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Why Don't Streaming Sites Work Together?


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Vizo



Joined: 19 May 2015
Posts: 167
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 2:04 pm Reply with quote
I hope these streaming networks will provide cable on-demand services. I'd gladly pay for that.
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RedSwirl



Joined: 08 Feb 2006
Posts: 344
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 2:04 pm Reply with quote
Like some are saying, the real problem is the exclusivity of shows to certain services. They know anime fans are going to want to watch shows that are exclusive to different networks.

The best comparison to what we probably should have might be, well, traditional TV. Different cable and satellite services compete, but they carry most of the same channels and most of the same shows. The most popular and important channels and shows are on basically all the services. Sure you can only get Game of Thrones of HBO, but you can get HBO on DirecTV, Comcast, Cox Cable, or whatever else. There are just service-related differences between all the providers (that and some are basically regional monopolies).

Another example might be operating systems or game consoles. iOS and Android compete but carry most of the same software. Same for Mac and Windows. PlayStation and Xbox compete but have most of the same games. People choose one or the other because of differences in service, hardware, or other features.

A non-exclusive licensing deal would be good if Anime Strike, Hulu, CR, and Netflix could find other ways to compete.
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xchampion



Joined: 21 Jan 2009
Posts: 370
Location: Idaho Falls, Idaho
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 2:29 pm Reply with quote
I'm perfectly fine with just subscribing to Funimation and using my family's joint Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon accounts (which means I'm basically only paying for one). If I had to pay for all I'd still subscribe to all of them. As long as they have enough content to justify me paying then I will. As of right now they do. I try not to but even I have to admit I sometimes watch stuff on these illegal streaming sites. Even this day and age there are some shows that don't get licensed. If it's available on paid services then I will always go that route. I did that with DB Super when it wasn't available legally. Once Crunchyroll and Funimation picked it up I switched. It's was as easy as that.
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Chaos Wings



Joined: 05 May 2015
Posts: 277
Location: Your guess is as good as mine?!
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 2:35 pm Reply with quote
While the article provides a good overarching view of what makes for healthy competition. It's utterly redundant/irrelevant when applied to the current business model we have for Anime streaming in the west. 'Healthy competition' only exists on an even playing field where everyone has access to the same content. That certainly isn't true in this case.

Rather than competing over the quality of service each platform provides, it entirely comes down to which site snaps up which licence. You might argue this is competition in and of itself, but it just doesn't work when you add a monolithic giant like Amazon into the mix.

The company has almost unlimited funds and could realistically acquire the rights to every show in a season if they chose to. All the 'highly rated' series in one place should make Anime Strike an enticing prospect and it would be if it wasn't for the fact that the streaming service they provide is borderline garbage (and you ignore the double paywall).

Excessive splintering in our small ecosystem will never be a good thing, especially when it's being inhabited by an uncaring behemoth. As a consumer being forced to use a service you hate just to see a specific show is quite frankly absurd.

I won't pretend that other streaming sites care about us as individual consumers but at the very least they know what we want. Amazon however only want to stick their fingers into as many pies as possible. Crunchyroll and the like have to listen to their user base to survive, Amazon doesn't. As a company they can outbid any competition and steamroll their own agendas all the while completely ignoring the subscriber base. Simply because they have boatloads more money to do so.

Until licence holders in Japan stop dealing in 'Exclusive Rights' the current environment for streaming in the west is never going to consist of this so-called 'healthy competition'.
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reinux



Joined: 11 Oct 2017
Posts: 10
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 2:58 pm Reply with quote
Exclusive licensing isn't competition. It's by definition the opposite of competition, and in fact, it's just anti-consumer, especially when companies buy up Season 2 rights to a show that was previously on another service.
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 3:48 pm Reply with quote
I'd say the principles of competition are still important in the Internet age. The reason why these services have such a strong lead over the others, though, is that they're free and convenient. That, and Google seems to have a knack for snuffing out competition or buying the market leader. I mean, they do run three of those five monopolies listed. I'd also say the Dot-Com Bubble led to the environment we have now: Many of the leaders on the Internet today are the sole survivors of what used to be a battle between many companies, and they'd have the leg up in experience in running these services.

