[HN Gopher] 2020 Bundles
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2020 Bundles
Author : migueldemoura
Score : 115 points
Date : 2020-09-22 15:17 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (stratechery.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (stratechery.com)
| cwxm wrote:
| How do smaller products compete with bundling from these large
| competitors?
| itsoktocry wrote:
| As he Reed Hastings says in the posted quote:
|
| _" There are thousands of competitors in this highly-
| fragmented market vying to entertain consumers and low barriers
| to entry for those with great experiences."_
|
| Focusing on a better experience is one way.
| chrisjarvis wrote:
| Possibly focusing on a specific niche?
|
| examples in the realm of streaming: indie/arthouse:
| https://mubi.com/ horror: https://shudder.com/ anime:
| funimation or crunchyroll
| dgudkov wrote:
| One of the most successful examples of bundling is Microsoft's
| enterprise plans. For instance, the top E5 plan includes so much
| enterprise software for so low price that it creates the
| perception of free software. MS Office? Free. Power BI? Free.
| Etc.
|
| Tableau, which I believe is a more sophisticated data
| visualization application is getting squeezed out from enterprise
| accounts. Why? Because Power BI is "free".
|
| Bundling is a huge power.
| gringoDan wrote:
| > Print was completely unbundled and commoditized by the Google
| and Facebook Super Aggregators.
|
| Interesting to see some Substack authors countering this trend by
| re-bundling their products. Notably:
| https://everything.substack.com/
| ErrantX wrote:
| > sports, meanwhile, is well on its way to being the only reason
| to keep the traditional bundle.
|
| Semi-side note but I feel this will go soon too. Amazon are
| starting to show sports, inclusive with Prime Video, in the UK.
| kodablah wrote:
| I have just become a first-time cord cutter, if you can even
| call it that, with YouTube TV's recent opt-in inclusion of the
| RedZone channel. I still got way more (admittedly obscure)
| sports with my cable package, but this finally reached enough
| parity to move on.
|
| The real reason that sports fans should remain with their
| traditional bundle is the UX. With cable, if I want to flip
| between a dozen college football games, no prob. The lack of a
| traditional remote and the channel-changing latency is a big
| problem with these new services. Also, they don't make it easy
| to record past the end just to be sure the game doesn't go long
| (granted they try to "catch up" by later learning it went long,
| but I hear it's often later and not when you want).
|
| There is one feature I do appreciate, time-synced stats. You
| don't get spoilers on recorded games you're watching with their
| stat info in the app, it remains in sync w/ the progress.
| Granted, I don't see in-game stats as a killer feature anyways.
| curiousllama wrote:
| > The lack of a traditional remote and the channel-changing
| latency is a big problem with these new services
|
| I may be in the minority here, but I really like the
| chromecast UX. So much easier to search on my phone - a
| familiar interface - than fiddle with a remote that I
| constantly lose, or is out of batteries, or lags with the TV,
| or makes it hard to scroll, or or or
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > The real reason that sports fans should remain with their
| traditional bundle is the UX. With cable, if I want to flip
| between a dozen college football games, no prob.
|
| What's most frustrating is being able to glimpse a better
| future and realizing that it's only business concerns that
| keep it from you. If you use the ESPN app on AppleTV (and
| probably other platforms, but I don't have any of them), you
| can easily swipe up to see what else is going at any one
| time, change between them, and even set up to four streams at
| once on your screen. It's awesome! Unless one of the games
| you care about is on Fox or CBS.
| gordon_freeman wrote:
| I got Peacock Premium free with my Xfinity internet connection
| which has ~175 LIVE English Premier League matches streaming in
| USA. No need to now subscribe to NBC Sports!
| tanjtanjtanj wrote:
| Unfortunately they're trying to get you to subscribe to both
| Peacock and NBC Sports Gold. Most of the tops 6 teams matches
| going forward will be shown only occasionally on Peacock.
| gordon_freeman wrote:
| I agree but that maybe only for this PL season. I think
| they are gradually moving subscribers to Peacock and
| assuming they would only exclusively show all live PL games
| on Peacock service from next season onwards.
| ErrantX wrote:
| Interesting! The lower UK leagues are streaming on a shared
| platform called ifollow internationally as well.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| You didn't get it for free. Comcast owns NBC and bundled
| something into your internet subscription that costs them
| nothing incremental.
