That’s okay I’ll just watch it on Netfli…WHAT!? Since almost two years ago you say? Because of late-stage capitalism you say?
I really miss old Netflix. Even had Disney movies 😭
The worst part is, Netflix didn’t even mess up. All the content owners decided to pull their licenses and make their own Netflix. Now we have 200 streaming services.
So I joined the party and made my own netflix. And not to toot my own horn, but it’s the best one.
Well, they did mess up. That mistake was to make content of their own. This angered the other studios so they pulled content and here we are.
They made their own content because Hulu was a partnership between 4 different content companies intended to screw Netflix out of money.
There was multiple mess ups from many different places. Netflix making their own content was just an excuse.
First off the government allowed consolidation of the studios. All of the buyout and mergers reduced the number of players.
Netflix, video stores, and theatres before them were/are distributors. They did not create any products but acted as a local point of sale.
A distributor only makes sense when the producers and customers have a high level of segmentation and they can’t economically or efficiently connect directly. When the producers are consolidated enough, cutting out a distribution network in an attempt to generate more profit is inevitable. It never works out as expected.
In general the producers can not offer the level of service that the distributor did. So the customer always suffer from a decline in service. It also always becomes more expensive for the customer with shittier products. The producing companies try to make up for losses in revenue from sales with lower quality cheaper product.
Now if the government had blocked the studio consolidation we would have likely have seen the rise of distributor competition. Distributor competition is very, very good for the consumer. When multiple companies are offering the same product but offering differing levels of service the consumer benefits.
The producers if they are smart make the same amount of money from all of the distributors and focus on making high quality products they can sell at a premium.
I think the issue started long before that. Netflix always had issues with content owners licensing it for one country but not for others, or asking huge fees to license for multiple countries. They’d also limit which shows Netflix could have at any time.
This meant Netflix had to manage many different catalogues for different regions and constantly cycle shows on and off just to make the content owners happy
Once content owners started realising they could milk Netflix for all it had, Netflix really had to start making content to reduce its risk and dependence on other studios
The issue is and always was corporate greed, on every level
Remember everyone, media piracy is in the spirit of a tv show about a post-scarcity socialist utopian future.
Wtf why did a parrot land on my shoulder
Ok, I know why I lost my eye, but where the fuck did this hook come from and what happened to me hand!?
So here’s an unpopular opinion, but this isn’t a bad thing. It’s just not enough.
The biggest reason that legal, paid Streaming is so shitty these days, the reason people miss old Netflix, is that everything is spread across so many different platforms now. Back in the day, just having Netflix meant you had just about everything, and if you wanted more still you could get Hulu… and that was it. One, maybe two subscriptions, and you’re set. But now? Now you need half a dozen subscriptions and you’re still picking what things you won’t get. If content was more centralized again, that wouldn’t be a problem.
And if content was more centralized, that centralized platform would have PLENTY of subscribers, they wouldn’t need to add commercials and hike prices just to stay afloat. I mean… they’d do it anyway because capitalism enshittifies everything, but it wouldn’t be a do or fail situation for them.
The only thing I ever used the Paramount streaming for was Trek. I wouldn’t complain if Trek, ALL Trek, migrated to somewhere else that has other things I like, too.
We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.
-Gabe NewellThe problem is that the people who hold the rights don’t want to share. They want that sweet, sweet, monthly subscription income. They don’t want to compete because that means they’ll potentially earn less and have to spend more.
I tell people about fmovies every chance I get because it has just about anything you are looking for. I’ve only run into a few titles they don’t have.
No registration, completely free, and easy to use.
It’s odd that people are against monopolies, generally speaking, but for streaming services we would prefer if there were a few giant companies which owned it all.
I’m not disagreeing with the above, just thought it was curious.
People aren’t clamoring for a monopoly, they are asking for interoperability. I didn’t need a single VHS rental store to be the only place I could get Ernest Scared Stupid, but I did need to be able to get Ernest Goes to Jail at every VHS rental store.
All we’d really need to do that is just make it a law that contracts aren’t exclusive.
If shows were sold to multiple streaming services legally, then those services would compete based on the actual service they offer, and not the content they have.
In other words, make streaming services the customers for shows, instead of individuals, and then let people be their customers.
As it is, a streaming service is pretty comparable to a car dealership.
That’s not all we’d need to do though. Too many cases of the content rights holders also owning a streaming service means they’d just not sign any contracts. Disney, paramount, NBC, hell even Netflix owns content. We need to also break up so that right holders can’t also control the means of distribution.
Compare Movie/TV-show streaming to the Music streaming industry. Spotify/Tidal/Apple/Amazon all offer access to the same music (more or less). They compete on features/quality/apps/prices/etc. They don’t compete based on their exclusive libraries. Somehow the music industry can survive in that model. Video streaming needs to do the same. Stop the exclusivity. This way, monopolies are not needed in video streaming.
I think two or three viable platforms was kind of the sweet spot. It’s not all dominated by one, but I also don’t have to shop around and subscribe to five different things if I want to get what I want legally. But you’re right that it’s a sticky issue that just doesn’t seem to have a good answer.
The solution is mandatory licensing at fixed rates for media that is no longer under production. Make it so the only way to have exclusive content is to commit to continuing that content.
This is why I own most of star trek on dvd. Cant take that away from me.
Its also very difficult to find complete torrent for the series. Just too much content that nobody wants to host the wild file sizes
This is why I own most of star trek on dvd. Cant take that away from me.
I was so disappointed when the HD remasters stopped. I snapped up TOS, Animated, TNG, and all the movies on Blu-ray (replacing DVDs in the case of the movies and TNG) despite them being available on Netflix at the time. I was really looking forward to catching up with DS9 and Voyager the same way since I was only able to catch them sporadically when they were airing… but no, it seems these are doomed to remain in SD purgatory.
There is a group has who completed an upscaling remaster of DS9. It’s very very well done (though could be better with better source material from the producers).
They are working on Voyager now that DS9 is done. They’ve completed season 1 of voyager so far.
If there a way to download that version?
They have instructions in Discord (https://discord.gg/qceXKtsM)
