Streaming Services Deal With More Subscribers Who 'Watch, Cancel and Go' (wsj.com) 161
It is gradually getting tougher for streaming-video companies to hold on to their subscribers, as consumers who are flooded with options weed out services they don't need at any given time. From a report: Some 19% of subscribers to premium services -- a group that includes Netflix, Hulu, AppleTV+, HBO Max and Disney+, among others -- canceled three or more subscriptions in the two years up to June, according to new data from subscriber-measurement firm Antenna. That is up from 6% in the two-year stretch ended in June 2020.
The average rate of monthly customer defections among premium services in the U.S. was 5.46% in July, up from 4.46% a year ago and 4.05% in July 2020, according to Antenna. Many households signed up for multiple streaming services a few years ago as options in the marketplace proliferated, subscription prices were lower and the pandemic boosted demand for in-home entertainment. Slowly but surely, they have gotten more choosy and frugal. Some consumers cancel subscriptions when they finish a hit series on a service, then switch to another that has something else compelling.
The average rate of monthly customer defections among premium services in the U.S. was 5.46% in July, up from 4.46% a year ago and 4.05% in July 2020, according to Antenna. Many households signed up for multiple streaming services a few years ago as options in the marketplace proliferated, subscription prices were lower and the pandemic boosted demand for in-home entertainment. Slowly but surely, they have gotten more choosy and frugal. Some consumers cancel subscriptions when they finish a hit series on a service, then switch to another that has something else compelling.
Totally predictable. (Score:5, Informative)
Really, that is the problem for most of these services moving forward. The value proposition and "stickieness" of a subscription is really limited to how much you can engage people with your content over time rather than the complete catalog. Ad-supported content is likely to be even less sticky unless the subscription fee is less than $2. ...oddly the streaming services best option starts to look more like traditional OTA tv, and the subscribers best option is to support whatever service remains true to a reasonable price and reasonable content.
Re:Totally predictable. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's what you get for fragmenting content availability.
More or less what drove people away from cable.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. I'm going to watch the series I want to watch on a service, and then I'm canceling if there's nothing there to keep me going. The fragmentation means the cost to benefit ratio is pretty damned low, so this month its Disney+, watch all that's interesting, next month Prime, then maybe Netflix (though honestly, Netflix is really just beginning to suck, I feel like I watched anything worth watching a year ago).
Re: Totally predictable. (Score:2)
The next thing they'll have a cry about is "piracy" because people don't want to put up with their bullshit. Just like the last time around the board.
Re: (Score:2)
There, their, they're, it's okay, don't get upset.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Original era of cable TV: "you want us to pay full price for your bundle of 99% junk, boo"
Centralized on-demand: "yay, and it's inexpensive"
Balkanized on-demand: "you want us to pay full price for your bundle of 99% junk, boo"
Except now it's on-demand and they can marathon that 1%. We'll play a tiny violin for balkers that are sad people won't keep paying for the junk.
Re: (Score:3)
25 year ago people were complaining "Hey MegaCableCo, stop bundling channels! Let me buy a la carte channels!"
Now with streaming services, the "channels" *are* a la carte
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Totally predictable. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah I think in the future you might see more things like satellite where when you sign up the is say, $10 per month if you sign up with a 2 year contract or $25 per month with no contract.
All that's old is new again. Its sort of like the upstart politicians who claim they're going to go in and change the whole system - and then when they get in there they realize that a lot of the "system" has evolved to where it is for very real reasons and changing it is easier said than done.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed!
I had FTTP with Zen Internet installed back in early November and got rid of virgin media, at last! Next, had a new TV aerial installed for freeview.
The only channels that I missed having were the Discovery ones so for £4.99/month I took out a Discovery+ subscription and was happy. Then after a couple of months they said my subscription was going down to £3.99/month but they were then sticking in adverts which screwed everything up.
Oh, for £6.99/month you get no ads plus some sport,
Re: (Score:2)
Plus if you're into non drama stuff the free content on youtube just keeps getting better (despite googles ever more intrusive ads).
That's odd - except for advertising embedded in the content, I never see ads on YouTube.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
So apart from the ads you don't see any ads. Err, yeah, got it.
Re: (Score:2)
That's not Google's ads that you referenced before though - those are creator sponsorship deals.
I do wish though that Youtube would implement a policy that required that such spots of the video be tagged in such a way that members of Youtube Premium would be exempted from them though. It really sucks that I'm paying a premium for "No Ads" and then the creator throws in a backdoor ad that escapes the system. I'd even be willing to toss in an extra $5 per month over what I'm paying for Youtube Premium now I
Re: (Score:3)
Which you don't see if you have an adblocker.
