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Why Don't Streaming Sites Work Together?


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Erebus25



Joined: 10 Oct 2016
Posts: 10
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 12:58 pm Reply with quote
It would be best to just skip the middle-man, the streaming services, and have studios stream anime on their site. We wouldn't have everything in one place, but you wouldn't also have region restriction or ridiculous pricing systems.

angelmcazares wrote:
The ironic thing is that even without a monopoly in anime streaming, Crunchyroll has a virtual monopoly. This season for instance, CR has 35 new shows, Anime Strike 8 and HIDIVE 3. A customer who can only spend $60 a year on anime streaming will most likely go with CR. But you know what, I like that Crunchyroll controls 70-75% of the anime streaming market because they are the best at it. Monopolies are not good, but CR has not abused their power in my opinion.


CR really did a great job this season, at total of 56 anime airing ATM, 39 available in random European country. No one can tell me it's not worth the money.
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SkerllyFC07



Joined: 08 Jul 2017
Posts: 108
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:02 pm Reply with quote
Daizo wrote:

Now, if we wanted to talk about real consumer-beneficial competition, then what we would need is a move to a completely non-exclusive licensing model. In this kind of world, we could have multiple services, and ALL of these services would (or at least could) have ALL the shows. This would obviously also satisfy the condition of being able to get everything in one place, except you would also have real competition on top of that. No longer could companies coast by with having the most amount of shows - they'd actually have to invest in things like video quality, translation quality and other aspects of service quality.


You mean that, for example, good competition means that Netflix and Crunchyroll would have Shokugeki no Soma all the seasons released so far plus the OVAs? Is that the thing every anime viewer wants for true?

I say that anime viewers would rather have anime as a medium being niche if it´s for the sake of conviniently not paying much money because of this competition, Because most of the time, the hate comments towards Netflix and Amazon sound less like legit complains and more like bitching and sounding like an entitled consumer who thinks of him/herself as a super rich burocrat who has to have the highest quality dishes on the table. For example, there was a long period of time in LAtin America where licensing anime series was more difficult(specially in regards to age rating), and from 2006 till 2016 there were less and less dubbed anime series than before. Now that we have this(IMO) blessing of streaming service competition to facilitate anime broadcasting, I´d hate that Netflix obtaining anime series and dubbing them becomes quickly a thing of the past because anime viewers in the US complain and bitch about Netflix handling anime, instead of presenting the complains to customer service so they can do better in the future. Please don´t let that things like this happen to us, or Asia, or some Europe countries with lack of anime access, and address the complains to Netflix and Amazon in a more responsible way.
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Daizo



Joined: 03 Feb 2009
Posts: 139
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:06 pm Reply with quote
SkerllyFC07 wrote:
You mean that, for example, good competition means that Netflix and Crunchyroll would have Shokugeki no Soma all the seasons released so far plus the OVAs? Is that the thing every anime viewer wants for true?


...Yes? In fact, Netflix's anime strategy also makes a great argument for why non-exclusive licensing would be far superior for consumers. Thanks to exclusive licensing, anything Netflix grabs it gets to keep legally hostage for months on end, but imagine if all those shows were also being simulcasted on Crunchyroll, Amazon and so on - you can bet it wouldn't take very long for Netflix to reverse course and actually start to simulcast the shows as well.


Last edited by Daizo on Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:07 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
Posts: 3426
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:07 pm Reply with quote
Viha_Antti wrote:
The reason I'm paying for Crunchyroll is that I can actually watch the shows in Finland. Not all of them, sadly, but most new shows I'm interested in are available here too. But the shows that are only available on Anime Strike? Well, because Amazon hates Finland, I'm not allowed to watch them. Sure, I can pay for Amazon Video and Anime Strike, but that doesn't mean I'm allowed to actually WATCH anything they have to offer. In cases like that, I'm only losing because of the competition.

