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Television Movies

Streaming's Bounty of Choices Overwhelms Consumers (axios.com) 115

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Consumers are so stressed about finding the right thing to watch on their streaming services that, after a few minutes scanning the options, many decide to watch something they've already seen, revert to traditional TV, or turn the tube off altogether. From a report: As more companies jump into the streaming wars, the choice-overload problem could alienate customers, drive away subscribers and limit the industry's growth. U.S. adults typically spend a little over 7 minutes searching for something to watch on a streaming service, according to a new report from Nielsen's MediaTech Trender, a quarterly consumer tracking survey focused on emerging technology. Younger adults ages 18-49 take between 8 and 10 minutes to browse before giving up, while older adults typically spend around 5 minutes. Overall, 21% of respondents say that "when they want to watch, but they don't know exactly what," they end up giving up the hunt.
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Streaming's Bounty of Choices Overwhelms Consumers More

Streaming's Bounty of Choices Overwhelms Consumers

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  • Analysis paralysis (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis

    • Indeed.

      Also, see this excellent TED talk: The Paradox of Choice [ted.com]

      Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central tenet of western societies: freedom of choice. In Schwartz's estimation, choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied.

      • Yep. Happens with a lot of decisions. I've got literally hundreds of items in my Steam library, but 9 times out of 10, it's one of the handful of games I've been playing for years I'll fire up instead of taking a chance on something I've bought but not tried yet.

    • To quote the ancient ballad, "Freedom of choice
      Is what you got
      Freedom from choice
      Is what you want"

      • I am old enough to remember when everyone bitched about the cable companies' channel bundles.

        "why can't i just buy the channels i want a la carte? Why do i have to pay $$$ per month for 400 home shopping channels and 3 i want?"

        we got exactly what we wanted! only somehow comcast managed to keep my bill exactly the same.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Not quite.

          We wanted to sign up for individual channels with a single provider. We didn't want to have to a dozen separate subscriptions with difefrent companies, accessed through separate user facing gateways.

          Amazon Prime Video, and to an extent iTunes got it right IMO. You can select what channels, shows/movies, or even episodes you want and pay for only what you want, and all the content is accessed through one app.

          Disney, CBS, even Netflix at this point, etc. are doing it wrong rolling out their own app

  • I've tried couple services (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    And all i can say is that most of it is crap. You can't find but few watchable shows per service. So now you gotta get a dozen services to be able to watch something. No thanks.

  • Damned kids. (Score:4, Funny)

    by JWSmythe ( 446288 ) <jwsmytheNO@SPAMjwsmythe.com> on Friday July 12, 2019 @12:24PM (#58914092) Homepage Journal

    Damned kids. We flipped through 5 static filled stations, and were happy with it!

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 )

      And we were too busy tweaking the fine tuning, vertical hold and tint knobs to absorb the shows anyway.

      • Ah, the joys of turning the 'tint' knob all the way to the limits, and making the colors turn into violent pink or green. Yeah, sometimes it was more fun than watching the shows themselves.

        Kind of pissed-off the adults in the room, though.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mellon ( 7048 )

      You had stations? We had to go to the Grange on a Saturday night to listen to a couple of dudes play fiddle!

      Seriously, this pretty much matches my experience—I haven't watched Netflix more than once in the past couple of months. It's easier to just read a Harry Potter fanfic. Pathetic, but true.

    • Lol, and the KIDS were the ones who had to either change the channel with a set of liars while the other kid moved the rabbit ears antenna to get the best reception.

      Sorry, I'm an old fart too. But that was just too easy.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        we would get yelled at for turning the UHF knob "too fast"

  • Choice between Crap, Junk, and @#$% (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gbooker ( 60148 ) on Friday July 12, 2019 @12:28PM (#58914108) Homepage Journal

    The problem isn't the quantity of titles, it's the lack of quality. I've done this hunt before with friends and it was nothing more than a repetition of "is this worth watching? No, move to the next." If we had found a title worth watching, the hunt would be over and we would have watched it but most times it was nothing but failure until we gave up. That's why I eventually cancelled my Netflix account. I re-up it once a year or so for a bit just to watch the new seasons to the few series we care about but the hunt through the sea of muck isn't worth it anymore.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      The problem isn't the quantity of titles, it's the lack of quality.

