
Sling TV rolls out free streaming to U.S. consumers stuck at home - vo2maxer
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/18/sling-tv-rolls-out-free-streaming-to-u-s-consumers-stuck-at-home/
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shakna
Sling's interspersal of free and paid-only content works. It's the same setup
that a lot of streaming services end up with, because at some point, if you
keep the free user, they end up saying "Why not?" because they're comfortable
with your service.

But you need to give them that level of comfort first for the tactic to work,
otherwise they get irritated and leave.

\---

Shameless side of things follows.

I considered interspersal when I was putting together the free access part of
my own streaming service [0], but though I know the tactic works, it doesn't
fit with everything else I was doing. (Reduced cognitive load, no DRM, etc.)

I ended up with a place which is clearly free [1], and then everything else in
its normal places. It isn't as effective. I don't get as many conversions as I
would, otherwise.

But I do know that the customers I do have, feel like they're still people to
me, and that they feel free to reach out to me to talk about aspects of the
site. Ideas, movies they would like to see, offers for help in translating
subtitles, etc.

I would rather have customers willing to have a relationship, then endless
numbers of unknown that I need to manipulate into staying with varying tactics
that must continually change.

[0] [https://sixteenmm.org](https://sixteenmm.org)

[1] [https://sixteenmm.org/category/free](https://sixteenmm.org/category/free)

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thekevan
I tried this and the free content was very sparse and mixed right in with
"subscribe to view" content.

It was very cumbersome and I uninstalled the app after 15 minutes of testing.

It very much felt like they gave you a clunky trial version with the explicit
purpose of getting you to buy the paid version, not a "limited resource for
this tough time."

~~~
kls
I am pretty pleased with PlutoTV, it's ad based but it does not bother me to
watch ads to not pay a TV subscription. It's not live TV but between it and
Prime Video I get as much TV as a want to watch. Which is limited I will
admit.