Social media is definitely an industry with lots of competitors though. I remember back when MySpace was all there was. Then Facebook popped up, and then Twitter, and then Instagram, and then Pinterest. And regionally, you have other social media services like Line or Orkut that are popular in some parts of the world but not others. Music services too: You have Spotify, Soundcloud, and Shazam locking horns, for instance.

Ideally, for the consumer as far as anime streaming goes, you want two or more services with many common, popular shows between them. This situation would drive each service to provide maximum quality for minimum price as they attempt to outdo each other, or at least not get annihilated by the other.

Kamon wrote:
Quote:
Lack of competition -- monopolies, to put a name on it -- creates slow, lazy companies who don't try very hard to impress anybody.


*cough*Intel*cough*

I for one will welcome our new Zen overlords!


Frontier Communications is the only Internet company that serves my neighborhood with a download rate faster than 2 megabits per second. It is unreliable, prone to disconnects, has wild fluctuations in actual speed, and expensive.

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.

Unfortunately, since this kind of shift in licensing is extremely unlikely to happen, all we're left with is asking for the least bad option in the current model, which would be having a single service monopoly. Service quality still wouldn't be the focus, but hey, it's never been the focus in the first place, and at least we wouldn't have to fork over cash for multiple subscriptions again.


I think that can still happen. Right now, though, all of the anime streaming services are successful and profitable enough that it's not necessary. When at least one of the services that's doing well starts getting noticeable and unavoidable drops in subscription counts or viewership, I believe that's when we will see them attempt to persuade the anime producers in Japan to license the show out to multiple streaming services to win back the people who had lapsed. From the Japanese companies' perspective, that's a good thing, because now there are more people watching.

The biggest thing right now is that anime streaming is new, no one's that certain on how to move forward, and every service (perhaps except for Anime Strike) is more focused on survival than growth. Once we move past the survival phase and towards the growth phase, I think we'll see more cross-service licensing and consumers will actually have a choice. This is what happened with video games through the 90's and 00's: Cross-platform games became increasingly common, to where you can expect any game to be cross-platform nowadays except for those made by a 1st- or 2nd-party company or is under an exclusivity deal (which, unlike with anime, is very expensive and done only with games the manufacturer is confident will turn a profit).

Chrono1000 wrote:
Competition is great when building physical items such as gears since you can get a range of them at different prices and different levels of quality. The problem with a show though is that it is a unique product and that if it goes to a service that doesn't do dubs and charges twice the price of other services than as a consumer it is nothing but negatives. I am a subscriber to Anime Strike but I am still disappointed every time a good simulcast show ends up on their service.


TV shows are unique, but the cable and satellite TV services have had quite a lot of competition with each other. Currently, it's Time Warner Cable vs. DirecTV vs. DISH/Sling vs. Comcast. And the reason is because these services have most to all of the channels people want. There is perhaps a 90% overlap in what you get to watch, so the viewer experience is much the same.

Should most anime shows go to every streaming service, THEN we'll have some real competition between them.

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


The thing is that regardless of which cable or satellite provider you choose, HBO is still available, the CW is still available (besides the couple of times Dish has clashed with CW over broadcasting fees), AMC will be present, and SyFy will be present.

The streaming services like Crunchyroll and Netflix are the equivalent of the cable or satellite provider, not the TV channels. This is more like the complaints that certain Major League Baseball games can only be seen on Time Warner Cable and aren't available on the other ones.
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pluvia33



Joined: 23 Mar 2005
Posts: 194
Location: Dayton, OH, USA
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 3:55 pm Reply with quote
I think people who are saying that the current state of anime streaming isn't "Healthy Competition" are in a way missing the most important point: It IS healthy competition on the side of Japan selling the rights of these shows. As mentioned in the article, without the current state (if everyone did cooperate), the amount that Japanese companies can sell their shows for will go down and hurt the production side of anime. Does it suck when Amazon buys something up when you can only afford or only want to deal with CR because your prefer that service or when Netflix gets something and forces you to wait for it? Yeah. But when Amazon or Netflix shells out large amounts of month for a license, that can be a big boon to the anime industry.

