Disney+ Launches in India For $20 a Year, Includes Shows From HBO, Showtime, and Live TV Channels (techcrunch.com) 12
Disney+ has arrived in India through Hotstar, a popular on-demand video streamer the giant conglomerate picked up as part of the Fox deal. From a report: To court users in India, the largest open entertainment market in Asia, Disney is charging users 1,499 Indian rupees (about $19.5) for a year, the most affordable plan in any of the more than a dozen markets where Disney+ is currently available. Subscribers of the revamped streaming service, now called Disney+ Hotstar, will get access to Disney Originals in English as well as several local languages, live sporting events, dozens of TV channels, and thousands of movies and shows, including some sourced from HBO, Showtime, ABC and Fox that maintain syndication partnerships with the Indian streaming service. It also maintains partnership with Hooq -- at least for now. Unlike Disney+'s offering in the U.S. and other markets, in India, the service does not support 4K and streams content at nearly a tenth of their bitrate.
If you love your creative people ... (Score:3, Interesting)
... don't give money to evil.
Support creative people.
Not those, whose single only purpose of existence it is, to abuse and leech off of creative people and their fans.
Support them directly, via Patreon, Kickstarter, Flattr, hell, throw money into their hat on the street.
And spread their works to advertise for them.
But don't be a support organized crime.
* supporter (Score:1)
whoops
Affordability is relative.. (Score:3)
Especially, when you consider that that India's per-capita monthly income is Rs10,534 ($138 USD). Whereas it sounds super cheap relative to other economies, it may not be all unicorns and rainbows there.
https://www.businesstoday.in/c... [businesstoday.in]
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Tue, but India has a huge rural population that doesn't own computers. I suspect the average income of computer-owning Indians is dramatically higher. Heck, even for smartphone-owning Indians.
The rest... well they really don't matter if you're selling a computer-based service.
What it does show though is that these services can be profitable at much lower prices than we're paying. Admittedly the fact that we're paying such high prices no doubt helps subsidize the production costs, but the actual delivery
Re: (Score:2)
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Are you willing to accept a no-4K and a 90% lower bitrate for your refund?
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Are you willing to accept a no-4K and a 90% lower bitrate for your refund?
I'll answer for my own part. Yes. I watch streaming videos on a 10" tablet; 4K means nothing to me; and ~$2/mo is a good price point for as much as I would actually watch Disney+.
With that said, it's just a matter of embracing creative billing options e.g. prepaid debit + a VPN to make this a viable option for people in other regions.
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Are you willing to accept a no-4K and a 90% lower bitrate for your refund?
I don't need 4K because I don't have a 4K tv. I also don't need a 4K tv because in order for me to see and appreciate the higher 4K resolution, I'd have to sit much closer than I do now (which is 10 ft).
https://www.avu.ca/video/perfecting-proximity-finding-optimal-tv-viewing-distance/
With my 50" 1080P, the optimal viewing distance is between 6.5 ft and 10.5 ft
With a 50" 4K, the optimal viewing distance is between 4 ft and 6.5 ft away. That's too close.
So.. (Score:1)
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Another failed market (Score:2)
Apparently, Disney finds that amount of money to be profitable for their content (else they wouldn't make the offer at all). A healthy market pushes the retail price towards the marginal cost of production. That doesn't seem to have happened in the U.S.
Companies routinely charge U.S. customers more money and then wonder why U.S. workers cost more.