The state of streaming is… bad. It’s really bad. The first step if you want to watch anything is a web search:
“Where can I stream X?” Then you have to scroll past an AI summary with no answers, scroll past sponsored links. After that, you discover that what you want to watch was made by a studio that no longer exists or doesn’t have a streaming service. So, even though you subscribe to more streaming services than you could ever really have, you have to buy a digital copy to watch it. A copy that, despite the fact that you specifically paid for it, doesn’t actually belong to you and could go bad in a few years.
Then, after you pay to see something multiple times in multiple ways (theater ticket, DVD, etc.), the mega-corporations behind this nightmare will try to convince the US Congress to pass laws to ensure that you keep paying them. That’s easier than making a product that works. Or, as someone on social media put it, these companies have forgotten “that their entire existence is based on being slightly more convenient than piracy.”
It is important to recognize this as we see more and more media mergers. These mergers are not about quality, but about control.
In the past, studios would make a TV show. If the show was a hit, they would increase the amount they charged the network, and the network would run ads during the show. And if the show was a hit for a long time, they would sell the distribution rights to another channel. In this model, the goal was to spread access to a program as widely as possible to increase viewership and the number of revenue streams.
Today, in the digital age, studios have adopted a Silicon Valley trait: putting all their eggs in the “user growth” basket. To do that, they need to create scarcity. There should be only one destination for what you’re looking for, and it should be theirs. And you shouldn’t be able to control the experience at all, although you should.
They've also moved away from creating new, worthwhile productions to make you pay for them. That requires risk and also, you know, paying creative people to create them. Instead of doing any of that, they're consolidating.
Media companies keep announcing mergers and acquisitions. They've been doing it for a long time, but in recent years it's really picked up. And these mergers are bad for obvious reasons.
There are the censorship issues that have come to the fore, there are the labor issues, there are the issues of concentration of power, the obvious problems that the fewer studios there are, the less chance good art has of escaping Hollywood and reaching our eyes and ears. But in digital life, there are these: the consumer experience and ownership.
First, the more content comes under the control of a single company, the more they expect you to come to them for it. And they charge as much as they want. And because there is less competition, the less work they have to do to make their streaming app easier to use. Then they enforce their dominance by using draconian copyright restrictions that they have pushed through to cripple smaller competitors, critics, and fair use.
When everything becomes Disney or NBCUniversal or Warner Brothers-Discovery-Paramount-CBS and everything is completely isolated, what need will they have to spend money to improve any part of their product? Making things is hard, preventing others from proving how bad you are is easy, thanks to how much copyright law has been hacked.
Furthermore, because every company is after subscriber growth rather than multiple revenue streams, they have a vested interest in preventing you from “owning” a copy of a work. This has always been part of the business plan because you actually own the copy you paid for until it is destroyed.
Now they want you to pay them every month for access to the same copy. And the price will continue to go up as you have fewer options to find it. Or you'll see more ads. Or you'll start seeing ads where there weren't any before.
On the one hand, the increasing reliance on direct subscriber numbers gives users some power.
On the other hand, there is everything else.
The latest news concerns the sale of Warner Brothers-Discovery, a company that was already the subject of a sale and merger. Netflix is eyeing another recently merged media giant, Paramount Skydance.
Warner Brothers-Discovery has accepted an offer from Netflix, angering Paramount Skydance, which has now launched an aggressive takeover bid.
Now, the best outcome is that neither of these acquisitions happen. There are already too few companies in Hollywood. It wouldn't hurt to ban both of these mergers. A functioning antitrust regime would stop both the sale and the attempted aggressive takeover, period.
But Hollywood and the federal government often work together, and the feds have little incentive to prevent Hollywood's giants from growing even further as long as they continue to play their role in promoting a particular view of American culture.
The promise of the digital age was partly convenience. You never had to look at TV schedules to find out when something was going to air again. Virtually unlimited digital storage meant everything would be at your fingertips. But then companies started working to make sure that never happened. And with each merger, that promise is getting further and further away.
EFF blog.
Although the press releases will range from very select to rare, I said I'd pass...because sometimes the editors hide.