| lacker wrote:
| The biggest reason for delay in the US is that the NFL signed a
| deal with DirecTV that goes from 2014-2022, and they signed it
| before the size of the streaming market was apparent.
|
| So in baseball, you can get all games streamed for $60 a year.
| The NBA, you can get all games streamed for $60 a year. But for
| the NFL, most people can't get all NFL games streamed. You can
| get a DirecTV subscription, for something like $800 a year, and
| if you aren't in the DirecTV area you can pay $300 a year to
| watch NFL games. The cost is just way out of line, because it's
| priced by the DirecTV people, and their goal is to get you
| subscribed to DirecTV, _not_ to help you cut the cord.
|
| In a couple years I expect this deal will be renegotiated along
| lines similar to the other major American sports, and then it
| will be far easier to cut the cord for sports fans.
| majormajor wrote:
| You can only do that for MLB, NBA, etc, if you're not in a
| the local area of the team you want to watch. You get blacked
| out if you are.
|
| The local sports rights for non-NFL teams are tied up in
| long, long deals in many markets, and separately for each
| team. It will take a while to unwind all that.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| Correction - MLB.tv is usually $125/year, and it does not
| include any of your local team's games if you live in the
| area. If you like following out-of-region teams, it's a great
| deal. If you want to follow your local team, you have to pony
| up a similar amount for a separate package that lets you
| stream local games.
| gordon_freeman wrote:
| I would have liked an Apple Services bundle where I can pick and
| choose X number of services for a bundled price where the
| incentive would be tied to: the more (number of) services one
| chooses, more discount they'd get. Instead what we got is some
| random collection of services packaged by Apple being called
| Individual vs Family vs Premium that either won't exactly have
| Services that I need or have extras that I won't.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| That's just called a discount.
| charliemil4 wrote:
| > The problem is that Apple's financing programs -- both the one
| pictured above, and also the iPhone Upgrade Program -- continue
| to be funded by 3rd-parties; Apple is making it easier to buy an
| iPhone, but is still focused on getting its money right away.
| And, as long as it sticks with this approach, its Apple One
| bundle feels more like a money-grab, and less like a strategic
| driver of the business.
|
| To me, I see this as a finance play. Since rates are near zero
| (and will be for some time), you can effectively leverage your
| revenues on both ends: servicing debt and factoring accounts
| receivable.
|
| Since Apple's customers are usually high income buyers, the AR
| ratings are already high, combined with low rates, means Apple
| gets 95%+ of the revenues up front. I'm not sure what period for
| the new subscriptions they have (whether its a quarterly or
| annual period), but whatever it is, it's genius.
| zubairk wrote:
| surprisingly, the apple card has ended up being a subprime card
| (https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-card-reportedly-
| approv...) and they unveiled the credit steps program to
| approve more low credit score customers, which is definitely
| _not_ the customer demo i anticipated flocking to the card
| charliemil4 wrote:
| Wow, that's shocking. Thanks for the info.
|
| I wonder if that's a GS element in the contract, if less than
| X number of primes (or some metric on the campaign), then we
| reserve right for sub.
| lawrenceyan wrote:
| It's honestly been amazing to see the utter decimation
| traditional television/media has encountered over the last
| decade.
|
| An entire generation of kids is growing up without ever having
| watched TV thanks to Youtube and Twitch.
| claudiulodro wrote:
| To be fair, there were only ever like 4 generations in the
| history of the world that grew up watching TV. Interesting to
| think about!
| lacker wrote:
| Yes... over the weekend I discovered that my kids (ages 5 and
| 7) did not know what a "channel" is.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Huh. Good point. If ever I have to explain it to my daughter
| (age 1.5) at some point, I'll probably have to say that a
| channel is like an unending YouTube livestream with pre-
| planned content...
| javajosh wrote:
| The screen is the thing. Broadcast TV to CRT displays was never
| important; the human eye and ear glued to a glowing rectangle
| of changing light and sound, that was the thing. Now, the
| screens are everywhere, on the wall, in our pockets, and can
| show us anything anytime. It has revolutionized entertainment
| to the point where each individual can mine his or her own seem
| of addictive content that shuts off the critical mind, to
| provide respite from an unfriendly world occupied by humans
| zombified as they descend into the mindless void of the
| screenhole.