      Without disagreeing with you, I'd point out that the average crap on Netflix is better than the average crap on broadcast TV, it just remains below the bar of "worth making an effort to watch". Younger people for the most part no longer have the habit of having the TV on just for background noise, so it just gets turned off.

      I find it harder and harder to engage with TV shows at all. At least when I'm watching some second-rate drivel on YouTube it's something specific to my interests, while second-rate dri

    • I think that I would be happy with a button that would just randomly flip to show that would fit my preference based on previous ratings.

      There is a lot of content that I pass over simply because the imagery isn't appealing, the description doesn't sound good or the category of show wouldn't normally be appealing to me.

      Or, maybe some kind of social aspect of Netflix where friends and family could recommend shows or put them into a special list.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The problem isn't the quantity of titles, it's the lack of quality. ... snip ... That's why I eventually cancelled my Netflix account.

      I find there is plenty of stuff on Netflix, but you pretty much need to take control and curate your lists.

      When I'm going through playing the yes/no/maybe game, the no's get a thumbs down, turn grey, and leave my list never to be seen again. Like the endless stream of Hindi language movies and kids shows that seem to show up quite regularly.

      Now, I still have days where I do

      • When I'm going through playing the yes/no/maybe game, the no's get a thumbs down, turn grey, and leave my list never to be seen again

        That's interesting.

        I rate things thumbs down...and they STILL keep appearing on my list of titles they show me that I might like.

        I wish it worked the way you said.....does this work for other people?

    • We canceled Netflix a few months ago because the shows we liked were dropped. But we noticed that on Netflix DVD, they still had them, and a whole lot of other shows that had been dropped over the last couple of years. We've switched to DVD and so far are enjoying the greater selection.

  • Bounty of choices... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Friday July 12, 2019 @12:33PM (#58914136)
    With everybody doing a Gollum impression and hissing “My Precious!!!” as they set up their own streaming service around their own little content collection it’s the collective price tag of subscribing to all those services that will overwhelm consumers. What will kill this industry is spreading the content people want to see over dozens upon dozens of separate services that each charge a $20+ subscription and optimistically believing that people will subscribe to a dozen or more of them at that price tag.
    • }}} it’s the collective price tag of subscribing to all those services that will overwhelm consumers. {{{

      --- With each streaming service creating its own content now, you can't just subscribe to one or two. Last I looked, I would need to subscribe to eight different streaming services, about half of those for only one show. As you mention, the resulting price tag shown by that little exercise convinced me not to "cut the cord."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Calydor ( 739835 )

        Netflix almost defeated TV show piracy because contrary to popular belief, most people don't WANT to break the law when there's a simple and reasonable legal alternative. Sure things still got pirated because it'll never go away entirely, but they were winning.

        And then everyone wanted their own cake instead of a slice of the same cake.

        • And then everyone wanted their own cake instead of a slice of the same cake.

          I mostly agree with you there, and the little bit over which we disagree is too small to matter. The only reason I ever get bootlegged copies of anything is because it's not on Netflix or Prime Video yet.

          I have room in my budget for exactly two streaming services and one free shipping service. And since I get one of my streaming services as a complimentary gift as part of my shipping service, that leaves room in my budget for exactly one paid streaming service. If it's not on Netflix, I'll either buy the

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Same here, although my criterion for bootlegging is usually because numerous other services that actually do have some of the content only offer /some/ of the content. Eg, if I'm behind on a season and they only show the most recent 5 episodes... kinda hard to catch up. I either have to bootleg or just stop watching the show entirely.

