
Streaming video has surpassed cable subscriptions worldwide - prostoalex
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/21/18275670/mpaa-report-streaming-video-cable-subscription-worldwide
======
mgleason_3
Cable is a stinking pile of sog stuff. 90% of the channels are garbage and the
picture quality sucks. I recently put an old-fashioned $40 antenna in my
attic. It pulls in 156 channels (I’m in OC, CA about 40mi from Mt Wilson and
80mi from San Diego).

Compared with the 148 channels Spectrum provided (about 1/2 where duplicates)
the quality is better on the few I watch intermittently (PBS, ABC, CBS...)

The crazy thing is my bill dropped from over $200 to $70 (for just internet).

Yea, I’m and idiot for not doing it sooner.

~~~
bamboozled
The only thing is, once the streaming market has dominated, there is nothing
stopping it to also turning into crap full of advertisements.

I remember when cable was cheap and as-free.

The transition looks good because it has too (to lure customers away from
cable). My bet is that it’s only a matter of time till “personilized ads” are
forced upon you.

~~~
tachyonbeam
YouTube has definitely become more and more ad-ridden since its inceptions,
and the ads are definitely personalized (though badly). There are now videos
with multiple ad interruptions, a bit like ye olde TV. I do think one
difference here is that on YouTube, if a video is full of ads, I won't keep
watching long unless the content is solid and interesting. I, as a watcher,
have a choice as to what I watch. Though of course, YouTube could fix that by
imposing the same amount of ads on all videos.

~~~
assblaster
I use YouTube Red, no ads, ever. And you get access to the entire Google music
library.

Can't beat it for $7.99/month.

~~~
gtirloni
It makes me sad your comment is being downvoted. If people aren't happy with
ads, they aren't happy paying for anything, then what's the alternative? I
don't see any. Those people need to get paid for their work somehow.

~~~
msla
It's getting downvoted because paid options grow ads, like most cable channels
did. (Not all of them. I think TCM is still ad-free.)

Plus, a comment sibling to this one said YouTube Red has ads, so there's that.

~~~
gtirloni
What does grow ads mean? FUD?

YouTube Premium is ad-free, it says so in their frontpage. Are you saying
that's a blatant lie?

That doesn't address my point that content producers should get paid.

From YouTube Premium ad: _" Ad-free YouTube, and our new music streaming
service, YouTube Music. Services: No ads, Downloads, Background play."_

------
flexie
The attitude towards streaming and the whole video on demand idea 10-15 years
ago reminds me so much on the attitude towards electric vehicles today:

\- Quality is too low

\- speed is too slow

\- many people want to own their movie, not just rent it

\- people don’t want to watch movies on a computer

\- the large studios and cable companies will never allow it

And within little more than a decade that all changed.

~~~
tenebrisalietum
Three things would have prevented streaming from gaining in popularity:

\- Slow Internet speeds. This has changed.

\- Cable bills not increasing. If cable was cheap no one would care about
Netflix. But when it gets around $200/month most people start questioning why
they need cable TV. I did and changed my plan to Internet only, and have not
regretted it. Cable TV is garbage and it's cheaper to pay $10/month for HBO GO
or STARZ rather than have to have a $75, $80, $100 specific cable package and
then pay $10 to get it on your cable box. OTA TV has improved and is a lot
better than it used to be, at least where I live.

\- Netflix and other services not being available on practically anything with
a screen and CPU. I think most people who watch Netflix on a computer are
broke college students with no other choice or doing so at work, but most are
using their smart TV, Roku, game console, or other similar devices.

~~~
grenoire
Internet speeds are higher, alas the latency is still perceptibly there and
for the set of games I play you cannot really beat the speed of light: It does
matter.

Regardless, what bothers me and many others is streaming games becoming the
industry standard due to the DRM benefits and taking away ownership from
gamers. That would be really shitty.

~~~
fooker
You'll be happy to know that the current latencies are about two orders of
magnitude higher than what going at the speed of light will offer. That makes
me think that we will easily see a 10x improvement in latency in 15-20 years.

