I just want streaming services to get together to create a common API that will allow for a user experience similar to cable with a DVR. I want a search interface that covers all streaming services, allowing me to optionally filter it to those I subscribe to. I want to indicate my interest in a show even if it isn't yet available to me. I want to set it to "record", meaning that it will track when it becomes available to watch and, optionally, notify me. When I want to watch something, I want to see a list of content that I've "recorded" and/or shown an interest, and is available. The basic idea is that, for a given show, these three events are generally decoupled in time: (a) me indicating interest in it, (b) it becoming available for me to watch, and (c) me deciding that I want to watch it. What we have now is a mess and is probably the main reason for people to stick to cable or, like me, have cable AND streaming.
Sonny, I don’t understand your praise of Disney/Hulu. It was my favorite service since 2015, when they introduced their ad free tier. I upgraded to the highest tiers when they introduced Hulu Live TV and I was happy to pay a premium for the service.
Then Disney FORCED me to take a bundle with ESPN and Disney+ — neither of which I wanted, and then ramped up the subscription price three times in a year. I stopped subscribing yo Hulu after being one of their best customer for 7 years.
Disney did what Disney does: Bundle so you don’t know what you’re paying for anymore.
How the heck are you holding that up as the gold standard???!
I don’t know about Hulu live (my understanding is that it is basically just cable, yeah?) but Hulu is absolutely still available to subscribe to separately.
This insanity never ends. The rational conclusion is: forget about movies and streaming and go to the library. They have things there called "books". And they don't charge for them.
There are some benefits to retro tech! I’ve discovered that the archaic “words on paper between two covers” content delivery system never suffers from buffering issues, it works without electricity, the content between the covers never changes unexpectedly (I have never opened a book and discovered a chapter missing because that chapter is now seen as “bad“), I have never gone to my bookshelf to find a book unexpectedly missing, and when I am done with it, I can take it to a used bookstore and get some money for it or I can loan it to a friend.
The comparable but slightly techier content delivery system for movies and television is Blu-rays and DVDs. I hope people rediscover that physical media (or at least a Plex server) will never become completely obsolete. Unless you download a digital file to a storage device that is under your complete control, you DO NOT own it. It can be taken from you or modified without your consent at any time. And many libraries have very nice collections of DVDs and Blu-rays that you can check out, just like books.
Long live libraries, and long live physical media!
Edited to add: I forgot to mention what happens when libraries marry streaming and produce a child. Kanopy! It is a good free streaming alternative for anybody who has a library card, as most library seem to participate in.
I get the point of a VP of CS and adding that extra layer might be worth it occasionally but I find that common sense is not so common. Gut reactions are often even more stupid than isolated insider opinions. Mr. Joe Common Sense is just too ignorant to realize it and not intellectually curious enough to go any further than that.
I get it. But it might not make sense to Joe or Jane Everyperson simply because it is different and they don't want to think about it. The myth of the wisdom of the average Joe or Jane needs to die. The wisdom of the crowd works for simple things like estimating candy in a jar when you average *everyone's* guess. Once the question isn't simple or you pick out one person you start getting Jewish Space Lasers as the answer as often as something useful, hard pass.
More to the point of your article, your far more informed opinion makes sense that Disney has the ideal model; however, you also frequently make the point that the cable bundle was expensive but that is how much content costs. It seems to me that Warner is attempting more of a cable bundle style model by making it all or nothing to get the good stuff (HBO content) and charging everyone who opts to have it for everything. They might make more per sub that way and prop up their entire catalog which could be more sustainable long term if the cable bundle is truly the ideal way to finance TV production. I hope they are wrong myself but what I want is only part of the picture.
I just want a single UI I can my various streaming services into easily and then go on my merry watching way. Frankly, I want a Spotify for movies type UI.
To continue Ted's UI rant: I'd be happy(ier) if the streaming services could just agree on a standard interface for the actual video player UI. It's not like the options or functionality is required to be different for each streaming service--they all do play, pause, back up, fast forward, captions, language. (Exception is the Amazon Prime Video X-ray, which I really miss on the other services, even if the data is a little wonky.) I'm specifically thinking of keyboard shortcuts--Just let's all agree that spacebar is play/pause, arrows go back and forth, etc.
VP of CS would be useful in many industries / boardrooms and other places like, oh, I don't know...government, maybe? But the title itself contains the reason this will absolutely never happen.
My God what an inspired notion. Additional businesses desperately needing this CS innovation, are grocery stores and DNA research outfits. Grocery stores are footballing 'decent price if you buy 5 Nabisco or Frito products (more than you need or want)' and the roots people are using modular structure and grouped services (along with HOT sales) to goose their commerce and get max monetization. Capitalism is splendid in general but coupled with advertising, monopoly and near piracy it loses it's beauty.
Anyway this writing riotously, nay, hysterically funny. We All Demand Cocaine Bear!!! Ignore us at your peril. . . .
As a user of several streaming services, I am often baffled by their interfaces, let alone their business models. They know what I watch yet they cannot seem to develop screens that effectively display good tv/movie options. It’s like they never do in-depth interviews or UX testing.
Also, let me remind you that we are two weeks away from THE MOVIE EVENT OF THE YEAR. Cocaine. Bears. Humans being stupid. Bear killing stupid people. I await your Across the Movie Aisle review of Cocaine Bear!!!!
They definitely have different UX depending on TV devices too. I have a Roku stick on one TV and the UX for Netflix is different than the UX for Netflix on my other TV (for which I use a Apple TV).