|
| So, yes, the economics of it is fascinating, and horrifying, as
| billion dollar companies exist to create the artificial
| scarcity information requires to monetize. But the side effect
| should always take center stage: we relegate each other and
| ourselves to staring into the glowing abyss in our pockets,
| each compulsive viewing rightly characterized as a suicide in
| miniature.
| Swizec wrote:
| Broadcast vs on-demand is crucial. There's a huge difference
| between having a captive audience that has no choice and
| producing content people _choose_ to consume.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| You can sort-of achieve a poor man's "on-demand" by
| providing bazillion cable channels, but real on-demand
| delivers a qualitative difference: you no longer schedule
| your life around your TV, but watch at your convenience.
| baddox wrote:
| I think that's less of a huge difference when a small
| number of platforms dominate online media and aggressively
| use algorithms to determine or strongly influence what
| content people see. Yes, you can still absolutely find
| beautiful niche content on YouTube, and I value that a
| _ton_ , but YouTube still has immense control over people's
| viewing in aggregate. It's a little bit like traditional
| broadcast TV if there were a billion channels but after
| every 3 minutes of viewing the TV chose which channel to
| flip you to unless you were constantly diligent about
| manually choosing what you want to watch.
| [deleted]
| javajosh wrote:
| Crucial to what? To making content "better", meaning more
| potent, more addictive, more alluring than real life?
|
| I'd argue that broadcast TV was an okay middle ground,
| because if you were addicted you were a couch potato. Now,
| we are all couch potatoes but without the couch, and
| without the social opprobrium, or even the opposite!, the
| world is a generally worse place. I mean, I love
| 3blue1brown, but is he worth the societal cost?
| Swizec wrote:
| I mean, Plato did always complain that writing makes
| people stupid and kids these days are ruining society
| because they can't speak well or remember anything.
|
| And I think books were ruining kids these days in the
| 1600's
|
| In 1800's it was populist flashy newspapers with
| clickbait headlines
|
| 1900's was radio
|
| 1950's was TV
|
| Now it's social media
|
| There's always something. People who want to escape their
| lives will find a way. The solution is to make the world
| better, not to gripe about coping strategies.
| dzonga wrote:
| Hadn't considered how microsoft purchasing a major games studio
| might affect steam ? so yeah likely microsoft is the dark horse.
| at $15 for game pass, folks might all together forgo buying some
| titles on steam. me though hardly a gamer will stick to buying
| discounted games.
| asou wrote:
| Right now I'm primarily using Game pass to play games on my
| Android phone, and at that it's doing a very good job. As a
| very surprising bonus, I saw flight simulator was included.
| This is downright aggressive of Microsoft. They're bundling a
| $60 game with a $15 a month service. Meaning even if you don't
| particularly like streaming games, you get your money's worth
| as long as every three months or so Microsoft adds another $60
| game.
|
| Of course since we all forget things, eventually you'll let
| Game pass keep recurring while sparsely using the service. This
| Gym like model is what every subscription service strives for.
|
| I'm not complaining, if anything I might buy a new Xbox since
| I'm already entitled to tons of Gamepass games as well as Xbox
| live.
|
| Edit: Might also just play everything on my PC. Good job
| Microsoft. Took them 3 generations , but they've finally merged
| the PC and console. Nothing on the Series X isn't coming to
| pick
| paxys wrote:
| He makes a bold assertion though that Microsoft will include
| new AAA titles from its various properties in Game Pass from
| day 1. I find that very doubtful, and so Steam's purpose will
| continue to be selling games for the first ~6 months of their
| release cycle (when the bulk of sales anyways happpen).
| DenseComet wrote:
| Day 1 releases is one of the main draws of Game Pass. The
| Game Pass marketing site [1] has an entire section labeled
| "Play Day One" that says
|
| "Be among the first to play the latest titles from Xbox Game
| Studios and ID@Xbox, available to Xbox Game Pass members the
| same day as their global release."
|
| [1] https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-pass
| owlninja wrote:
| One down side my son discovered recently is when he went to
| play red dead redemption 2, which he only recently started,
| and it had been pulled. It was a little frustrating.
| Otherwise game pass has been a pretty good value.
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