            Mr streaming executive: I ask you, which option would you prefer? I can bootleg to catch up then continue watching what you provide, or ditch your offering entirely... Or, mayb

    • itâ(TM)s the collective price tag of subscribing to all those services that will overwhelm consumers

      AppleTV has a feature to help that, the TV app - you can see what shows are available across a lot of apps, and decides which ones to subscribe to.

      It's only part of the story though, if they could make it just as easy to unsubscribe then I think it would be a real winner... unsubscribing on AppleTV is not too bad, but it's still a little out of the way.

      Then of course all those apps are at the mercy of w

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Etcetera ( 14711 )

        PlayStation does that now too and has for a while... Going into the "TV & Video" top-level option drops you into a list of apps and a thumbnail gallery of shows across ALL your installed streaming/video apps, from which you can then go into directly if you like.

    • All that will bring them is the revival of piracy - as it will not be viable to subscribe to dozen of little streaming platforms $20 each.

      Problem is the marriage between content creation and content distribution whose purpose is to sidestep free market with exclusivity.

      Decouple those, and free market will solve everything - let the best service / content win!

      • Problem is the marriage between content creation and content distribution whose purpose is to sidestep free market with exclusivity.

        This gets tricky.

        On the one hand, one of the advantages of the Internet is that I can sell directly to customers. I can set up a store-front on the Internet and sell left-handed pipe wrenches directly to people. This is considered a good thing--why should I have to go through some middle-man distributor who marks up the price?

        So if I create a bunch of TV shows, why is it suddenly a bad thing that I can sell my wares directly to consumers and that I should, instead, license it to others to distribute?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Kjella ( 173770 )

          The problem is that you're not only selling content, you're also selling a content delivery service. Do you want a zillion different apps with different quirks for each content creator? No. I always thought we'd see something in between Netflix and YouTube where you'd buy/rent content where the actual content platform only took a cut or per minute charge or whatever to deliver more like a la carte cable with premium packages/PPV you could buy. But they all seem hellbent on creating their own service. The on

    • Who the hell is watching "dozens" of different TV shows?

    • Yes. (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The article spins this as a problem of consumers having too many choices. Not true at all.

      For any given streaming service, consumers have too little quality content that they want to watch. Far too few choices.

      It is true, they have many different providers to choose from, but the problem here is not that there are too many providers, but that each provider provides too little variety.

      So, too few choices, spread out over too many providers, is the problem.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The biggest problem is discoverability. Many services means people are less likely to discover shows they like on each one. They are all hoping for the next GoT style viral hit, but that's optimistic to say the least.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ebh ( 116526 )

      Who's surprised that streaming services would start to look like a cross between dreck-filled cable packages, and premium channels balkanized with exclusive content?

  • Netflix streaming got so bad - almost all junk - that I went back to dvd.com. As a film buff, now I often get the "extras" that are unavailable via streaming. I'm much happier.
  • Suppose [suppose.tv] there were a place where you could input the things you care most about and it would find those things and tell you the best way to get them for the cheapest price? I mean...think of the possibilities!

  • to stream online, for the cost of an internet connection, don't you?

    I still use Netflix, until recently couldn't install Amazon on my non-Amazon media device...

    If you plan ahead, you can borrow digital media like DVDs and Blu-Rays from your local library.

    Some library systems also provide streaming services, check with your friendly local librarian.

  • Wow, people are choosing not to watch what we called the "booby box" back when I was younger.

    And this is bad, because? I mean, is there really a problem that fewer people are spending time staring at the TV? Other than for the makers of TV shows, of course, and I can't find it in myself to care about them.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday July 12, 2019 @12:51PM (#58914276)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Netflix is plagued by foreign programming (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cliffjumper222 ( 229876 ) on Friday July 12, 2019 @12:52PM (#58914286)

    I dunno, maybe I made a mistake by watching a Korean drama once, but my Netflix suggestions is just full of foreign programming now. I suspected it was my fault, but then I went to Japan and opened up Netflix there and there was a ton of great American content for me to watch! It turns out it's all licensing. Netflix has got virtually nothing in the US from US content providers so they fill up on foreign content and the same goes for overseas. The best way to watch decent TV is to get the ol'VPN going again it seems.

