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Netflix, Hulu may have to wait 4 years for TV shows

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It's more than just price that makes cable useless. I have work and other things to do when some stupid show is scheduled to come on. I'm not going to stop everything to watch it. If they want the younger generation to keep watching their content, they need to make it convenient. Even though I've lived with places with free cable, I've never hooked it up. I'd never use it.
 
I called this years ago on this very forum. The Netflix business model was based on the content providers not valuing streaming. In a way Netflix is a victim of its own success, it is cutting into cable subscriptions so content providers will try to hold back content to slow that trend.

Everyone dreams of some single service with all the content you want ala spotify for video but it isn't happening. Music executives and music artists bitch about the small payments they get from Spotify, the last thing video content producers want to do is to be in that situation with Netflix.

What will fix the system is long-term traditional sources on content (aka major networks) won't have much more appeal to millennials than nontraditional content like random Youtube channels of people playing video games. Once the desire for "mainstream" TV dies off the content providers will play ball with a Netflix or Amazon to stay relevant.

Between now and then the only people who are satisfied with the system in place are those who can pay huge cable bills without blinking or those who just pirate everything anyways.
 
turtile said:
It's more than just price that makes cable useless. I have work and other things to do when some stupid show is scheduled to come on. I'm not going to stop everything to watch it. If they want the younger generation to keep watching their content, they need to make it convenient. Even though I've lived with places with free cable, I've never hooked it up. I'd never use it.
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they have these things now a days called "DVR"s that you can record live tv and watch at your convenience.
 
turtile said:
It's more than just price that makes cable useless. I have work and other things to do when some stupid show is scheduled to come on. I'm not going to stop everything to watch it. If they want the younger generation to keep watching their content, they need to make it convenient. Even though I've lived with places with free cable, I've never hooked it up. I'd never use it.
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They have DVRs now.
 
TwiceOver said:
It really surprises me that these cable networks are having such a hard time moving over to the streaming model.
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They aren't. Almost every major cable system has an ondemand service now. That is basically what Netflix is.

What the cable companies and content providers are NOT doing is putting everything is a single system they don't control. Timewarner has a separate ondemand system than Comcast which is separate from any other cable provider. They don't want to join together under someone like Netflix because that gives Netflix all the power and leverage.

The real problem is not the cord cutters, it is the people who pay $200+ a month for cable without ever considering if they get their value out of it. As long as there are some people willing to pay that much every month without questioning it, why accommodate the value hunters that want to see your content on Netflix? That $200+ a month can cover a lot more "access fees" than Netflix can.
 
poofyhairguy said:
They aren't. Almost every major cable system has an ondemand service now. That is basically what Netflix is.

What the cable companies and content providers are NOT doing is putting everything is a single system they don't control. Timewarner has a separate ondemand system than Comcast which is separate from any other cable provider. They don't want to join together under someone like Netflix because that gives Netflix all the power and leverage.

The real problem is not the cord cutters, it is the people who pay $200+ a month for cable without ever considering if they get their value out of it. As long as there are some people willing to pay that much every month without questioning it, why accommodate the value hunters that want to see your content on Netflix? That $200+ a month can cover a lot more "access fees" than Netflix can.
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how do you know that everyone paying $200/mo aren't getting their value out of it? whether someone watches 10 hours or 100 hours of tv, if they are paying $200/mo, it may be worth it to them in each instance.
 
SunnyD said:
Let's see...

I pay $88.xx/month (inc. taxes/fees) for cable + (75Mbps) internet from Comcrap.

If I were to 'unbundle' and go internet only I'd pay:

$78.95 + taxes and fees (75Mbps, $66.95 for 25Mbps)
+ $9.99 for Netflix

Total would be $88.94/month.

Add in Hulu for more "TV" content at $7.99/month and Amazon prime at ~$8.25/month to fill in some content gaps and I'm now paying a total of:

$105.18/month

I save exactly how much by cutting the cord again?
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You're not making a good point - but you seem to unintentionally seem to be making a better point: In areas where cable has a monopoly as an internet provider, the more content that's on Hulu, Netflix, etc., is going to lead more and more to people like SunnyD getting screwed over:
"It's great that you like to watch Netflix and Hulu, so if you want, you can purchase just Internet access. However, Internet access is now $200/month. But, for only $201/month, we have Internet bundled with cable television, including the premium channels."

That model can only work for so long though - eventually more and more municipalities will start competing with the cable companies who are raping customers via their monopolies.
 
purbeast0 said:
how do you know that everyone paying $200/mo aren't getting their value out of it? whether someone watches 10 hours or 100 hours of tv, if they are paying $200/mo, it may be worth it to them in each instance.
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He didn't say they weren't getting their value out of it, just that they're not considering whether they're getting their value out of it. Even at $70 I decided I wasn't (after seeing the price go up $5 every year, and then subsequently dropping down to a lower programming tier).
 
nakedfrog said:
He didn't say they weren't getting their value out of it, just that they're not considering whether they're getting their value out of it. Even at $70 I decided I wasn't (after seeing the price go up $5 every year, and then subsequently dropping down to a lower programming tier).
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yeah but how can he just come to that conclusion? how does he know people are just paying it without considering what value they get from it? that's a pretty baseless conclusion to come to.

i'd argue the other way around in that the majority of people who are paying for it are getting their value from it, because otherwise they wouldn't be paying for it. paying for something you aren't getting value from is one of the dumbest things you can do in general.

but then again, there are A LOT of dumb people out there.
 
purbeast0 said:
yeah but how can he just come to that conclusion? how does he know people are just paying it without considering what value they get from it? that's a pretty baseless conclusion to come to.

i'd argue the other way around in that the majority of people who are paying for it are getting their value from it, because otherwise they wouldn't be paying for it. paying for something you aren't getting value from is one of the dumbest things you can do in general.