Re: (Score:2)
"That's odd - except for advertising embedded in the content, I never see ads on YouTube."
That's odd. I see a LOT of both. For example, the Autoline channel has ads for BorgWarner, Bosch etc embedded in their daily videos & in addition YouTube will overlay 1 or 2, sometimes 3 ads, some of which are automotive but sometimes targeted.
That's been the norm for me even before COVID
Re: (Score:2)
At some point they're going to run up against consumer laws in many jurisdictions, which have come to frown very heavily on imposed perpetual membership (look at how many jurisdictions have gone after gyms' endless billing even after a membership has been canceled)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe in the short term, but eventually streaming will consolidate into an anti-trust allowed "big 3" which will all magically agree upon similar pricing, and people will have to take it if they want to watch. Not much different from the currently very legal and sometimes even subsidized cable offerings. Ultimately, this layer of who and how the programming sells to you is nothing but the same old smoke in front of the same old Hollywood money sink.
Well... duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
None of the major streaming services seem to put out more than 50 hours of quality original programming every year.
It's somewhat dumb to sign up for an entire year of their service when you can binge-watch everything that's worth watching in a month and then cancel your subscription.
Re: (Score:2)
None of the major streaming services seem to put out more than 50 hours of quality original programming every year.
But you just described the entire entertainment industry. Mostly shit, a few quality things, all the rest filled with adverts and reruns.
Getting burned by being greedy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Netflix realized things were headed in this direction long before most people did and started ramping up original programming about 10 years ago (House of Cards was early 2013, one of their first big shows).
I don't know what when you'd say Netflix transitioned from primarily distribution to primarily content creation, but they've been steadily transitioning ever since.
Re: (Score:2)
This seems to be what happens when a content creator tries to be a content distributor. Instead of letting someone like Netlix or Hulu take a bite out of their profit, they tried to go in it alone with limited catalogs. Now they are getting bit in the ass because they don't have enough content for people to justify a continuing subscription. The other result is that the "traditional" distributors like Netflix and Hulu are now so light on 3rd party content that they are hurting for subscribers. (I'm too lazy to look up the chicken and egg problem of when did Netflix become a content creator vs when the HBOs/Paramounts/Disney's of the world started their own streaming services.)
Yep, there should only be 2 or 3 streaming providers, with everyone else selling them their content. Then you can subscribe to one service and the content providers can just raise their wholesale prices to all of the streaming providers when they want more money.
We can call it Cable 2.0.
Re: (Score:3)
there should only be 2 or 3 streaming providers
That's better than the 0 or 1 cable provider solutions I had prior to Netflix/Hulu/Prime.
We can call it Cable 2.0.
Right? I'm not saying I have the solution, just pointing out my view of the problem. I have no problem with the proliferation of streaming services, the explosion of "exclusive content" streaming services is my gripe. In my mind this is 100% the result of the content creators.
If I WERE to offer a solution, it would be something to the effect of breaking apart the content creators and distributors. You can have both
Re: (Score:2)
Subscription services simply won't work when the content is so fragmented. It's only worth subscribing and staying subscribed if you can get everything you want on the one service - kind of like the old cable tv bundles where you might not get everything you wanted but it wasn't like you could get more or different content elsewhere.
The only thing that will work with such a fragmented model is a fragmented purchasing system, where you just pay for the individual shows that you want to watch. That of course
Re: (Score:3)
That of course would force them to actually produce good shows, because noone is going to pay for mediocre junk that they might have considered watching if it was bundled in with something else they already paid for.
No, that will force them to produce popular content. Popular and what you would probably consider "good" are not always the same thing. Unscripted reality shows, for example, are very popular. They are also very cheap, so highly profitable. And if you think those can't spill over to streaming, watch what Discovery is doing with Warner Brothers and HBO Max over the next few years. No what you are asking for is a recipe for reduced risk taking, with producers only willing to spend on things they know will se
Re: (Score:2)
Hard to imagine 200+ MILLION subscribers is "hurting for subscribers".
Additional value (Score:4, Interesting)
We use Prime. We use it because we got Prime in order to make our shipping from Amazon otherwise cheap or free and fast. The streaming services have been a nice side benefit. They also have a lot of stuff or have access to additional services with a lot of stuff that we're enjoying watching.
If the streaming service was decoupled from the shopping/shipping side, we probably would feel withdrawal for a week or two and would move on with not having any streaming service. It's not that important to us.
