Jim Vorel, Paste:
And this, ultimately, is the tragedy of losing that Netflix DVD collection of old — there’s genuinely no alternative for replacing it within the streaming world, no matter how much you’re willing to spend. Certainly, there’s no other service out there mailing DVDs at anywhere near this scale, even after Netflix’s own DVD.com has contracted significantly. Nor is there a local, brick and mortar video store in the vast majority of American cities at this point. It comes down to direct comparisons with what other streamers can offer — HBO Max, for instance, doesn’t have a huge selection of streaming movie titles, but it does have a comparatively high quality one. Amazon Prime Video offers the exact opposite experience — an insanely, incomprehensibly vast library that is large primarily because it’s filled with zero budget films that look like home movies uploaded directly by users. The Netflix DVD library struck what was perhaps the ideal balance here — truly vast and eclectic, but also with a baseline quality level of films that had to at least qualify on the front of “had a physical release at some point.”
Even though streaming media is a young industry, it is possible that its golden days are already behind it.
The curious thing is that these services are both balkanized — in that they have vast amounts of stuff licensed exclusively to one service — and conglomerated — there are only a handful of parent companies that own all of Hollywood’s major studios. So instead of the music streaming model, where most people just pay for one service and then listen to a massive catalogue of music ranging from mainstream hits to independent artists, the movie industry thinks we’re all going to pay for each of their siloed services that are mostly full of original programming that is the purest definition of “content”. That seems customer hostile, and quite unlikely.
Many of these studios also own record labels, so I hope this model does not expand into music or other forms of media. I cannot imagine paying separate subscriptions for different libraries of music.
Speaking of Michael Geist and the stack of internet companies, here’s a great piece from Geist about overzealous proposed demands by the CRTC to require ISPs block botnets:
Yet the reality is that Canada’s telecom providers have been working on these issues for decades without the need for a regulator to mandate a blocking system. Further, any blocking system creates collateral damage including over-blocking of legitimate websites and increased costs for consumers. While there is room to increase information sharing and update codes of conduct, a CRTC-based blocking mandate will open the door to a steadily expansive approach to Internet blocking. In fact, the consultation has already attracted a submission from Allarco Entertainment that wants an expansive definition of botnets to include streaming devices so that blocking would extend to copyright with mandated blocking against unauthorized streams (in other words, Fairplay through the botnet back door).
If we are to have some sort of nationwide shared blocking initiative amongst ISPs — and it concerns me that this could be a reality — the bar must be extraordinarily high for something to be blocked, and it must fit into a narrow category of acceptable targets. But this seems like a poor idea on its face.
Daniel Van Bloom, CNet:
In the middle of February, as the Australian government was passing a bill that would force Google and Facebook to pay publishers for news that surfaces on their platforms, Australia’s 16 million users found that news content had vanished from Facebook’s website and app. Now, with Canada’s government mulling similar legislation, it’s possible the story could repeat itself across the Pacific.
Sitting before a parliamentary committee on Monday, Facebook Canada’s head of policy, Kevin Chan, said that any law that forces Facebook to pay publishers each time their news content is shared on its platform “fundamentally breaks the premise of how a free and open internet works,” reports local media.
While I generally agree with arguments that these link taxes are foolish, I get the argument as it pertains to non-U.S. media, and links on Facebook and Google. The two companies have established a duopoly in advertising on the web — 40% of the world’s advertising spending for ads that appear on the open web goes through Google, according to Jounce, and around 80% of digital ad money in Canada is spent with either Facebook or Google — and both companies are based in California. That means that a massive amount of the funding that keeps media alive around the world has been claimed by two American companies, both of which are happy to send users to media organizations’ websites. It is like they are playing both sides of the market.
But it is ridiculous to demand a license for linking. As Michael Geist writes, “linking is a normal, commonly used practice that hundreds of millions of people engage in every day”. Requiring some sort of fee or license to link to media websites is a terrible solution, even if it is only applied to the same companies that have seized control of their revenue stream. We need a better long-term model for ensuring journalism’s solvency. We also need this online advertising duopoly — or triopoly — to be restricted so worldwide spending does not disproportionately end up on the west coast of the United States.
OpenMedia’s Laura Tribe, in an editorial in the Star:
In the middle of a pandemic, when quarantined Canadians have turned to a battalion of gig workers across the country armed with smartphones to deliver everything from diapers to doughnuts, Rogers seeks to snuff out one of the few competitive hopes for Canada’s already brutal wireless industry.
Now Rogers finds itself in the awkward position of having to explain away all of Shaw’s great marketing. After less than a year, the wireless disrupter “beginning to set the tone for a new era of competition” is gearing up to be the latest hood ornament on the Rogers family dynasty.
Cutting through the marketing, this transaction means what every merger in a concentrated industry means: less choice and higher prices for a service that is increasingly critical to the livelihoods of Canadians.
As the crisis phase of this pandemic begins to subside thanks to worldwide vaccination programs, many businesses have indicated that they will continue to support some form of remote work indefinitely. If this acquisition is approved, it will mean we are more dependent on fewer providers. It creates no incentives for any of our ISPs or cellular providers to reduce the ridiculously high prices we all pay, but there are more reasons for them to charge ever-greater rates.