
Walmart may launch a video streaming service to battle Netflix, Amazon - okket
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/walmart-may-launch-a-video-streaming-service-to-battle-netflix-amazon/
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SteveNuts
At a certain point there's simply going to be too many options. There's
already a huge overlap of content between the big players, so it'll come down
to who has the best originals.

People aren't going to pay for 3-5 disparate video services, especially where
80% of the same content is available on all of them.

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EpicEng
>People aren't going to pay for 3-5 disparate video services, especially where
80% of the same content is available on all of them.

Sure about that? HBO, Showtime, Starz, sports packages, etc. Plenty of
evidence that they _will_ do exactly that. I hope it doesn't go that way, but
there's a reason we ended up with cable in its current form.

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SteveNuts
Eventually it'll end up just like a bundled cable subscription. Anecdotally I
don't know anyone that pays for all of those services + an Amazon video and
Netflix.

Most of the people I know have Netflix + maybe one premium channel add-on
subscription.

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gremlinsinc
Yeah, we have Netflix, and I get HBO for about 3 months/per year till I'm
caught up on the major shows, except this year (No game of thrones).

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nobrains
The evolution of this would be providers combining services for a single price
(let's say 19.99) and then sharing the revenue amongst themselves based on the
viewing / usage patterns of the user.

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adreamingsoul
Good, we need more competition. Here are my thoughts:

Netflix is to metric driven and the creative uniqness of their original
content isn’t that great.

Prime Video has a lot of UX issues.

I gave up on Hulu years ago, no idea what it’s like these days.

YouTube is the next social platform, which has a whole new set of issues.

I just want to watch a movie or show every now and then, offline, and with no
compression artifacts.

There is no reason why I shouldn’t be able to purchase and download movies or
shows.

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dragonwriter
> There is no reason why I shouldn’t be able to purchase and download movies
> or shows.

Google Play Music & TV supports purchase and rental, and download of at least
purchased content (possibly rental, too, not sure.)

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adreamingsoul
I did not know that, thank you for sharing.

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seishan
It may be more prudent for Walmart to enhance user experience on Vudu, their
movie renting/purchasing service, and add streaming features on it down the
line. Why launch a new service when you can use preexisting infrastructure?

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gremlinsinc
This is genius. All walmart has to do is turn on their security cams, hire a
producer to pick out the best feeds from hundreds, and they've already got
their reality TV Show.. People of Walmart IRL.

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IloveHN84
The real news would be that they join a common platform, saving the user to
have 1000s accounts for watching content..