Re: (Score:2)
That's similar to me - if Prime stopped being part of the monthly subscription for shipping, I would not miss it a bit. But I'm counted as a "Prime subscriber" despite not using it for video.
The problem I have with all the services is that what I want to watch moves between them regularly. It's easier to BUY and keep locally copies of what I want to watch. Then I don't have to search out which service has them "this month".
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah I have more than 2000 titles on home video formats. I've thought about trying to encode everything to a server but the amount of disk capacity I'd need is enough to make that not really be worthwhile. Plus encoding the laserdiscs and VHS tapes wouldn't be very much fun.
Re:Additional value (Score:4, Informative)
I've thought about trying to encode everything to a server but the amount of disk capacity I'd need is enough to make that not really be worthwhile
Have you priced hard drives lately? It's pretty damned cheap. Even being generous and assuming 2GB per title your stated 2000 titles comes out to 4TB of disk space. You can get 12 TB NAS grade SATA drives for $200.
Re: (Score:2)
And then I have to maintain a NAS. For something that I might watch once every few years.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you still have cable TV though? I imagine most Americans wouldnt be so keen to give up streaming if they dont have cable. I mean, almost all of us have TVs after all.
Re: (Score:3)
No cable. Got rid of it waaay back when they started taking the channels we like that were still on 'extended analog' and migrating them over to a higher-tier digital service.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think most people are cancelling ALL their streaming - just selectively depending on timing. You might have 3 or 4 services that you subscribe to once per year or so to binge and then 1 or 2 that you subscribe to on an ongoing basis (or for other reasons - EG lots of people have Prime Video as a perk not really on purpose).
Re: (Score:2)
I cut the cord with cable a few years back.
I put up an OTA antenna with a Tivo system as DVR and I also set up at the time, Playstation VUE, which basically was all my cable channels.P When they shut down PS VUE, I switched to YouTube TV...and it now houses all my cable channels, plus local channels and pretty much unlimited DVR.
So, I hav
Re: (Score:2)
I have prime for the shipping too, i have used it maybe once or twice to watch a show or listen to music. I wouldn't pay for it as a standalone streaming service.
Well, what did they expect?? (Score:5, Insightful)
We're not going to stay subscribed to 5 different services for $100+/mo.
We subscribe to something that has what we want, immediately cancel, then watch as much as possible before the billing cycle ends.
If you want us to pick one and stay with it, give us ONE service for a reasonable price that has everything. It's the companies' fault for fragmenting the market.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As far as "one service for a reasonable price", my guess is all the streaming services can band together, look at the fact at least three of them (Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Plus) are famously hemorrhaging money, and combine the profits of the others to get you a combined mega streaming channel for $50... which they won't do, because $50 would mean fewer subs, so in practice it'd probably be closer to $100.
Netflix isn't bleeding money, they're making huge profits. They just raised prices and lost some subscribers, but still came out way ahead on cashflow. The only concern there is the trendline on subscriber count, not money.
Re: (Score:2)
What we wanted wasn't market consolidation, but multiple competing services, preferably ones that share much of the same content. We wanted them to compete on price and features, not on programming.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I'm not sure if you know what streaming services cost. I cant name one that costs anywhere close to 20 bucks let alone 5 that do.
Re:Well, what did they expect?? (Score:4, Informative)
Sling is $35, Philo is $35, Hulu Live $65, Fubo $65.... There are plenty more streaming services that are over $20.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh good, a bunch of services no one I've ever met uses (although I'm sure I'll get a slashdotter or two chiming in telling me they use them) . I bet those services you listed have an absolutely huge market share.
It's amazing the cases one can make by strictly using outlier data.
Re: (Score:2)
I bet those services you listed have an absolutely huge market share.
It's amazing the cases one can make by strictly using outlier data.
It's even more amazing the cases you can make using ignorance. Hulu has about the same market share as Disney, both of them just a couple of percent behind HBO, and a couple of percent behind Netflix. All of these services have between 10 and 20% market share.
But hey "outliers" amirite.
Re: (Score:3)
It's even more amazing the cases you can make using ignorance. Hulu has about the same market share as Disney, both of them just a couple of percent behind HBO, and a couple of percent behind Netflix. All of these services have between 10 and 20% market share.
Hahaha, I'm "ignorant" meanwhile you're telling me about Hulu's regular service (a cheap service which backs my own points) and not Hulu Live which is what we were discussing. You're talking to me about a service with 45 million customers while the conversation is about a service with 4 million https://thestreamable.com/news... [thestreamable.com]. . Live TV streaming is still a fairly fringe service.
