LogFAQs > #884423302

Lightsasori posted...

I think Disney can get away with something like this because of how big of a juggernaut they are. But this is leading to a bad precedent where every company is going to be doing their own streaming service and then we're going to see a major rise in piracy.

All the company's are already starting to do it. It was the logical progression to how this market is working.

First it was really just Netflix (Hulu was really just currently running shows at the time). It offered to buy the streaming licenses for movies and shows. The various production companies, currently not making much money off of a much smaller streaming market were like sure. Since Netflix was the only real player in town they got to name the price.

Flash forward a bit and Netflix is now the hottest shit on the internet. Other companies like Amazon and Hulu look and go "we can do that too" and asks the production companies to license their stuff. They'll even pay them more than Netflix is. Bidding wars for shows begin to commence, Netflix's once vaunted library starts to shrink as it cost more money to license all the shows. This is when original content starts to come into play.

Flash forward some more and while Netflix is still king, there are several viable contenders in play. Even more noteworthy is that despite people grumbling about reduced libraries and needing multiple services, the market is still supporting all these companies and people are subscribing to multiple services. Now the producers are looking at people throwing $8-12 a month at a few services and they ask themselves, why can't we be one of those services and cut out the middle man.

The good news is that eventually the streaming bubble will pop. The supply will outpace the demand. The production companies and smaller streaming services that thought they could hang in the market will start making less money than they did streaming or lose money and things will start contracting. It'll never go back to when it was just Netflix for $8 a month and a giant selection, but people will be able to get by with only a couple of services.

Online streaming is still an infant from a media consumption perspective. It doesn't know it's own limits yet and it doesn't know the limits of it's consumers. They'll get figured out in time.
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S*** I have to stop doing that," Gheb said, as he lay back down and died again. - Forgotten Love
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