This is how it worked a decade+ ago, when there was still alpha to be had on providing better streaming service. It was great and we got things like the Netflix Prize and all sorts of content ranking improvements, better CDN platforms, lower latency and less buffering, more content upgraded to HD and 4K. Plus some annoying but clearly effective practices like auto-play of trailers and unrelated shows.
Now these are all solved problems, so there is no benefit in trying to compete on making a better platform / service. The only thing left is competing on content.
> I want several companies that are able to license whatever content they want. And ideally the customer can choose between a subscription that includes everything, and paying for content a la carte, or maybe subscriptions that focus on specific kinds of content
This seems like splitting hairs, it's almost exactly what we do have. You can still buy and rent individual shows & movies from Apple and Amazon and other providers. Or you can subscribe to services. The only difference is there is no one big "subscription that includes everything", you need 10 different $15 subscriptions to get everything. Again, kind of splitting hairs though. The one big subscription would probably be the same price as everything combined anyway.
It is worth noting that the Netflix Prize winner's solution was never meaningfully used, because Netflix pivoted from ranking content based on what you tell them you like to ranking content based on clicks and minutes watched.
To say that "we have solved ranking" because Netflix decided to measure shallow metrics and addiction is... specious at best. Instead the tech industry (in all media domains, not just streaming video) replaced improving platforms and services in meaningful ways with surveillance and revenue extraction.
> ranking content based on clicks and minutes watched.
I suspect they just push what they want you to watch, like their own content. Seems that way to me at least, based on their quite shitty "recommendations"
I noticed that for the last few years, my recommendations are almost the same for every category. 'Top picks' is 60% the same as 'We think you'll love this' which is almost the same as 'Your Next Watch' which is similar to 'Award-winning movies', 'Chilly thrillers', repeat ad-infinitum. If there is a new Netflix-owned movie it will definitely be in there.
Then on top of that, similar to YouTube, half of that content are things I have already watched. HBO and Amazon are even worse in this aspect but it just drives me crazy, feels like seeing the same 100 movie options over and over for months. Has the catalog shrinked that much over the years?
I started keeping a separate list of films to watch on IMDB, but 6/10 times they are not available on any service except for rent in AppleTV.
I have a difficult time trusting their recommendations when those come along with more and more difficult to even know what exists in the rest of the catalog. It seems pretty obvious they want de facto scroll feeds instead of the streaming style they started with.
Why do they care what you watch? I expect they pay a flat fee to license content (if not, how is that policed?) so the marginal cost to them is the same no matter what you watch.
I'd guess they push you to their content for the same reason they make that content in the first place: they believe you'll like it and keep watching it.
Ad placement is one wrinkle that would incentivize promoting their own content, but I don't get the impression that's big enough to make the difference at the margins.
I wouldn't tbh, though I'll admit I'm speculating solely on public information. During the 2023 strikes, SAG-AFTRA and the WGA negotiated additional residuals based upon whether 20% of the streaming services subscriber base viewed the content within 90 days of release.[1] So, streaming platforms are evidently willing to share subscriber viewership data with 3rd parties if it's a contractual requirement.
I would be surprised if content licensors haven't negotiated an as good or better deal for themselves.
The story I heard about most Netflix content going for very long is that after two seasons a show's cast unionizes and they didn't want to pay up and they'd rather cancel shows, which seems awful penny-wise pound foolish of them.
> which seems awful penny-wise pound foolish of them.
On one of the podcasts that I listen to, which has given me many great recommends, one of the hosts has given up watching content until it hits three or four seasons because of exactly this.
If people are watching their content, they can rely less on licensed content and drive those costs down. It's a similar value prop to any vertical integration.
I think they also used their metrics to figure out people liked kevin spacey (whoops) - and created house of cards - which catapulted netflix's production side.
> This is how it worked a decade+ ago, when there was still alpha to be had on providing better streaming service. […] Now […] there is no benefit in trying to compete on making a better platform / service. The only thing left is competing on content.
A large profit margin is not something that a business is owed.
Exactly. Nothing is really preventing a $200/month aggregator beyond paying a bunch of lawyers and people not wanting to pay that. I know I'll live with some service fragmentation in exchange for not paying for a bunch of stuff I'll maybe watch once in a blue moon. And I'll probably buy some discs for things I really want to see.
My solution with manufactured content is to just rotate services. I maintain netflix year round because they have enough, but I'll buy the special rate and cancel in the same day, giving me a month at a time of each of the different ones. It also gives them time to release the whole season, instead of dribbling them out over the course of months.
