Fragmentation of streaming services - can they survive

I'm mainly in it for tv shows And I would confidently say 70% of the streaming shows I watch are still Netflix ones. Disney+ is great for Marvel but I wouldn't have it if not for that and prime I've watched like 3 series in the year or so I've had access to it.
 
The prime app is just painful to navigate and use, both on smart TV and tablet, my biggest annoyance is being a few levels deep into a daisy chained search or browsing and hitting back and getting a full refresh.

It's disappointing as i'm watching more Prime than netflix over the last year, it's just not user friendly and could benefit massively by a UI upgrade.
 
I see Prime tv as just an addon for the next day delivery, and at under £80 a year is acceptable for me. Netflix, going up to £10.99, but can rarely find much to watch on there these days so am considering sacking it off and trying Disney for a bit.
If it wasn't for my partner binge watching tv then I'd probably get rid of it all.
 
If you just have prime for delivery then sack that off.

Amazon delivery is free offer £20, spending £20is pretty easy these days. If what I want doesn’t come to £20, I just save it in my basket until it does. There is very little I actually need urgently these days.
 
EVH said:
Plex now let’s you tie in to the various subscription services, so if you have Prime etc then you can browse all the various films, see one you like and (if it happens to be on prime) you can watch directly in Plex.

…but I agree. Having Netflix, Prime and Disney+ isnt user friendly as every app is wildly different and can be frustrating for children/wives/parents who may not be so technical.
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Just Watch does that as well, nice way of tracking movies and shows so you have an idea of what to watch next. If you start mindlessly browsing different services then it usually ends up taking so long that we don't watch anything :cry:
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
If you just have prime for delivery then sack that off.

Amazon delivery is free offer £20, spending £20is pretty easy these days. If what I want doesn’t come to £20, I just save it in my basket until it does. There is very little I actually need urgently these days.
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Agreed.
I find amazon is decent for higher value items but not for cheap items.

A 5m usb cable? EBay or Aliexpress
A robot vacuum? Amazon Black Friday.

I tried a free trial of prime + prime video. Didn't like prime video. Didn't need prime delivery.
 
Shamikebab said:
I'm mainly in it for tv shows And I would confidently say 70% of the streaming shows I watch are still Netflix ones. Disney+ is great for Marvel but I wouldn't have it if not for that and prime I've watched like 3 series in the year or so I've had access to it.
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Ah you are the same as me.
I rarely have time to watch a film. But TV series are great. And this is probably why I like netflix best.
 
Honestly I’m happy with just Netflix and YouTube. Prime I get for the delivery not the shows. I can drop everything else.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Well I wouldn’t expect you to sub to them all at the same time. I’m not subbed to any at the moment. I’ll sub to something if there is something I want to watch but I’ll unsub once I’m done.
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Thats the way most "modern" customers are doing it too, only the bosses of too many streaming services are mentally stuck with the idea that "old fashioned" businesses practices (where someone subscribes for years at a time) are still in effect everywhere. The sooner those bosses learn to recognise the difference between what people used to do and what they do now, especially with the cost of living increases making people more aware of their outgoings, the sooner they'll modify their own service to survive or maintain their current outlook and die off.
 
ianh said:
Thats the way most "modern" customers are doing it too, only the bosses of too many streaming services are mentally stuck with the idea that "old fashioned" businesses practices (where someone subscribes for years at a time) are still in effect everywhere. The sooner those bosses learn to recognise the difference between what people used to do and what they do now, especially with the cost of living increases making people more aware of their outgoings, the sooner they'll modify their own service to survive or maintain their current outlook and die off.
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Would love to see some figures to back that up the Netflix subscriber numbers certainly don’t suggest that is the case! Unless of course by modern customers you mean you!
 
I'd like to see figures too, but I doubt companies will give that info away.

My guess would be that as old users leave and new users arrive there will be a slow decline in overall numbers, and that's what seems to be happening at Netflix (subscriber numbers getting lower). I think this will start to happen to all the streaming services over the next 2 years as people start to tighten their belts.

However I don't think there's any way I could "prove" this will happen, its all just guesswork in the end.
 
I think numbers declining can be seen. I'd be interested in what proportion cancel and resub a few times a year. I think it's a very small minority? Maybe we should have a poll :)

ianh said:
the sooner they'll modify their own service to survive or maintain their current outlook and die off.
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Wouldn't the modification be minimum term contracts? Isn't it set up best as it is now for those that want to dip in and out? The alternative would be 12 months is the cheapest, PAYG is more expensive...?
 
ianh said:
I'd like to see figures too, but I doubt companies will give that info away.

My guess would be that as old users leave and new users arrive there will be a slow decline in overall numbers, and that's what seems to be happening at Netflix (subscriber numbers getting lower). I think this will start to happen to all the streaming services over the next 2 years as people start to tighten their belts.

However I don't think there's any way I could "prove" this will happen, its all just guesswork in the end.
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Personally I think that kind of conclusion is a bit pre-mature. One quarter of decline isn’t necessarily a trend.

You have to consider that companies like Netflix saw a huge boom over the period of the pandemic. They grew far faster than anyone would have expected in 2019. Some would say their growth was supernormal and we are now seeing a correction to that. People who wouldn’t normally have subscribed, subscribed due to external factors and now they are unsubscribing.

You would need to look at their subscriber numbers over a long period of time, plot their projected growth from 2019 forward against what happened. Once the ‘actual’ falls below the projected 2019 growth, then I’d agree with your conclusion.
 
Price will be the factor. I have Amazon prime for other reasons to I view the streaming content to be a bonus.

Recently negotiated my sky subs to

Sky Signature
Sky HD
Sky Ultra with netflix
Sky extra room

to £26.70 per month for 18m months which i feel is fair value since its Sky plus Netflix top package.

Will do the cheap deals on disney for short periods to binge watch new series as and when.
 
It's ridiculously unfeasible to sub to them all. You'd be paying hundreds a month. They need to do some kind of central platform, like Steam for games, that works for TV. They all take cuts on their own content or something.

I don't think the current system has a long lifetime.
 
MooMoo444 said:
It's ridiculously unfeasible to sub to them all. You'd be paying hundreds a month.
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But people used to quite happily pay that in Sky/Virgin/cable bills. You ask anyone in the US (where these streamer's are based) and they all spend $100s/month on broadband and cable TV. It's nuts. Paying £20/month for your broadband, plus £25/month (vague example) for 3 streaming packages does not sound like a lot at all.
 
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