Fragmentation of streaming services - can they survive

uvarvu said:
Netflix share price has gone south big time today after reporting its first ever subscriber fall in a decade.

https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/nflx

I’m one of those who have cancelled a subscription, I’d cancel Disney + as well if it weren’t for the family protests!
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I’m close with Netflix, my son watches a few shows and I’m waiting for a few series to drop over the next few months. D+ I’m enjoying the shows at the moment. Prime I have for the delivery the odd thing I watch on there is a bonus.
 
I don't get how Netflix is the biggest, we by a long way watch the least on there and it's going to be the first to go. In fact I'm going to ditch it as soon as the price goes up.
 
robj20 said:
I don't get how Netflix is the biggest, we by a long way watch the least on there and it's going to be the first to go. In fact I'm going to ditch it as soon as the price goes up.
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I can't say for everyone, but netflix is the cheapest and has enough content for me to last ages. The only issue i have is shuffling through it all finding something to watch. Prime had nothing of must see interest, i don't shop there, i don't trust their online storage for long term as i'll have to stay subbed, music is available elsewhere and i normally buy direct or stream elsewhere. I have no idea how Disney+ is a thing for adult males, it looks about as good as Britbox to me. Netflix is a brand name, as said previously it's the first to be mentioned by manufacturers of TVs etc.

If anything, i think video streaming is in a stronger place than music streaming. I can see a lot of artists just disappearing due to how unsustainable making music as a career is due to poor revenue. Although merch and shows paired with increased global audience may outweigh this for some artists.
 
Disney+ has STAR now so you get a lot more adult orientated content. Seems to get movies pretty quick after cinema release as well.

If / when they start clamping down on account sharing then we'll cut right back. I don't mind paying a few quid towards each one but don't watch enough on any of them to pay full price.
 
My Netflix is now £15.99 because I pay for 4k. For how much I use it, its not great value.

Most Netflix original films seem to be forgettable 2nd division action films with high production values. Very little big studio films seep through and then many months if not years later, like it was back in the 70s 80s when you'd get a blockbuster on Tv at Xmas 3 years after it hit the cinema.

I only keep it for Tv series and most of that is watching Always Sunny in a loop. Better Call Saul back this week helps, but they laughably claim it a Netflix Original when its a FX series broadcast Monday nights in the US.

I do share my password with my neice. I kind of think my £15.99 for 6 screens, that I share with 1 person covers that, but the moment Netflix calls that out, I'm cancelling. My neice using the account is the only thing stopping me cancelling. And thats only because I cant be bothered with the drama it will cause.

So far this year ive cancelled Apple , Disney and NowTv. I'll keep Prime but I see that as a bonus for paying free delivery from Amazon.

Everything is way too fractured and getting worse, its now way more expensive than a cable sub was a few years back with less to show for it.

My justification for occasional piracy was I subscribe to all these other services and its not on in the Uk anyway, but its now too much, typical corporate greed trying to grind every penny out people with no benefit. Back to alternative sources for me.
 
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Puzzled said:
Disney+ has STAR now so you get a lot more adult orientated content. Seems to get movies pretty quick after cinema release as well.
e.
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I think their marketing is where they're going wrong then. I looked on the site before i posted and it shows nothing, under the what to watch bit they list nothing of interest to me. But recent cinema releases is something i could be interested in. They mention "thousands of movies", but netflix does that. No idea what Star is. I can only presume i'm not the target market.
 
All of these streaming services, Netflix especially, are filled with B tier shows. Plenty of choice, but mediocrity abounds. I'd prefer fewer series, but of higher quality, and with less pandering to woke ideals. The only service I pay for the whole year round is Amazon Prime, but even that I'm having second thoughts about as I'm buying fewer items online ( packaging is atrocious - receiving waaaay more damaged items compared to 2+ years ago ). Netflix and Disney+ I'll subscribe to for about 1-3 months a year and binge watch the shows I want to watch.
 
The_Arbiter said:
I think their marketing is where they're going wrong then. I looked on the site before i posted and it shows nothing, under the what to watch bit they list nothing of interest to me. But recent cinema releases is something i could be interested in. They mention "thousands of movies", but netflix does that. No idea what Star is. I can only presume i'm not the target market.
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https://www.disneyplus.com/en-gb/brand/star

I think it's pretty much Fox. It is a bit of a mess, the app isn't easiest to navigate.

There isn't enough on Disney+ to justify paying full price longterm in my opinion. Either binge and cancel or account share.
 