Yes, the current state of things doesn't do much to help the end-user; it is sort of anti-customer. However, trying to get Japan to adopt an alternative to exclusive licensing would be a long and hard road. It took them long enough to warm up to streaming licensing in the first place. And sadly, piracy is always an option. If how Amazon and Netflix treats their licenses doesn't improve, those will continue to be likely the most pirated shows each season.
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TasteyCookie



Joined: 19 Jan 2017
Posts: 421
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 4:13 pm Reply with quote
As pretty much everyone has mentioned, you're pretty wrong on this front Justin. Basic economics dictate that "competition" in regards to capitalism requires consumers to have the choice between products. Monopolies are by definition:
1. the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service.

So the shows that are being licensed are the 'Commodity' that is being monopolized. Consumers DO NOT have the choice to choose between services, as the products are not available elsewhere. Even in your examples, those are examples of competition. When you wants to search for something, Google does not have exclusive rights to search results, hence as a consumer I can search at any different site I want.

What the questioner is really asking is why anime is allowed to be monopolized. As true competition would allow sites to all license the same anime and have consumers pay for the services that best fit their needs. Just like TV, internet companies, cell providers, and everything else that's regulated by the FTC.
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reinux



Joined: 11 Oct 2017
Posts: 10
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 4:46 pm Reply with quote
pluvia33 wrote:
But when Amazon or Netflix shells out large amounts of month for a license, that can be a big boon to the anime industry.


What happens to the studios when Amazon jacks up the price/cost of anime production by outbidding everyone else, and then bails because Anime Strike has finished serving its purpose as a loss leader?

Amazon almost certainly isn't making money on Anime Strike. Their strategy is to throw a ton of money at it to make Prime appear more valuable (hence "curated anime" etc.).

Once it's outlived that purpose, they'll bail, and they'll have popped a bubble, and the studios will suffer.

Amazon is entering into a bidding war with orders of magnitude more money than the other competitors, after all. There is no competition.
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Kougeru



Joined: 13 May 2008
Posts: 5521
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 4:53 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Video game livestreaming? Everybody uses Twitch
Youtube is far better for everyone and I wish people would realize this. Quality alone (especially for smaller channels) is pretty much unlimited.

Anyway, I hate CR for a variety of reasons. But my biggest one lately is they seem to have too many different translators that all have their own idea of how to do things so their subs are extremely inconsistent across the board. As a whole though, they take far too many liberties that outright change the meaning of a lot of lines. This seems to be less of a problem with Sentai and whoever Amazon gets to translate their stuff. So while I don't use Anime Strike, I'm glad they exist and are getting so much good stuff exclusively. The more people branch away from Crunchyroll, the more likely I would assume my dreams of their quality going up to be better. 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...

And Netflix is outright doing it wrong.


Edit: I like the points people have made about this not really being competition, but just multiple monopolies. Your arguments seem to valid to me. We DO only really get once choice to watch a lot of shows.
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Dumas1



Joined: 20 Dec 2012
Posts: 75
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 5:09 pm Reply with quote
I don't think that treating the streaming services as analogous to cable providers is appropriate. The ISPs are a closer fit for that role. The streaming services are more like publishers or networks. Each one puts out a selection of content, and customers get access to them through an ISP. There are a few edge cases where some third party holds rights and may put it on multiple services, like syndicated series that appear on multiple networks.

From that point of view, the competition between services is mostly through their choice in programming and how that appeals to viewers' tastes. It's like having Stephen Colbert on NBC vs Jimmy Kimmel on ABC vs Trevor Noah on Comedy Central. The three aren't all in the same time slot, but It's absurd to say that the three networks aren't competing against each other in the late night talk show market simply because each show is only on one network.
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 5:17 pm Reply with quote
Dumas1 wrote:
I don't think that treating the streaming services as analogous to cable providers is appropriate. The ISPs are a closer fit for that role. The streaming services are more like publishers or networks. Each one puts out a selection of content, and customers get access to them through an ISP. There are a few edge cases where some third party holds rights and may put it on multiple services, like syndicated series that appear on multiple networks.