  • "Bounty of Choices" sounds so pleasant and flowery compared with "Fragmentation and Greed."

    Doubleplus good!

  • I "suffer" the same predicament. Either it's a well known show or it's unwatchable.

    Too much stuff may look good and give value to the monthly fee, but the opposite is perhaps more valid.

  • All of these services are larded up with cheap to license garbage. Finding something actually worth watching is not a matter of sifting through good options, rather it is a painful process of digging through rotten banana peals and coffee grounds to find something that is not crap (reverting to something you know before your dinner gets cold is totally understandable). Netflix is quite guilty of pumping up their own self-made crap in the recommendations, while a number of years back their predictive star

  • Plex is the ship I sail and it's calm seas ahead.

  • This model of signing up to 92038092 different sites, paying each one a subscription. I mean, the sub fees are pretty reasonable. That's not really the problem.

    It's just this.. I have to go this to site to watch this, then that site to watch that. Meh.

    We need something like a 'Steam' for streaming. A one-stop shop where all the content creators and consumers can meet, exchange $$$ for content, etc.

    Seems to work really well for gaming. Even if Steam has some detractors, it's a pretty popular and efficie

  • Basically the saga in one act:

    Netflix: Hey we'd like to license your stuff so people can stream it over the internet to their PCs.
    Studios/Channels: lol, yeah sure okay there guy. We'll sell you licensing rights for your stupid pipe dream.
    Netflix: *becomes huge*
    Customers: Buying DVDs and other shit is a pain in the ass and it's nice to have this big nice catalog that I can just watch whatever on whenever I want! I might actually stop pirating stuff!
    Studios/Channels: ...oh. Well, we're not selling the rights

  • I've spent as long as three hours reviewing as deep as 3000+ entries into lists of movies trying to find something worth watching. It's such a pain now that I rejoice in finding a series because then I may have found 100+ hours at once.

    The problem is not that there is too much choice, it is that there is too little that I'd care to watch. It seems there are only a handful of good movies or TV shows coming out every year now. If I look at movie releases in the last year, for example, I'm lucky if one out of

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • What choice-overload problem? I do spend about 7 minutes or so looking for something that matches my mood at the moment and sparks my interest. However, there tends to be little choice in stories that interest me. So I pick something I've seen, or find something else to entertain me.

  • I don't have any streaming services. I may watch youtube or OTA TV occasionally, but I'm much more entertained watching my cat. The best part: It can be an interactive show!

  • A better title would've been "Lack of Good Ways to Search Streaming Services Impedes Their Use." The current situation with streaming reminds me of the Internet before WWW and search engines. You used to have to access each site via ftp or gopher server, download its list of files, and read through the entire list to figure out if it had anything you might be interested in. Archie and Veronica made the situation better since they'd compile the file lists for multiple servers and let you make rudimentary

  • Too much time commitment .... (Score:3)

    by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Friday July 12, 2019 @04:24PM (#58915884) Journal

    I know a big reason I don't watch some random new show that pops up is the fear I'll like it, and then it'll leave me having to watch every episode as it tells the story all spread out with cliffhangers everywhere.

    That was, IMO, one of the best things about TV series like Star Trek; each one told a self-contained story. A few times, there might have been parts 1 and 2, but that was about it. Still a great show that you loved to watch when you had time and it was on, but no worries about missing a couple episodes and having no idea what was going on ... or being compelled to binge watch a whole season in a row.

    And while the generic TV sitcoms tend to also feature episodes that stand alone and can be viewed out of order? Those are the brain-dead shows I try to stay away from because they don't really tell stories of any value. You can sit and watch 50 episodes of Everyone Loves Raymond or Modern Family or Friends -- and did it really enrich your life or teach you anything new? Did it make you think about things in a new way? I doubt it .... just a lot of cheap laughs and time wasted.

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