It's sports that really have driven me away. I like collegiate wrestling. This is by no means a mainstream sport. But to watch what I want, I need to subscribe to flowrestling, ESPN, B1G, and BTN. The last two are really mind blowing, because the big 10 seems to think I need two subscriptions to watch a single season for a niche sport.
It's just too much for me to bear -- not financially, but morally. I won't reward such behavior, so I just don't watch.
Then there are all the games that are on broadcast and could normally watch them for free, but unless you have an antenna, you need to subscribe to get your local channel.
Now these leagues need to contend with my family and all the others like it where the kids won't have the nostalgia for that game that was on every Sunday. We don't watch the games, so we don't go to the games, so they'll never grow into being fans themselves.
The NHL does seem to try putting their games in front of their fans as the lone exception.
Exclusive deals are preventing it. Media content is resistant to commodification, making it a durable value proposition, and this makes exclusive licensing deals highly desirable - lawyers hired by an upstart aren't going to make a dent in this.
Don't disagree. Just paying lawyers was sort of a facile dismissal on my part. In video content, there's a lot of history that makes it hard to get closer to the way things are in music. Though there are also monetary incentives and practicalities as well.
Doesn't the ease and low risk of individual copyright violation place an upper bound of sorts. Sharing sites are still everywhere, and they were never very successful in making people confuse civil for criminal.
You can actually mostly do that through Amazon Video (although...eww). Missing HBO and Netflix but you can get a lot of the others including Apple TV, AMC+, Paramount+, etc.
I don't know. Music streaming services do pretty much follow this separation of content and service. At least unless you really care about exactly which music you can access which I think most people don't.
(That's probably partly why music streaming services don't compete on content; most people don't care exactly which funky music they're listening to as long as it is funky, and had most of the popular stuff. But they definitely care if they want to watch Stranger Things and they can't watch Stranger Things but maybe you're interested in these other crap knock-offs?)
Anyway the point is music streaming services still find ways to compete. I guess they would prefer it if they could compete on content though.
> (That's probably partly why music streaming services don't compete on content; most people don't care exactly which funky music they're listening to as long as it is funky, and had most of the popular stuff. But they definitely care if they want to watch Stranger Things and they can't watch Stranger Things but maybe you're interested in these other crap knock-offs?)
Idk. I can imagine an alternate universe where Taylor Swift's new album was exclusive to Spotify. All the Swifties using Apple Music probably aren't interested in "Taylor Swift knockoffs".
It's not entirely obvious to me why this hasn't happened.
They do compete on content. How many billions did Spotify spend on Joe Rogan? And it happens with music too, some bands moved away from Spotify in rage recently and at least one person switched to Tidal to keep listening to KGLW https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jul/26/king-gizzard-a...
That said, my interpretation is that bands don’t really make a lot of money from streaming, it’s more of a promotional platform for them so it makes sense to just be everywhere to be seen. This is not true for tv/films.
I think steaming just represents such a small share of revenue for professional musicians that negotiating over it isn't worth the headache for the most part. For Swift in particular, touring definitely represents the overwhelming majority of her income.
>Anyway the point is music streaming services still find ways to compete.
Some recommendations and playlists I guess. Most of us (outside of Spotify) get them because of a bundle with other offerings from a vendor. Spotify definitely has a following but I don't really care much and have an Apple bundle anyway.
And Spotify is barely profitable and its major competitors treat music streaming as just a slightly above break even feature to combine with other services.
> there is no one big "subscription that includes everything"
You're right, but the switching cost is super easy, and _most_ of the time, these networks aren't putting out new content that I care that much about, so I've found it easiest to just swap services, keeping one subscription active at a time, and then switching again when I've finished watching everything interesting on the next.
Ah yes, today where they optimized out the recommendation algo to the point I haven't found something recommended to be watch worthy in years. The only thing worse than the video streaming recommendations is what's become of Amazon/Audible's book recommendations (though Spotify is trying hard to enshitify their algos to catch up).
Sad that we can't have nice things, but capitalism must be fed and I guess good, targeted recommendation algorithms are anti-capital.
Now these are all solved problems, so there is no benefit in trying to compete on making a better platform / service. The only thing left is competing on content.
> I want several companies that are able to license whatever content they want. And ideally the customer can choose between a subscription that includes everything, and paying for content a la carte, or maybe subscriptions that focus on specific kinds of content
This seems like splitting hairs, it's almost exactly what we do have. You can still buy and rent individual shows & movies from Apple and Amazon and other providers. Or you can subscribe to services. The only difference is there is no one big "subscription that includes everything", you need 10 different $15 subscriptions to get everything. Again, kind of splitting hairs though. The one big subscription would probably be the same price as everything combined anyway.