but then again, there are A LOT of dumb people out there.
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I don't think it's baseless to make the assumption that with the number of people paying $200/mo for their cable, there's a non-zero percentage that have not considered the value they get for it.
 
nakedfrog said:
I don't think it's baseless to make the assumption that with the number of people paying $200/mo for their cable, there's a non-zero percentage that have not considered the value they get for it.
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i agree, but when you are saying those people "are the problem" that would imply there are enough of them that would make a big dent in their business model, which would imply it's a large amount.

and it would also imply it's the ones who aren't considering the value AND aren't getting their value out of it.
 
purbeast0 said:
how do you know that everyone paying $200/mo aren't getting their value out of it?
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I don't know that. In fact I would say the opposite- some people get their money's worth. I think my parents do with Directv. They love getting access to their favorite out of market NFL team, they love a variety of channels, and they watch premium channel movies all the time. People like my parents aren't the problem.

The problem are people who just have cable to watch a single channel, or have it just because they always had it even though they only watch a few syndicated TV shows a few hours a month. Like many things the system would get a lot more efficient if these low-utilization users would figure out that their $200+ could be a lot better spent watching the same TV shows on Hulu or even just buying the few hours of TV they really want to watch on iTunes.

What is keeping the current cable system locked in place is not the high-utilization cable users. They might get screwed in a streaming future actually as each little service adds up. What is keeping the system in place is that single mother who pays the cable bill to watch Food Network and that money really goes to pay a CBS, ESPN, NBC, Fox, etc that they never watch. To compound that Food Network puts EVERY program it has on the internet, so a combination of a Chromebox and a little basic computer competency could have her paying the cost of internet to watch the same stuff.

As long as whales (to use a gambling term) like that exist, the desire to accommodate low-margin millennial cord cutters doesn't exist. The problem is that CBS, NBC, etc aren't getting their brand exposed to these future mainstream Americans, so the longer the the inefficiency exists the quicker we move to a complete destruction of that side of the content industry.

purbeast0 said:
and.... ?

$8/mo is less than many people spend at chipotle for a burrito + a drink.
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This isn't 1950, most Americans have more than one tv. The average American home has roughly three tvs in it in 2015. At $8 a month per TV that is $24 a month just for boxes, when most streaming services are under $20 a month.

The value proposition for cable is way out of whack for a lot of people.
 
purbeast0 said:
yeah but how can he just come to that conclusion? how does he know people are just paying it without considering what value they get from it? that's a pretty baseless conclusion to come to.

i'd argue the other way around in that the majority of people who are paying for it are getting their value from it, because otherwise they wouldn't be paying for it. paying for something you aren't getting value from is one of the dumbest things you can do in general.

but then again, there are A LOT of dumb people out there.
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lmao, I clicked to respond to this before reading the last line...and that's basically what I was going to say.

Look at how many people buy new cars every 3-5 years and have jack shit in retirement. 🙂
 
poofyhairguy said:
This isn't 1950, most Americans have more than one tv. The average American home has roughly three tvs in it in 2015. At $8 a month per TV that is $24 a month just for boxes, when most streaming services are under $20 a month.
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I have a DVR connected to the large TV in the living room. The other TVs in the house have Netflix and Blu-ray players.
 
purbeast0 said:
paying for something you aren't getting value from is one of the dumbest things you can do in general.
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And yet people do it all the time. If I had a dollar for every brand new iPhone I saw in the hands of someone who couldn't even fully utilize a three year old version I would own these forums. In modern America many people tie their social status to their consumption, so not everyone looks at their purchases rationally.

And just like owning an iPhone is a way of saying "I am part of the modern world" for a lot of people having cable is a mark of not being a poor person. In the 1980's having cable became THE thing that separated middle class Americans from lower class ones who were stuck on rabbit ears, and that perception exists even today when cable saturation rates tell us even lower-class families see cable as a staple of life. No one wants to be less than average.

Heck, how many people still have a home phone even though they never talk on it because everyone in the family has a cell phone? How many people buy stupid things like extended warranties that have been proven to have little value? If people only made rational purchase decisions half the sales jobs in the country would go away. Whole industries like the weight loss industry are based on the belief that people don't always make rational choices.
 
Jumpem said:
I have a DVR connected to the large TV in the living room. The other TVs in the house have Netflix and Blu-ray players.
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That is what I do too. I have DirecTV on one tv because Slingtv sucks for streaming sports. I subscribe during football season, and cancel during the offseason.
 
What the hell is the entertainment industry's problem?

Player pianos were going to destroy music forever.
Then it was records.
Then audio tapes were going to destroy radio.
VCRs were going to destroy movies forever.

These things that they vehemently protest keep turning into revenue streams.
Push button, get reward: Lab mice learn more quickly than that.



They see what the market wants, and the response is a middle finger to the customer base.
 
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DrPizza said:
You're not making a good point - but you seem to unintentionally seem to be making a better point: In areas where cable has a monopoly as an internet provider, the more content that's on Hulu, Netflix, etc., is going to lead more and more to people like SunnyD getting screwed over:
"It's great that you like to watch Netflix and Hulu, so if you want, you can purchase just Internet access. However, Internet access is now $200/month. But, for only $201/month, we have Internet bundled with cable television, including the premium channels."

That model can only work for so long though - eventually more and more municipalities will start competing with the cable companies who are raping customers via their monopolies.
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I'm not sure how I'm not making a good point. This is the norm across the country. I even cited relevant data. Anywhere prices are better than median right now consider yourself lucky! You just happen to have competitive forces that work to bring prices into reality.

That being said, your latter point is completely valid. People have had enough and are starting to do something about it.
 
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