If you're going to talk shit at least make sure you actually have a clue in regards to what you're talking about.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
> We're not going to stay subscribed to 5 different services for $100+/mo.
> If you want us to pick one and stay with it, give us ONE service for a reasonable price that has everything. It's the companies' fault for fragmenting the market.
If high prices is the problem, monopoly isn't the solution. You might as well just get a cable package for $175 a month then.
How about five services for five bucks a month each? In CATV days they called this a-la-carte pricing. Now that it's here they all want as m
Comment removed (Score:4)
Re: (Score:2)
But they're almost all animated. Which tells us why: union rules are different for animated shows compared to live action. So it was never about providing the customer with what they wanted, it was the fucked-up attitude towards the people who actually make the content that you rely upon to keep people subscribing to your services.
What that tells me on the other hand is what I already knew and that's for a lot of things animation is just plain cheaper regardless of union rules.
Re: (Score:2)
perfect sweet spot for TV shows: two seasons. Any more, and they argued, and too few people watched to justify it.
I think that's because they can't maintain the quality with very few exceptions. The average sweet spot is probably 1.2 seasons, given the number of Netflix monstrosities that should never have been made (e.g., Cowboy Bebop, Resident Evil)
Even something like Altered Carbon which was excellent in Season 1, was not the same by Season 2. And I fear that Squid Games will be average to terrible by Season 2.
Yes, there are exceptions, such as Stranger Things that managed to improve in Season 4, but that is rare.
Audible (Score:2)
You get 2 "shows" per month for $15. What a deal.
Re: (Score:2)
That's already pretty much what people get, to be honest...
Why stay after you geek out on a show? (Score:3)
For the most part, these services generally have one or maybe two shows that are interesting. So I subscribe, watch until I complete the series and then cancel. When they release another "season" I rinse and repeat. Why remain a subscriber if there's nothing else there that interests me?
Being stuck with a catalog of mostly crap content is why I cut the cable cord in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah. If they're not offering enough that a given audience household wants to watch then there's no reason to subscribe during the downtime.
And I think that companies like CBS/Paramount made the mistake of assuming that Star Trek fans would immediately love all of their offerings. Many of us were exhausted by the quality decline or a dislike of Abramsverse, and we don't feel a need to pay for new content of potentially only questionable quality when we can just break out our blu-rays, or DVDs, or Laserdis
The downside of "exclusive" (Score:2)
Just make your programs and films and wholesale them to streaming services run by other people*.
Screw all these attempts to create lock-in; if you think you can make so much good material that no one else will ever want to watch another company's output then you're kidding yourself. It worked for Netflix for a while in a really immature market and those days are gone.
*This used to be and should still be the law.
Allow me to illustrate the script for viewers (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Wait for a season of the show you like to end.
2. Subscribe to the service and binge-watch it.
3. Cancel the service and move on to the next, start over at 1.
What did you expect to happen? We sure as fuck won't sub to 4+ streaming services to watch a show per service and week. It's more sensible to wait and hoover up what's interesting to you in the one-month sub you have to pay.
Frankly, if they offered one-day subs, people would go for that.
cable had min sub time for premiums should steamer (Score:2)
cable had min sub time for premiums should steamers do the same?
Re: (Score:3)
I honestly don't know, but I'm fairly sure if they try to bind you for half a year, most people would head over to the Pirate Bay instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
While I personally wouldnt like it at all I actually think streaming services locking people in for longer periods is a great idea for increasing their revenue. None of the major streaming services are all that expensive and most Americans have no concept of how to pirate media.
Re: (Score:2)
That's how I would watch regardless, so I agree. But also, a number of people have said that they specifically won't maintain a subscription and watch a show weekly (or similar) because of the high likelihood that the show will be cancelled. Some shows that might have survived on television because it's harder to determine how many households are watching are being killed off because of the rapid and accurate engagement statistics provided by streaming. And when that happens, it trains people not to bother
Re: (Score:2)
That's another aspect, but I have to wonder how many people don't wait for whether the show "survives" or not but simply wait for the season to end to sub for a month, binge the show and cancel 'til the next season is done.
I know this is a hot take... (Score:2)
But I wonder if these services would ultimately make more money if they were a bit more open to a 'pay-once-for-the-season-you-like' model. CBS is still half decent at releasing their series on Blu-Ray; in practice I've probably spent more on those Blu-Ray sets last year than I would have spent subscribing to Paramount+.
