Relatedly, see how Uber prices have changed over the past few years. https://slate.com/business/2022/05/uber-subsidy-lyft-cheap-r...
The obvious downside though is at some point the show may just magically disappear from your purchased library, if negotiations between the platform and the creator go south††. I'd love to see some laws in this area where "a purchase is a purchase" to prevent this, but for now it's a risk (albeit one with maritime workarounds).
† or license leasing if you're buying digitally
†† ie https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6449826?sortBy=best
For those unaware, you can spin up your own direct-to-consumer streaming subscription business in a box (assuming, of course, you have sufficient content to entice viewers) with https://vimeo.com/ott . Perhaps the best known brand using them is Dropout TV (formerly CollegeHumor) - see https://www.dropout.tv/copyright .
At a lower level, Cloudflare, mux.com, and others provide streaming and transcoding APIs that a small team of developers can easily weave together for a custom experience.
There is literally zero barrier to entry for a media company to have all the capabilities of Netflix, if they can bring their own customers and marketing. Which, of course, is no small feat, and requires playing in social media sandboxes. But it's increasingly hard to understand how Netflix has the staying power of the rest of FAANG.
Because profits tend to fall over time [1] so to keep profits the same (let alone increasing) revenue have to go up and/or costs have to go down. More evenue can be higher prices, more subscribers, etc. Lowering costs can mean paying less in licensing, paying people less, employing less people, etc.
This was one of Marx's key observations of the inherent contradictions in capitalism.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit...
Unfortunately the world of DVD and Blu-ray seems to be overrun with too many editions. For example besides that particular HIMYM set (here it is at Amazon [1]), there is also this one [2] which is $49.99.
The pictures for the two look identical. But the release date listed for the $32.99 is about 9 months later, and the media format descriptions differ between the two. The $32.99 one says Subtitled, NTSC. The $49.99 one says NTSC, Widescreen, Box set, Subtitles, AC-3, Dolby. The $32.99 lists language as "English (Dolby Surround)" so does apparently have Dolby. The $49.99 one doesn't list language. The $32.99 one says it has English, French, and Spanish subtitles. The $49.99 just says French and Spanish subtitles. Does one of them have better sound? Do either of them have commentary, deleted scenes, or other special features. Does only the $49.99 have widescreen?
Some comments mention that there is commentary, but (1) Amazon considers these two sets to be variations on the same set and so they share comments, so there is no way to tell which set the comment is talking about, and (2) some of those comments are from several years before either set was released--they were definitely commenting about HIMYM so my guess is that they were for early releases of specific seasons or something like that.
If I were interested in buying that complete HIMYM I'd have no idea from those Amazon listings and comments which set to buy.
I've also seen similar things when considering buying movies. There will often be one or more of a DVD, a DVD + digital code, a Blu-ray + DVD + digital code, a 4K UHD Blu-ray, a 4K UHD Blu-ray + digital code, a 4K UHD Blu-ray + DVD + digital code, and probably some that I've forgotten.
Online listings often don't say if the digital code is for 4K, and often don't say much about special features. It is confusing enough that my impulse to buy the movie does not last long enough for me to figure out which to buy.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/How-Met-Your-Mother-Complete/dp/B07GJ...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/How-Met-Your-Mother-Complete/dp/B0747...
If the deal is I give the seller money and get the product, that's fine. But if next month the seller says actually now even though you're paying me I'm going to show you ads anyways, or yeah you gave me money but I've decided to take back the product without refunding you[0]... it is easy to become sympathetic to pirates.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/12/playstation-is-erasi...
"“We’re obviously trying with our pricing strategy to migrate more subs to the advertiser-supported tier,” Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger said in August during a call with investors to discuss the company’s quarterly results."
"Disney, Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery have recently said the ad-supported versions of their streaming platforms generate more money per user than their ad-free counterparts, as the advertising revenue more than offsets the lower subscription cost." -- https://www.wsj.com/business/media/netflix-price-increase-ac...
"Netflix executives have said that the ad tier brings in more average revenue per user than its $15.49 standard plan." -- https://www.wsj.com/articles/netflix-reworks-microsoft-pact-...
There's several ones listed here : https://github.com/pixeltris/TwitchAdSolutions
I use the scripts (https://github.com/pixeltris/TwitchAdSolutions#scripts) instead of the proxy solution, as i dont want to rely on a third party server to be working.
(Maybe I'm being too literal here -- it'd be fair to argue that Netflix mostly just advertises their shows, not the plans themselves directly.)
[1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/688525/netflix-ad-expens...
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-uses-six-dark-pattern-...
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/amazon-rosca-pu...
So if a viewer watches 155 ads (impressions) in a month they have earned Netflix more money with their eyeballs than they saved in subscription cost.
Netflix says people should expect “about 4 minutes of ads per hour” which is notably not directly equivalent to impressions. If each ad is 30 seconds it takes about 39 hours to reach 155 ad impressions. That’s close to 80 minutes per day each month.
Another way of looking at it is that you get paid $6.58 per hour to watch ads, up until you’ve watched 77.5 minutes of ads. After that you are paid $0 to watch ads.
[0] https://digiday.com/media-buying/netflixs-cpm-still-under-bu...
[1] They also say it was reduced from $65 (131 impressions) and plus this is a sales game so the rates will be up and down all the time based on KPIs and competitions to win steak knives and more comprehensive media buy deals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_ad-supported_streaming_te...
Moving the goalpost is not compelling. Yes, national cable stations were commercial free for years (eg Z Channel^1, HBO, Showtime, et al), before every channel was advertised as being on cable, in a marketing shift to shift away from over-the-air broadcast and bundle programming rates. TBS was regional (Atlanta, Georgia^3), when it started off. The niche market of TBS was not industry defining anymore than my local bakery's donut deal is. This was a shift in terminology, but the history remains^2.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_Channel
[2] https://www.everything80spodcast.com/hbo-showtime-the-rapid-...
https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/13sedmx/...
https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/10j2lkv/new_...
Make sure to read the docs for minimising database size and traffic volume pending available resources.
[0]:https://bitmagnet.io [1]:https://github.com/bitmagnet-io/bitmagnet
> I never ever found a house amongst my friends and family during the 90's that had only basic cable.
Damn, and I thought I had a privileged childhood. Many of my friends didn't even have cable despite many coming from families making into six figures in the 90s. Literally nobody you knew only had or even spent any time watching basic cable channels?
Even for the percentage of those I knew who did have cable, most didn't have the premium channels or would only have HBO or only Showtime or whatever. And no, they weren't paying tons of money to only watch HBO, many of those other channels were often watched.
And by the fact you're scoping it to the 90s and beyond shows you're just ignoring the 40 years of history before.
> I have no hard data to back what I am going to say
You don't have the data because its 100% fiction.
> who I suspect was a plurality of cable users
Not even close. Supposedly in May 1987 it was reported HBO had 15 million subscribers. There were 41 million cable subscribers that year. In 2001 it was reported to have 25.5 million subscribers[2]. There were 66 million cable subscribers in the US. Never, in all of cable's history, have the plurality of cable subscribers had HBO.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HBO [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United... [2] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-oct-05-ca-53541...
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/11/us/advertisers-look-close...
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-inv...
Yes, commercials did eventually invade it (as everyone knows), but this was not the initial marketing (aka promise). I guess you had to be there. Good luck with whatever.
And: https://x.com/doctorow/status/1669073016419155973?s=46&t=UYF...