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Why Don't Streaming Sites Work Together?

reinux wrote:

The fact that they only serve the US is more than an "inconvenience."

HIDIVE gets many of the Sentai ones outside the US, and Amazon's own are available on regular Prime Video outside the US, and some other companies have some Strike titles in different regions as well. There are definitely some that fall through the cracks and their service can be very bad in some regions, but the Anime Strike catalog is available outside the US.

zrnzle500 wrote:

reinux wrote: The fact that they only serve the US is more than an "inconvenience." HIDIVE gets many of the Sentai ones outside the US, and Amazon's own are available on regular Prime Video outside the US, and some other companies have some Strike titles in different regions as well. There are definitely some that fall through the cracks and their service can be very bad in some regions, but the Anime Strike catalog is available outside the US.

I did not know that, lol.

Still, AS doesn't appear to be competing viably for market share, nor does Amazon appear to be trying to.

Acquisitions at this stage of the game aren't always about streamlining operations or products or anything mutually beneficial like that, after all. A lot of the time, it's simply to feed low-value resources to a high-value business.

The only people that really seem to believe that Amazon is attempting to strong arm market share from CR, are those that believe they are attempting to monopolize the anime market. This is despite the fact that there is every indication that they are not doing this, despite having the money, resources, and relationships to do so, if they wanted.

Amazon is basically following Apple’s footsteps. What they really want to do is to keep Prime subscribers within the Amazon ecosystem. The more value and services they are able to offer Prime members, the more likely those members are to stay, and the more “painful” it becomes to leave. This really isn’t as much about the anime market as a whole, but the subsection of the market that are already Prime subscribers. Even if Strike is not profitable itself, and we will never know that one way or the other, if it helps keep Prime members engaged, it will have served its purpose.

I hope these streaming networks will provide cable on-demand services. I'd gladly pay for that.

I also absolutely hate the fact that they're still the only site I know that's running a flash video player. It's 2017...what the hell man? I been using HTML5 on youtube since 2010...

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.

The Anime Network, but these days it pretty much has the scraps left over from HiDive and Anime Strike (mostly subs, but an occasional dub from the last decade or so).

You know what Mr Sevakis I'll go one step further by saying that having all anime on one streaming service is better competition for consumers than having multiple ones. I don't give a shit about the anime studios

A single streaming service is cheaper for me than having multiple so better for me. Having 3 stores in my town selling Pepsi doesn't cost me anything multiple streaming sites do.

A single streaming service forces the anime studios to release quality product every time so that consumers choose there anime to watch at a trusted level of quality over choosing other studios who may release cheap rubbish. To me is beneficial consumer competition not multiple streaming services.

I agree that competition is ideal for these kind of businesses for the reasons you lay out, but it just feels like in practice that this doesn't exactly encourage quality products. The only positive point for Amazon Strike is that the shows they license are some of the best each season. Their actual service is kinda garbage, with an interface that's difficult to navigate, and it being pretty hard to see all the shows available.
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Mawdryn wrote:

The Anime Network, but these days it pretty much has the scraps left over from HiDive and Anime Strike (mostly subs, but an occasional dub from the last decade or so).

Oh do they still put episodes up out of order or have moments when they don't cycle in succeeding episodes for weeks?

Mawdryn wrote:

Sentai still has a cable on-demand outlet in the form of The Anime Network, but these days it pretty much has the scraps left over from HiDive and Anime Strike (mostly subs, but an occasional dub from the last decade or so).

Oh do they still put episodes up out of order or have moments when they don't cycle in succeeding episodes for weeks?

{ha ha ha ha ha }

That last line completely killed me. You want examples in alphabetical order or in levels of pettiness? Masking Funimation their lackey should be enough of power abuse... of course that was after whiffing Free off to Diskotek. Thjen there was the "if you license it, we get it for free for four weeks" which has kind of become standard for the shows they get from Funimation... except Funimation can't run sub language tracks at all now. And people wonder why Sentai turned their back on them...

reinux wrote:

zrnzle500 wrote: reinux wrote: The fact that they only serve the US is more than an "inconvenience." HIDIVE gets many of the Sentai ones outside the US, and Amazon's own are available on regular Prime Video outside the US, and some other companies have some Strike titles in different regions as well. There are definitely some that fall through the cracks and their service can be very bad in some regions, but the Anime Strike catalog is available outside the US. I did not know that, lol. Still, AS doesn't appear to be competing viably for market share, nor does Amazon appear to be trying to. Acquisitions at this stage of the game aren't always about streamlining operations or products or anything mutually beneficial like that, after all. A lot of the time, it's simply to feed low-value resources to a high-value business.

The only people that really seem to believe that Amazon is attempting to strong arm market share from CR, are those that believe they are attempting to monopolize the anime market. This is despite the fact that there is every indication that they are not doing this, despite having the money, resources, and relationships to do so, if they wanted.

Amazon is basically following Apple’s footsteps. What they really want to do is to keep Prime subscribers within the Amazon ecosystem. The more value and services they are able to offer Prime members, the more likely those members are to stay, and the more “painful” it becomes to leave. This really isn’t as much about the anime market as a whole, but the subsection of the market that are already Prime subscribers. Even if Strike is not profitable itself, and we will never know that one way or the other, if it helps keep Prime members engaged, it will have served its purpose.

Considering Amazon is one of the largest retailers of anime releases on DVD and Bluray, and likely digital as well, I imagine they have a much better idea of how large the market is compared to the rest of us. I’m sure they also know exactly how much of their anime is bought by those who already have Prime memberships.