Street myopia, it’s simply not enough to have a quality product people like; resulting in inevitable quality cannibalization.”
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How does any of that advocate for the complete abolition of money, government, or private ownership
You haven’t answered the question
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Its even more myopic for a business to drive away customers by making their services less attractive.
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Have those losses been at all related to companies merging and taking on debt as a result?
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I see you are speculating again, but lets look at this logically.
If every company but netflix is taking a loss, then that necessarily means that they will either:
A) go bankrupt
B) get bought
C) go into debt
If you buy a company that is losing money, the only reason why it makes sense to do so, is that you can employ economies of scale, or that you can reduce the costs (like making new content) and hope to amortize the previously incurred costs over time, because its irrational to buy companies with the intention of losing more money.
But moreover most startups take on debt through convertible notes, which give the investor the right to convert that debt into equity at some point in the future, so this is not very unusual at all.
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Okay, but from a customer’s point of view, these companies conviced everyone to abandon cable on the basis that streaming can provide a better experience (watch anything ad-free whenever you want, share the subscription between households, etc.) at like 10% of the cost. When people find out it was a lie—just a loss-leader that somehow persisted for a decade—is it really fair for anyone to expect them to remain happy and loyal?
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It’s quite telling that you didn’t actually answer his question.
I don’t understand this thing where you keep saying they “killed off” the HBO brand.
They stopped using it for their streaming service. They continue to use it for the TV station and the programming on it.
It never made a hell of a lot of sense for their streaming service in the first place, but then, it’s not like “Max” does either.
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I also find that claim odd. Given my own history as a child of the 1980s and ’90s, “HBO” was always associated with expensive things we couldn’t have, which makes it problematic as a mass-market brand.
As for “as shitty as 1990s cable”, well, it seemed like almost everyone had cable in the 1990s. Not “pay TV” like HBO, but basic cable and maybe a package with some extra broadcast and a few cable-only channels. Because there was basically no realistic competition (it wasn’t till late in that decade that we became able to download stuff for free; and most people were unaware of that world and didn’t use the Internet anyway). I can see why such a captive market would be appealing to streaming providers. People can call it “shitty” all they want as long as they’re paying.
I’ve got not a single clue of what it means…
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I think its a euphemism for generative AI, advancements in consumer CGI (like unreal engine), and cheaper 4k cameras (like every new smartphone).
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No one knows what it means, but it’s provocative!
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It’s mostly bullshit spin, but the gist of it is…
Streaming services are gonna serve you shitty 4k videos that are upscaled (read: enlarged BADLY) from the raw footage, and they’ll do it TERRIBLY.
Even with the current algorithms that could possibly make the enlarged video less shit, it’s a given that these companies will not pay the money required to make a decent product.
Karl doesn’t even really say that streaming service should be cheaper. Just that the current situation is shitty. Whose fault is it that people began to think of $8 a month as a reasonable price for unlimited streaming among multiple households, or that “4K” would cost the same as “standard definition”, or that services should be ad-free? We also say it’s shitty when Google shuts down services after making people expect they’ll be free forever.
Did you ever notice that everything on Netflix (less than 30-40 years old) comes with surround sound, even the stand-up comedy specials and talking-head documentaries, and even for the (vast majority of) customers with only two speakers? They’re sending sometimes 600 MB per stream when it could be 80 without most people noticing. Expect some future nickel-and-diming there, along with customer grumpiness from those with a lot of speakers.
If you run your business unprofitably to attract customers, for like a decade, this has to be expected. And if Wall Street’s willing to fund unprofitable businesses for that long but no longer, we can also expect them to be bailing on established businesses while funding upstart competitors with no obvious path to profitability. Another decade, and the whole thing will repeat. How’s that good for anyone?
Max's "cinematic playback experience"
Last night Max’s “cinematic playback experience” was mostly freezing and buffering. Show was unwatchable.
I think 1990s cable was way way better than today’s cable
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Not “way way” better, but certainly not as bad. We could, at least, switch channels like 5 times per second looking for a show. Permanent “station bugs” didn’t appear till 1993. There were no ads on top of the shows, except maybe the credits. No need for a shitty set-top box on each television.
It sucked, but we didn’t really notice till downloadable shows and series on DVDs appeared in the late 1990s. And till good shows became common around 2010.
I'm fine for now
It’ll be a while before streaming gets as shitty as cable. I’ve pulled back to subscribing 1 at a time, not because the price is so terribly high now, but in anticipation of that. Works fine for me.
Who will the executives blame?
I am hoping for a wave of cancelations as streaming companies charge more money for less value. I am looking forward to the excuses Netflix, Time Warner whatever, and Discovery make for a loss of revenue. Will it be those evil pirates, the economy, or the ever popular “racism” blamed for flops like Rings of Power and Velma?
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Try “all of the above”. And if anything, the price hikes and worsening service are all driving people back to piracy after years of streaming services keeping people away from it.
Not effected… pirates.
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Karl’s whole thesis was that this was going to effect “pirates” (“opening the door to further disruption from the likes of… most notably, piracy”).
Hey ho ho!
You’ll cruise to foreign shores
And you’ll keep your mind and body sound
By working out of doors!
True friendship and adventure are what we can’t live without!
And when you’re a professional pirate
That’s what the job’s about!
“Streaming Sector Determined To Become Just As Shitty As 1990s Cable”
I wasn’t aware this is news only now, since unfair practices by streaming companies have been occurring unchallenged for over a decade.
The gate keeper
I’ve long said we need a gate keeper. I’ve long said prime was the likely choice.
(Max is 9.99)
People need a single place to pick and choose what they want. How they wan. Prime is the best implementation I’ve seen of this so far. Add and remove subscriptions as you wish.
Want to see a film? Buy it for 9.99 or subscription for 9.99? Actually, more often you see a channel’s film about $2 below the subscription price. $10 for “ownership” is not bad. And $5.99-16.99 for a station isn’t either.
The problem remains too many locations. Not too many choices. Yes, I know a few thousand people (out of 300+ million) are sad mad magazine is dead. I think it was garbage, but I sympathise. Many magazines I used to read are gone now. From CPU to GoreZone to Arcade Klassic.
But, if they are not making money, they get cut. That’s more to do with reality of commerce than mergers. Neither Mad nor CPU got cut because of mergers, they were cut because they were loosing money. There was no ROI.