Now, sure, plastic-disc releases aren't exactly en vogue beyond collectors, but even iTunes still sells shows per-episode and per-season for many traditional broadcast and cable TV channels,
I'm about to do that...maybe? (Score:2)
Signed up for Paramount+ on the basis of a single show for which I couldn't find an alternative source. However... I thought I was going to have to sign up for the "premium" version for no ads at higher cost, but I could find no reference to it during signup... and subsequently during the trial there are no ads, even at the cheap tier, and it's UHD.
So despite the the fact that I might get through that series during the 7 day trial, I'll probably just let it remain for now. It's really cheap... as in I earne
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.justwatch.com/ca/p... [justwatch.com]
A quick search there shows Big Brother on Global and Slack TV.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
market fragmentation (Score:2)
The streaming industry has already started eating itself. It's easy to switch or cancel, which is great for the consumer but when you're trying to create content that keeps your subscriber base happy, that can also be a bad thing. Wall Street values these companies based on the total number of subscribers and how many they gain or lose over a quarter. You lose subscribers and you're asking for trouble on multiple fronts.
Take Netflix for example that is throwing everything they can into changing direction wi
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think you young folks call them "mini-tunes".
Re: (Score:2)
I always preferred "electronic junk mail."
Re: (Score:2)
C'mon, I don't have to explain this [youtube.com], do I?
It's actually frightening how close the movie got to what we're looking at now.
Re: (Score:2)
oh, you forget that they're targeted now! So, if you buy those Armour hot dogs, they'll send you a mini-tune for mustard and buns.
And yes, we're living the dream right down to the Taco Bell.
Incentivize Loyalists (Score:2)
Learn from magazines. 70% off for one-year, paid upfront. Invest the money to earn interest. Sure, one can consume all the content from the last time they subscribed in 3 months. Cancel then, and you'll still be ahead. But the rest of the year might then still be cheap enough to hold on to it. Just in case.
Incentives. Keep accruing steadily better and better rewards the longer you stay subbed. And not just free additional months. Partner with other vendors to grant coupons with them. Accrue points to spend
Mark my words... (Score:2)
Annual plans (Score:2)
A La Carte (Score:2)
So, streaming services: sell me a $2 a-la-carte week of service that I can use to watch what I want to, and pay another $2 for another week if I need to. I'd bet they'd get more revenue from that as people find out they want to watch just one show on a service and don't want to pay the full monty for an entire month or worry about remembering to cancel yet another service.
Re: (Score:2)
Then they'd get even less. People would sign up for a week, binge the show they're interested, then cancel for the remaining 51 weeks 'til next year when the next season is done.
A month is about what people would put up with to get their show fix. A month, 10-15 bucks, that's about it. If they try the opposite instead and try to lock you in for a year, you'll see people tell them to stick their shows altogether.
Why should customer stay subscribed? (Score:2)
There is something I wanted to watch, and your found it available among one or more of these streaming services, so I subscribed, and after some time I finished watching it.
Now, dear streaming services, tell me why I would want stay subscribed to your service? At least you need to have something else that I also wanted to watch, right? That's where your recommendation algorithm pays off. Ok, but after some more time, eventually, I watched everything you have that I wanted to watch, then what?
Unless you a
Amazon Prime Video (Score:2)
I'm curious if they see this same effect, especially since Amazon has neglected Prime Video so badly they can't even do subtitles right.
For example, turn on a movie with foreign language segments (the Hobbit movies are a good example). When non-English dialogue comes on it gets translated, unless you have subtitles on in which case it becomes "speaking language", which is completely useless for watching the film [reddit.com].
It's a relatively easy problem to fix, if the people in charge of Prime Video have the clout to
Re: (Score:2)
The subtitles on Prime are fucking awful. Always have been, and your example is just one small one.
My experience is that even if you have subtitles on, if those subtitles are the same language as the audio language they just won't display.. Well.. They will. Sometimes. Because of, who the fuck knows.
Switching subtitles while watching a movie? Nope. Setting default subtitles for ALL movies? Nope. The whole system is utterly broken.
Good luck to the hard of hearing who need subtitles, because, well, they have
bait and switch (Score:2)
Streaming service: Here's a highly anticipated show!
Customer: Cool let me subscribe!
Streaming service: Seasons over, no new episodes for a year.
Customer: anything else compelling to watch while I wait?
Streaming service: Here's some shitty quality B grade movies and shows from 2 decades ago.