I just want streaming services to get together to create a common API that will allow for a user experience similar to cable with a DVR. I want a search interface that covers all streaming services, allowing me to optionally filter it to those I subscribe to. I want to indicate my interest in a show even if it isn't yet available to me. I want to set it to "record", meaning that it will track when it becomes available to watch and, optionally, notify me. When I want to watch something, I want to see a list of content that I've "recorded" and/or shown an interest, and is available. The basic idea is that, for a given show, these three events are generally decoupled in time: (a) me indicating interest in it, (b) it becoming available for me to watch, and (c) me deciding that I want to watch it. What we have now is a mess and is probably the main reason for people to stick to cable or, like me, have cable AND streaming.
Are you sure you don't mean Red Forman from That 90's Show? :P
Sonny, I don’t understand your praise of Disney/Hulu. It was my favorite service since 2015, when they introduced their ad free tier. I upgraded to the highest tiers when they introduced Hulu Live TV and I was happy to pay a premium for the service.
Then Disney FORCED me to take a bundle with ESPN and Disney+ — neither of which I wanted, and then ramped up the subscription price three times in a year. I stopped subscribing yo Hulu after being one of their best customer for 7 years.
Disney did what Disney does: Bundle so you don’t know what you’re paying for anymore.
How the heck are you holding that up as the gold standard???!
I don’t know about Hulu live (my understanding is that it is basically just cable, yeah?) but Hulu is absolutely still available to subscribe to separately.
This insanity never ends. The rational conclusion is: forget about movies and streaming and go to the library. They have things there called "books". And they don't charge for them.
There are some benefits to retro tech! I’ve discovered that the archaic “words on paper between two covers” content delivery system never suffers from buffering issues, it works without electricity, the content between the covers never changes unexpectedly (I have never opened a book and discovered a chapter missing because that chapter is now seen as “bad“), I have never gone to my bookshelf to find a book unexpectedly missing, and when I am done with it, I can take it to a used bookstore and get some money for it or I can loan it to a friend.
The comparable but slightly techier content delivery system for movies and television is Blu-rays and DVDs. I hope people rediscover that physical media (or at least a Plex server) will never become completely obsolete. Unless you download a digital file to a storage device that is under your complete control, you DO NOT own it. It can be taken from you or modified without your consent at any time. And many libraries have very nice collections of DVDs and Blu-rays that you can check out, just like books.
Long live libraries, and long live physical media!
Edited to add: I forgot to mention what happens when libraries marry streaming and produce a child. Kanopy! It is a good free streaming alternative for anybody who has a library card, as most library seem to participate in.
I get the point of a VP of CS and adding that extra layer might be worth it occasionally but I find that common sense is not so common. Gut reactions are often even more stupid than isolated insider opinions. Mr. Joe Common Sense is just too ignorant to realize it and not intellectually curious enough to go any further than that.
Oh sure, I'm not saying the VP should necessarily have veto power. He just needs to be someone the plan makes sense to!
I get it. But it might not make sense to Joe or Jane Everyperson simply because it is different and they don't want to think about it. The myth of the wisdom of the average Joe or Jane needs to die. The wisdom of the crowd works for simple things like estimating candy in a jar when you average *everyone's* guess. Once the question isn't simple or you pick out one person you start getting Jewish Space Lasers as the answer as often as something useful, hard pass.
More to the point of your article, your far more informed opinion makes sense that Disney has the ideal model; however, you also frequently make the point that the cable bundle was expensive but that is how much content costs. It seems to me that Warner is attempting more of a cable bundle style model by making it all or nothing to get the good stuff (HBO content) and charging everyone who opts to have it for everything. They might make more per sub that way and prop up their entire catalog which could be more sustainable long term if the cable bundle is truly the ideal way to finance TV production. I hope they are wrong myself but what I want is only part of the picture.
I just want a single UI I can my various streaming services into easily and then go on my merry watching way. Frankly, I want a Spotify for movies type UI.
To continue Ted's UI rant: I'd be happy(ier) if the streaming services could just agree on a standard interface for the actual video player UI. It's not like the options or functionality is required to be different for each streaming service--they all do play, pause, back up, fast forward, captions, language. (Exception is the Amazon Prime Video X-ray, which I really miss on the other services, even if the data is a little wonky.) I'm specifically thinking of keyboard shortcuts--Just let's all agree that spacebar is play/pause, arrows go back and forth, etc.
VP of CS would be useful in many industries / boardrooms and other places like, oh, I don't know...government, maybe? But the title itself contains the reason this will absolutely never happen.
All these weird combo streaming services makes me long for cable.
My God what an inspired notion. Additional businesses desperately needing this CS innovation, are grocery stores and DNA research outfits. Grocery stores are footballing 'decent price if you buy 5 Nabisco or Frito products (more than you need or want)' and the roots people are using modular structure and grouped services (along with HOT sales) to goose their commerce and get max monetization. Capitalism is splendid in general but coupled with advertising, monopoly and near piracy it loses it's beauty.
Anyway this writing riotously, nay, hysterically funny. We All Demand Cocaine Bear!!! Ignore us at your peril. . . .
It's on the schedule!
As a user of several streaming services, I am often baffled by their interfaces, let alone their business models. They know what I watch yet they cannot seem to develop screens that effectively display good tv/movie options. It’s like they never do in-depth interviews or UX testing.
Also, let me remind you that we are two weeks away from THE MOVIE EVENT OF THE YEAR. Cocaine. Bears. Humans being stupid. Bear killing stupid people. I await your Across the Movie Aisle review of Cocaine Bear!!!!
I am convinced it is because they are trying to optimize the UI for use with phones (which is opposite of what I want)
They can have different UX for different devices, which seems to befuddle them.
They definitely have different UX depending on TV devices too. I have a Roku stick on one TV and the UX for Netflix is different than the UX for Netflix on my other TV (for which I use a Apple TV).