> Why not just make content available to everyone for a reasonable fee? If I have to subscribe to half a dozen streaming services in order to watch what I want to watch I'm going to pirate it instead.
Because the economy of it doesn't scale?
When Spotify was new, I was amazed by it. A simple monthly fee and I could instantly access all the music(tm)? Who wouldn't sign up for that?
As time went by I definitely wanted a similar service for video. Basically, the same recipe: A reasonable monthly fee, and I'd like to watch all the video(tm) please.
But that's not what we got, because they are different markets, offering different goods, which has a different cost and which is used differently.
It probably costs more to make a single episode of a popular TV-show than it costs to make 100 albums of music. And unlike music, where people typically have favourites, which they will listen to again and again, most TV-series are watch-once, be-done type of entertainment.
That means that I'll keep my music streaming service forever because I want to be able to keep listening to the music I love, but I will cancel a video-streaming service the instant I've seen the series I signed up for.
So what is a reasonable fee? I agree it's annoying to have to deal with multiple video-streaming providers, but if they were to follow the music-stream model (all providers have all the content), then the price you would have to pay per provider with probably be 10x what it is now. And nobody is going to pay that.
Isn't it more reasonable to pay for what you use, when you use it, and then pay nothing when you're not using it (something which really isn't a realistic option for music-streaming)?
You're missing an important detail, video is arguably a different market but it's still a digital good and it basically costs a company 0 to stream it to a new user. If i had one provider where i could get everything i'd gladly pay allot more than 15$ and i'd probably keep my subscription as everything new would be released on said platform. You could even combine this with a pay as you go model to only pay to stream a certain show without subscribing. My logic is that if you could get enough subscribers 30-50$ a month could be good business.
> it basically costs a company 0 to stream it to a new user
But the company providing the stream need to recoup the cost of making that episode, not just the cost of streaming it.
That means that the costs of making that episode has to be baked into the cost of the streaming-fee you are paying.
> My logic is that if you could get enough subscribers 30-50$ a month could be good business.
You won't, and it's still too low.
At this point, just having 3 regular streaming-services will cost you this much and it still gets you less than half the content out there.
Having it all would be $100+, and I can assure you that at such a price, most people would say "Why can't I just pay for the things I want to watch instead"? You know, before streaming, like people did with cable.
What i'm trying to say is that if you can convince enough people to subscribe, the price could be 20$ but the video media industry keeps clinging to the dream of exclusives which will in turn make people turn to piracy again. It might be much more expensive to produce music, but that also results in allot of music being produced compared to tv shows
Because the economy of it doesn't scale?
When Spotify was new, I was amazed by it. A simple monthly fee and I could instantly access all the music(tm)? Who wouldn't sign up for that?
As time went by I definitely wanted a similar service for video. Basically, the same recipe: A reasonable monthly fee, and I'd like to watch all the video(tm) please.
But that's not what we got, because they are different markets, offering different goods, which has a different cost and which is used differently.
It probably costs more to make a single episode of a popular TV-show than it costs to make 100 albums of music. And unlike music, where people typically have favourites, which they will listen to again and again, most TV-series are watch-once, be-done type of entertainment.
That means that I'll keep my music streaming service forever because I want to be able to keep listening to the music I love, but I will cancel a video-streaming service the instant I've seen the series I signed up for.
So what is a reasonable fee? I agree it's annoying to have to deal with multiple video-streaming providers, but if they were to follow the music-stream model (all providers have all the content), then the price you would have to pay per provider with probably be 10x what it is now. And nobody is going to pay that.
Isn't it more reasonable to pay for what you use, when you use it, and then pay nothing when you're not using it (something which really isn't a realistic option for music-streaming)?