Seems Wakanim(wakanim.tv) is taking over several of Strike shows, like last season with Made in Abyss for example, for Scandinavia inclusive Finland. Might want to check there also.
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Daizo



Joined: 03 Feb 2009
Posts: 139
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:13 pm Reply with quote
Blanchimont wrote:

Seems Wakanim(wakanim.tv) is taking over several of Strike shows, like last season with Made in Abyss for example, for Scandinavia inclusive Finland. Might want to check there also.


Some Anime Strike shows are also actually available in Finland on Amazon's Prime Video (which is its own service with just a single monthly fee, no Prime required), but this is basically limited to Amazon's own licenses (so you get 1-2 shows per season at most, not exactly great value for your money if anime is all you're after). Anything from Sentai (which forms a good chunk of Anime Strike simulcast content) will not be available, although most of them will be available here in Finland on HiDive (which is basically Sentai's dedicated streaming outlet). Video quality -wise it loses to Amazon though (as does pretty much any other service outside of Wakanim, which actually has really good quality for the DRM-free downloads you can purchase).

All in all though Crunchyroll easily offers the best value for money when it comes to subscription services, basically always offering shows in double digits every season where every other service is stuck in the single digits. (Incidentally, just earlier today I was compiling a list of the current season's shows and their legal availability in Finland - you can check it out here).
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Parsifal24





PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:18 pm Reply with quote
What we have now really is not competition it is the appearance of competition while various services hold exclusivity to certain series and the consumer is left to decide which services are the best investment.

Not to mention the strange cognitive dissonance I've seen creeping into the thinking of some fans and content creators on YouTube who are fine pirating series Netflix has exclusivity to when it is not available. While still subscribing to Netflix or some proclaiming how Anime Strike and Netflix are "killing" Anime Streaming while receiving backing from Crunchyroll.

I don't think you will ever get true competition in an Streaming Ecosystem as it currently exists partially due to the services battling over Exclusivity rights to series. Of course this is more something that would need to be worked out with Japanese rights holders more than anything else.

Than there is the hypothetical question of say we get this Monolithic multinational Anime Streaming Monopoly. Who is to say the same problems with have now with streaming rights for various territories are still going to exist.

It's very much trying to fight a proverbial hydra so to speak, that and I can see it very easily going the way Lord Acton's Dictum but that's me just being pessimistic. In conclusion it's a complex issue that will probably not be solved in the near future.
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TnKtRk



Joined: 17 Mar 2011
Posts: 183
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:32 pm Reply with quote
it's like people are saying,

"Why do I have to watch new episodes Game on Thrones only on HBO, I should be able to watch it on the CW as well?"

"The Walking Dead shouldn't be an AMC only show, it should run on SyFy as well."


Confused
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Zalis116
Moderator


Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 6864
Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:32 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
You could say that the pirate sites are competition enough, and unfair ones at that (since they don't have to license, translate or dub anything).
Heck, they don't even have to pay for bandwidth, either. Indeed, the whole "bootleg streaming sites are legitimate competitors to legal services, free-market capitalism at work!" bit has to be one of the anti-industry crowd's more pernicious lies. Capitalism requires the rule of law, and if one party isn't bound by the same rules and consequences for breaking them, they are not competitors -- they are cheaters. I could score a lot of goals in soccer if I could pick up the ball and run it into the goal, but that wouldn't make me a better player; it would make me a cheater.

I've never really understood the objection to multiple service subscriptions. If you look at the long view, the monthly cost to subscribe to every service is about the same as the inflation-adjusted cost of buying one or two 3-5-episode single-volume anime DVDs back in 2005. Buying 12 DVDs a year in those days could get you 3-4 1-cour shows, which as angelmcazares notes, is about what newcomer HiDive alone has for this season alone. To say nothing of the intangible benefits of getting the shows as they air in Japan, instead of 18-24 months later in the pre-streaming days.

And this objection seems to be unique to the anime viewerbase. Steam doesn't have every video game, and Netflix/Hulu don't have every US movie and TV show, yet you don't see the same kind of "Unless one service has EVERYTHING, I'm going to keep on pirating" mentality in gamers and fans of Western entertainment.