From that point of view, the competition between services is mostly through their choice in programming and how that appeals to viewers' tastes. It's like having Stephen Colbert on NBC vs Jimmy Kimmel on ABC vs Trevor Noah on Comedy Central. The three aren't all in the same time slot, but It's absurd to say that the three networks aren't competing against each other in the late night talk show market simply because each show is only on one network.


I think it is appropriate. It's just that cable and satellite providers have mostly the same content, whereas streaming services, at least as far as anime goes, run mostly on exclusives. The way it is now would be as if the existing TV channels were divvied up (unequally) between the different providers.
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reinux



Joined: 11 Oct 2017
Posts: 10
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 5:25 pm Reply with quote
Dumas1 wrote:
It's like having Stephen Colbert on NBC vs Jimmy Kimmel on ABC vs Trevor Noah on Comedy Central. The three aren't all in the same time slot, but It's absurd to say that the three networks aren't competing against each other in the late night talk show market simply because each show is only on one network.


The difference here is that the networks produce their own content. So long as you're producing good content, people watch your shows. Also, last time I checked, just about everyone in the US receives all of NBC, ABC and CC. All three are on similar footing.

With licensing, as opposed to production, whoever throws the most money at it, wins. Amazon is specifically netting all the popular shows.

Worse, they're doing it by systematically swiping second seasons of popular shows.

Oh hey, Umaru did popular last season. Let's grab Season 2. Oh hey, Danmachi Season 1 did well. Let's take that.

Yes, sometimes TV personalities jump ship, but it's rare, and there's no continuity that the audience needs to be aware of. You don't have to have watched Season 1 of Colbert Report on NBC to appreciate Season 2.
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dragonrider_cody



Joined: 14 Jun 2008
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 5:42 pm Reply with quote
Even with different exclusives, mostly simulcasts, the competition has produced some positive effects. Notably, shortly after Amazon made a point of showing that their shows could be downloaded to your device, to keep you from using data on the go, Crunchyroll announced plans to do the same. Though I’m not sure if they have done so yet.

Also, Strike launched with the ability to customize subtitle color and size. When Hidive launched a while later, it featured a similar option to adjust subtitle color. I’m really hoping that CR eventually follows suit, as its becoming a fairly common feature for services that feature foreign language entertainment, and it’s a very nice one to have. It also avoids the whole yellow vs white argument.

There is also the fact that while Amazon’s apps are far from perfect, they are far more stable than CR’s and their servers are far more reliable. Many of us have had the joy of trying to access CR on a Saturday evening and not even being able to log in. Overall, Amazon’s video and audio quality is higher, though I am aware that some Amazon apps have a buffering issue at the start of streaming. This isn’t a problem for the PS4 though.

While I can understand why some are disappointed in needing multiple subscriptions to get everything, but it’s been that way in entertainment for a very long time. That’s not likely to change, especially when you have Japanese companies that have a vested interest in keeping competition for licenses alive to keep prices elevated.
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Dumas1



Joined: 20 Dec 2012
Posts: 75
PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 5:47 pm Reply with quote
reinux wrote:

With licensing, as opposed to production, whoever throws the most money at it, wins. Amazon is specifically netting all the popular shows.

Worse, they're doing it by systematically swiping second seasons of popular shows.

Oh hey, Umaru did popular last season. Let's grab Season 2. Oh hey, Danmachi Season 1 did well. Let's take that.

Yes, sometimes TV personalities jump ship, but it's rare, and there's no continuity that the audience needs to be aware of. You don't have to have watched Season 1 of Stephen Colbert on NBC to appreciate Season 2.


I'll concede that licensing is different from producing content, but the general American media bias for remakes over imports (see: The Office, Let the Right One In, The Bridge) puts anime in a bit of an odd spot.

It's a bit rare, but series also jump between networks. Babylon 5 from... something called PTEN that seems to have worked mostly with FOX affiliates to TNT; Sliders from Fox to SciFi;Buffy the Vampire Slayer from WB to UPN; Star Trek is... complicated, but the Original Series was NBC and Discovery is CBS. At least one of these requires following continuity.

The channels may be a la carte subscriptions in addition to ISP fees, but premium channels (HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, any others?) and pay-per-view have existed for some time. It's not like your choice of ISP and plan affects which websites you can access, barring bandwidth caps or speed issues.
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