Cancelled my 4K Netflix sub yesterday. Been a member since 2016. Just not enough good stuff on it, feel I spend as much time flicking around and browsing through it than I do watching it. Finally cleared my continue watching list. There have been some great shows on there but two of the ones I have enjoyed the most - Peaky Blinders and Line of Duty don't have the latest series on. I need Binge or Britbox for that or stuff around with a VPN to get iplayer which I really can't be bothered with.

Swapped to Disney to give that a try although mostly to watch The Mandalorian. I have all the Star Wars film son 4K blu ray and don't like Marvel films / shows but I have compiled a reasonable watch list and will likely change again once I have exhausted it. I already pay for Foxtel (Sky) and watch 95% sport on there so I think one subscription service on top of that is enough.

Ironically enough got an email from Netflix this morning telling me Southpark is leaving at the end of the month. One of the reasons I have kept the sub so long is that I love to watch a random episode when I have 20 minutes spare.
 
Netflix seems to be filling up with B grade horror a good slice of that dubbed foreign movies - I'm definitely going to have to get into the habit of just subscribing 1-2 months a year for the odd shows which are worth it and cancelling the rest. I'm just looking over the new content tonight and realising there is nothing I want to watch and any shows I'm looking forward to are months off/indeterminate when they'll return.
 
Ditched it about a month ago for the same reasons that so many others have mentioned.

robj20 said:
I don't get how Netflix is the biggest,
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Pre-2016-ish it was pretty much the only streaming service with most other studios using it, which is the main reason it gained so many users. However once all the studios launched their own services it fractured the streaming service and Netflixs' subsequent fall, alongside rising piracy, is the end result.
 
Survival depends on how deep their pockets are.

I think they all run by wealthy parent companies.

To me though the original idea has been killed, the reason netflix grew so rapidly was that it was the one place on the net you signed up for as much as the online content as possible. Its only issue was dealing with the likes of sky who had exclusivity deals.

Now the market is fragmented its basically more expensive to get the same amount of content as it was pulled from netflix.

Amazon will be ok as their prime covers multiple things, and also they have pay to view on a lot of the content anyway. So I expect for them amazon video was never a big money maker.

Netflix will probably be ok as the most well known one, however I fear they may be going down the sky path where subscribers dwindle and it ups prices to compensate creating a never ending feedback loop.

The others though might end up changing to other forms like been bundled with other services.

I also agree with the above comments about piracy, A all in one service at a good price with convenience of internet delivery was reducing piracy. But I expect both Epic for games and all these fragmented movie services will be increasing piracy again.

Also with netflix, whilst I am happy with 1080p (I am not on the 4k craze for movie/tv stuff) I think the 4k price is too much, if 1080p ever gets to that price point, I will not be a monthly subscriber anymore, not sure what my limit is, but I know £15 a month is over it.
 
They are doing the standard thing of giving you stuff you don't want to justify upping the price. We pay £16 so we get 4K streaming a 4 screens. We use 1 screen 99% of the time and 2 screens perhaps a few times a month. As others have said, you spend more time scrolling through the endless amounts of dross than you do watching things.

I think that we will start to rotate our streaming services because at the moment we are probably forking out about £40/month on streaming related things inc. BBC license.
 
With some strategic VPN usage, I’ve got Netflix and YouTube Premium for less than a fiver a month. Disney and Amazon are about another £13 on top of that.
These are prices I’m happy to pay. Amazon is there by default as I use Prime for next day delivery mainly. Disney has a really good selection of many programmes I’ve not seen before as I’ve never had Sky and will be on the menu for quite some time.
Of them all, it’s Netflix I watch least as there doesn’t seem to be much on it these days worth watching.
 
I got Netflix HD I think that's gone up now to £10.99.

I've logged that on to my folks place in London so they can watch.

We have Disney plus but that's an account of my wifes mate so we don't pay anything.

My 15 year old gets some kind of ridiculous student discount for Amazon prime it's literally like £6 a year or something like that.

If I'm honest we don't watch much TV though, and mostly YouTube, which I run through a htpc, via brave, so no adverts, some with the other online catch up services.

Mrs pays the TV licence I keep saying she should bin that off, we never watch terrestrial TV, but you can't drink a horse's water......
 
Puzzled said:
Think you mean "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink" :p
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:) It's a Rickyism.

https://trailerpark.fandom.com/wiki/Rickyisms

Actually I think I made that one up but you get the gist.

Split it 50/50/50
Catch 23 situation
Burn the hatchet at both ends
Sold you under the bus


You get the drift, by the way if you have not seen Trailer Park Boys it's a must, aside from the last few series where Netflix took over wasn't as good.
 
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