Daizo wrote:
No longer could companies coast by with having the most amount of shows - they'd actually have to invest in things like video quality, translation quality and other aspects of service quality.
If anime viewers were truly dissatisfied with the audio/video/subtitle quality levels that legal services were offering, bootleg streaming sites would not be the go-to piracy option. They'd be downloading instead, since bootleg streams for recent shows = lower-quality re-encodes of legal streams, using the exact same translations. However, the numbers definitely don't suggest this being the case.
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
Posts: 4125
Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:33 pm Reply with quote
^I always love your comments Zalis, thank you! Laughing

st_owly wrote:
Amazon Prime isn't cheap to begin with, especially considering you have to pay yearly rather than monthly.


You can pay for Prime monthly. With Strike it is $13 per month, roughly the price of Hulu.


Last edited by relyat08 on Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:40 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Erebus25



Joined: 10 Oct 2016
Posts: 10
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:35 pm Reply with quote
TnKtRk wrote:
it's like people are saying,

"Why do I have to watch new episodes Game on Thrones only on HBO, I should be able to watch it on the CW as well?"

"The Walking Dead shouldn't be an AMC only show, it should run on SyFy as well."


Confused


It's not the same since those shows have production backing in those networks, like CR does for some anime or Netflix with Devilman.
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:39 pm Reply with quote
st_owly wrote:
I'm in the UK so we haven't had Strike inflicted on us yet and I mooch off my boyfriend's Prime account (he mooches off my Netflix account), but the second they introduce Strike over here, I'll be back to the torrent sites because I object to a double paywall.

Woe that their offering is only available as part of Prime itself! At least you've had the fortune be spared the superfluous expense though. Perhaps somewhat resignedly, my current preference is to simply accept Amazon's acquisitions as seasonal casualties.
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TnKtRk



Joined: 17 Mar 2011
Posts: 183
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:53 pm Reply with quote
Erebus25 wrote:
TnKtRk wrote:
it's like people are saying,

"Why do I have to watch new episodes Game on Thrones only on HBO, I should be able to watch it on the CW as well?"

"The Walking Dead shouldn't be an AMC only show, it should run on SyFy as well."


Confused


It's not the same since those shows have production backing in those networks, like CR does for some anime or Netflix with Devilman.


it's exactly the same: exclusivity. Paying to have exclusive rights to air/show that show, whether that comes from being part of the production or just paying broadcast/streaming rights.
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Merxamers



Joined: 09 Dec 2013
Posts: 720
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:56 pm Reply with quote
Zalis116 wrote:

And this objection seems to be unique to the anime viewerbase. Steam doesn't have every video game, and Netflix/Hulu don't have every US movie and TV show, yet you don't see the same kind of "Unless one service has EVERYTHING, I'm going to keep on pirating" mentality in gamers and fans of Western entertainment.


Not entirely true; there are lots of people who are annoyed at how many services you need to subscribe to in order to watch the top live action shows. If you want to watch Star Trek Discovery, you have to have a specific subscription; there are some shows that are only simulcast on Hulu, some that are only available through HBO Go, etc. If anything, this is a problem that is only recently starting to affect anime. Remember; in recent years, Game of Thrones seasons and episodes have been the most pirated.
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#861208



Joined: 07 Oct 2016
Posts: 423
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:57 pm Reply with quote
TnKtRk wrote:
it's like people are saying,

"Why do I have to watch new episodes Game on Thrones only on HBO, I should be able to watch it on the CW as well?"

"The Walking Dead shouldn't be an AMC only show, it should run on SyFy as well."


Confused

This exactly.
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Blankslate



Joined: 30 Jun 2015
Posts: 425
Location: Atlanta, GA
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 2:03 pm Reply with quote
Alternate title:

"Man who has never taken an Economics class doesn't know what Monopolistic Competition is and Claims all Competition is Good"
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