~~~
fgonzag
you think we'll able to communicate faster than light?

~~~
misnome
No, the poster is saying that latencies are about 100x the theretical minimum
latency due to speed of light, and thinks that will reduce to 10x.

I don’t know if these numbers are true, but poster was not claiming faster
than light.

------
honksillet
2 weeks ago I was about to sign up for Xfinity cable and internet. At the end
of long phone call with a data center rep where I carefully chose every
package that I thought I would need, (for a total cost of ~90 $ before tax),
the rep informed me that there was a 9 dollar "broadcat TV fee" and a 6 dollar
"live sports fee" that were applied to every single cable package offered (but
not mentioned in any of promo ads. I was so disgusted I cancelled right then
and there. Oh, and that 90$ was a teaser fee with a 1 year contract (I've had
a contract with direcTV but never cable). The entire experience was so
dishonest that I didn't care if they were offering the best price (they
weren't). Over the next week I demoed slingTV and the streaming direcTV
service before setting on youtubeTV. Never going back.

------
forinti
20 years ago I worked on a project for streaming films in South America. It
was simply not viable: the few that had internet used dialup. A few years
later, ADSL started to show up. This year I myself cancelled cable and
switched to streaming as sole source of video.

~~~
chronogram
I'd like to know the thinking behind streaming films in South America 20 years
ago please!

~~~
forinti
This particular project was about distributing European films in Brazil. It
wasn't a bad idea (obviously), it was just a bit ahead of its time. In each
state you'll find that about a third or even half of the population lives in
or around the capital (where the infrastructure is best). The problem was that
you couldn't get a fast enough connection into people's homes.

------
mastazi
Non-American here. Why are cable and satellite under 2 different categories?
Aren’t they the same providers, offering the same services? For example in
Australia we have Foxtel, depending on where you live you will get connected
to the service either by cable or with a satellite dish, so it wouldn’t make
sense to put satellite and cable into different categories. Maybe in the US
it’s a different situation?

~~~
TingPing
Different providers typically but the same service in the end.

~~~
mastazi
Thank you, yes I just did some research and I can see that there are several
providers, many of them offering only one type of connection (satellite or
cable). I agree with your statement "same service in the end" since the
television channels on offer are mostly the same.

------
chx
I always said the university made some sort of mistake when they gave me a
math teachers masters and, let's face it, that was decades ago.

But still. This article has an inconsistency that doesn't require any
particularly high level of math understanding.

> world’s entertainment market — encompassing both theatrical and home
> releases — grew to a new high in 2018: $96.8 billion

repeat:

> consumers spent $96.8 billion on entertainment around the world.

compare to:

> cable subscriptions still rake in the most money, increasing in 2018 by $6.2
> billion to $118 billion

Erm, what?

And I checked the original PDF, the same sort of headscratcher is in there:
apparently people spent more on cable subscription than on entertainment which
is obviously (?) impossible.

~~~
ubercore
The $96.8 billion is just talking about movies, and the cable subscription
total is just for sub fees.

~~~
chx
Nope.

> on entertainment around the world. The international theatrical box office
> grew to $41.1 billion (spending in the US and Canada grew to $11.9 billion),
> while home entertainment hit $55.7 billion internationally.

~~~
ubercore
Right. Box office being when someone sees a movie in a theater. Home being
when they rent or buy a movie. Still doesn't mean the cable _subscription_
numbers have to be smaller.

------
colordrops
This is surprising to me. I had thought that streaming surpassed cable long
ago.

------
massivecali
I wonder what those numbers would be if everyone had broadband. Everyone I
know who has satellite or mobile hotspot internet can't use streaming media.
For them it's impractical or too expensive.

Didn't see anything regarding what they consider a subscription. Are hotels,
hospitals, bars, nursing homes etc. lumped in with the figures?

------
pier25
I haven't watched TV in almost a decade. We keep ourselves entertained with
Netflix, Blurays, Prime, HBO Go, and the occasional torrent for content that
is not available in our country.

------
shmerl
And because of MPAA, there are still no DRM-free stores to buy video today.

------
dpcan
And yet, without my cable company I could not stream.

------
mrich
I do wonder how Netflix can stay competitive in this market. They already have
lots of debt, new competitors coming up, stock price is quite high. It seems
they need to produce or license new content, so people do not cancel. But
licensing content gets harder as competitors start their own services.

~~~
BubRoss
Netflix takes in 1.4 Billion dollars every month. All the content they add
stays and builds up value. If they want to branch out, they can start doing
live events.

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/273883/netflixs-
quarterl...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/273883/netflixs-quarterly-
revenue/)

~~~
radicalbyte
I'm shocked that they haven't started streaming women's football (soccer).
It's growing like crazy and compared to the men's game it's extremely cheap.

~~~
usrusr
That would be just momentary money throughput, there would be zero long tail
accumulation. Redistributing sports is a "now" business without any story
about why tomorrow will be golden to tell investors. If you lose money today
streaming sports you will lose money tomorrow, because there is no way to
assume that right holders will ever agree to better conditions. Every growth
you may have will just be absorbed by them. It might still be a path for a
bootstrapping streamer, but for an investment heavyweight like Netflix it
would just dilute growth potential.