Customer: But these are crap, I don't want to watch these
Streaming service: Tough luck buttercup.
Along with this model, there's also the issue of crappy remakes of old shows (Cowboy Bebop) I tried watching it twice, didn
Old paradigm (Score:2)
The problem is these companies are all using an old paradigm of trying to bundle everything together, when the current technology will allow them to very easily pay for each episode or even minute of anything that you watch, then this will all be monetized and tracked accordingly and only the very best projects and series with proliferate. If all streaming services did this you would have no reason to have any subscriptions and you were just watch whatever you wanted to watch on whatever service had it and
Re: (Score:2)
No, the very best projects and series would not proliferate. Only the least risky, most explodiest, least clever projects would get greenlit.
Kraft dinner with ketchup, baby. Straight up the fucking middle.
How long before they lock in to contracts? (Score:2)
How long before they start forcing folks to sign up for 6 months to a year at a time? like cell phone companies used to do?
I guess I'm an anomoly - I have kept my hulu and Netflix and Curiosity Stream and Great Courses (Wonderium is a dumb name) live but I admit we tend to turn Disney and paramount on /off to binge - not enough to keep us watching all the time
Re: (Score:2)
In that case the binge watchers will just return to Bittorrent and not even pay for a month.
No, you're probably not an anomaly (Score:2)
I guess I'm an anomoly - I have kept my hulu and Netflix and Curiosity Stream and Great Courses (Wonderium is a dumb name) live
The linked to article on the slashdot post is paywalled and I cant find any good numbers in a few moments of internet searching but I cant imagine in a country where over half the population regularly carries credit card debt https://moneyfit.org/blog/cred... [moneyfit.org]. that a majority of people care to micro manage their streaming subscriptions just so they can save 12 bucks a month.
How about that Roku? (Score:3)
Re: How about that Roku? (Score:2)
Direct cause and effect (Score:2)
All of this followed a pretty predictable path. Initially, people joined a bunch of cheap streaming services... because, well, they were cheap, so why not?
Then, streaming services raised prices, one by one, because greed.
Now, people are looing more closely at their tighter budgets due to inflation, and likewise looking more closely at their actual usage of all of these more expensive services, and saying to themselves, "You know what? At the previous prices, maybe it wasn't worth worrying about, but now?..
Yep. (Score:2)
Too much work (Score:2)
Just pay $5 for a VPN and download everything for free.
I am one of these people (Score:2)
It turns out we have a name :) 'Watch, Cancel and Go' doesn't sound too bad, but I prefer "rotation" (like crops). Anyway, this is the natural progress, and it should be embraced.
They did this to themselves by dividing content over several "exclusive" providers. They could have competed on quality and price, and none of these would happen.
Shall I watch "Breaking Bad"? Netflix
What about "Mad Men"? Amazon/Freevee
Game of Thrones? HBO Max
Office? Peacock
Dexter? Showtime or Amazon
Anime? All over the place: Amazo
Imagine... (Score:2)
Imagine a world, if you will, where every movie theater belongs to only one of 20 chains, and you have to pay to be a member of that movie theater to see a movie there, and the others won' t let you in. You, my friend, have entered the Twilight Zone.
Too much (Score:2)
They went and created a trio of services (Amazon, Netflix, Hulu). That was enough. It was already a bit of a pain that you had to subscribe to all of them to get what you wanted. Then all these other companies tried to make their own streaming services, further fragmenting the market: HBO+, Disney+, Paramo
pay-to-watch (Score:2)
Perhaps it's time to realize you need to sell the show than selling a subscription. If you know they are going to leave and/or share passwords, then you just sell them access to shows they want to watch on a per show basis. It's a fair value proposition. You're paying someone to get access to the show that you want. It's kind of like privatized library system. If you just want to buy Game of Thrones Season 4, then you pay HBO for the right to have access. It's a digital lease.
Alternatively you can pay to bu
We need Pay-as-you-go (Score:2)
I'm not going to watch _everything_, nor am I only going to limit myself to the content from _one provider_. I want to watch specific shows, and I don't want to pay an arm and a leg just to see those few shows.
Charge me for what I watch. This is going to result in less money, but the market won't be so volatile as to have all this churn of joining and leaving. You will get more money from me in the long run with a steady trickle than slamming on the gas and then the brakes.
Re: (Score:3)
Not sure what Hulu you have...I don't get any commercials on my Hulu.
I use YouTube TV as my "cable channel" service, and to watch old tv shows, movies, etc...I watch on Hulu, but again, no commerci