If every company goes towards individualized streaming services, piracy will sail stronger than ever.

“The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates.” -Gabe Newell

Sony really benefited from Crackle failing years before the streaming wars began. It convinced Sony it wasn’t worth trying make a Sony streaming site. This allowed Sony to position themselves as the biggest 3rd party media seller/producer for other services at the perfect time. They are striking lucrative deals with Amazon, Netflix, Disney, and HBO. They also quietly became the dominant western anime streaming service (a rare profitable streaming service).

The streaming industry really differs from other industries when it comes to competition between companies. Usually, competition benefits customers because it incentivizes companies to bring down prices and dish out better products over time. But when it comes to streaming services, competition ruins affordability, accessibility, and convenience, which are the three main reasons why people subscribe to a streaming service in the first place.

It's weird how HBO Max was in a very good position and just destroyed itself overnight. Honestly the should have done the bundle thing with discovery like Disney plus and Hulu. Edit: I wrote this comment before he mentioned he would be doing a separate HBO Max video Edit 2: I personally believe that this merger should have never happened if they knew that this would lead them to be in debt

I remember when everyone thought HBO Max was gonna become the best streaming service until the discovery merger happened. All good things have to come to an end I guess :/

I used to work with Netflix as a customer service rep, and eventually handled more technical things for other customer service reps. Streaming Licensing is so absurdly complicated and unstable, pretty much everything is a limited contract with an expiration date and as stated there's a multitude of layers for each specific property being discusses. One of the best ways I can demonstrate this concept is with how "Netflix Original Anime" works because there are two types: Netflix Original Production and Netflix Original Dub. The former of which are productions like Devilman Crybaby which were funded by Netflix and premiered on the Netflix platform worldwide. The latter of which are productions like Seven Deadly Sins where Netflix did not fund the production, but did purchase the global distribution rights and would helm the English dub and translations for said distribution. This is also why some programs come with Dubs/Subtitles and others don't, because the job of dubbing and subtitling are typically outsourced and thus have separate licensing all on their own.

Despite who comes out on top, I hope we can ALL agree that no matter what Hulu is in last place. Absolutely inexcusable for any reason known to mankind that as long as we're paying a fee, we should NOT have to see ads.

Just a note here about Hulu, it doesn't exist outside of the US. As a Canadian I get everything on Disney+ instead so they already have merged all their content onto Disney elsewhere

Netflix greatly reduced the amount of piracy back in the day. It was cheap and accessible, so users flocked to it. The studios saw this and decided that making a small amount of money off streaming was better than making no money, so they flocked to it too. Then the studios saw that it was potentially quite profitable, so they decided to withdraw their content and host it on their own platforms. Now the content market is divided and expensive again, piracy is back, and the studios are feeling the squeeze. I’m sure the next 5 years will be very interesting for the streaming companies. Only a few will survive this current era of wrangling for subscribers, and the market will be back to the status quo of 10-20 years ago.

DVD’s will always be my favorite thing ever. You get to own your favorite shows, you don’t have to go through millions of shows you don’t care about to get to them, you OWN the stuff you buy, you don’t have to pay monthly fees, and you never have to worry about losing the stuff unless you’re an abhorrent dvd collector lmao

I fully agree with your take on Netflix. People are way overexaggerating its downfall. They have too many successful originals for that.

Fun fact, in some countries (at least Denmark) we don't have Hulu, so all Hulu shows are on Disney+ by default.

Disney yet again took the magic out of everything

When ya said, “I donno why Hulu exists” let me tell ya why. Out of all the streaming services mentioned it is the only one that also has live tv. Also to get older shows it is basically the only game in town across various companies. Hulu is probably the best out of all the streaming services

Streaming Wars are like Nuclear Wars. There are now Winners, only Survivors.

This happened with music streaming services in the aftermath of torrenting. It happened with search engines. It's happened with gaming consoles, phone operating systems, and online retailers. It's going to happen with car manufacturers with the transition to electric, and I think you right to point it out here. Streaming will consolidate: it'll turn into growth by acquisition, or a bunch of them will just go bust. In any case, once a technology matures and companies start losing market share, a bunch of the players get shaken out and you are only left with a handful. Once this happens it will be marketing moreso than content that sorts the men from the boys.

I think it’s weird that Netflix hasn’t tried to make a show like Friends or the Office for itself. Network sitcoms and procedurals are still very popular on streaming services and provide the comfort food for tv viewing. Plus those old network shows have tons of episodes. Netflix generally cancels shows after 3 short seasons, which then just fade from memory. They need to create shows that have lots of stand alone episodes and release them on a weekly schedule. This will keep the shows from fading and keep viewers coming back.

This is the first video of yours I've watched, and I gotta say, your little outro music fucking SLAPS I was vibing hard to it. Also good video :)

This is an absolute gem of a channel. Glad I found it

Tyler hasn’t gone completely off his rocker in a while. I hope he’s ok

The streaming wars has just pushed me into collecting more physical media.

One thing I would like to add about the hulu situation is that when this all began Hulu was big in Japan. Most people around me had hulu and Netflix wasn't really "a thing" in Japan. Hulu Japan seems to also now be mostly owned by a Japanese television station and is separately owned from Hulu US. Another reason to why it makes no sense to kill it off.

Ten Year old Tim is one of the best things to happen to TV since, well, Life and Times of Tim. Thanks for using some video from that show in hopes people will watch it.

I feel like there's going to be a point where a lot of the individual streaming services end up combining something like what Disney pleasant Hulu are doing at the moment and you know either bundle with themselves or some sort of thing so they can keep themselves or just get bought out by exclusive rights. I'm definitely looking forward to the HBO Max situation I completely canceled my subscription renewal that was coming up after a lot of my shows just got removed without notice and on their survey I let them know that I hate their CEO as well as the fact that I no longer can access these shows at all

It's the fragmentation that's the big killer. Netflix was reasonable priced then others wanted in and then they all got greedy. Fragmentation will ultimately ruin streaming services.

Excellent video! I always look forward to your stuff keep up the fantastic work

Keeping hulu separate could also be a marketing thing. Like, hulu is a different brand with a different target audience, so maybe they're kinda worried that some people would jump ship if they merged it because they're not the target audience for Disney+ (albeit I kinda assume that the target audience for Disney+ is "everyone", so probably not)

I think streaming will go through periodic expansion and consolidation cycles in terms of number of services and content being produced. We might be coming to the end of an expansion cycle as services that are just straight up unviable start to die. Though I don't think it's gonna be super drastic, as in every service that isn't Netflix and Disney's umbrella just up and die tomorrow; but will be a slow ebbing, and even big players (like Comcast [Peacock] and Viacom [Paramount]) might decide it would be best to re-enter into consortium with Hulu or Netflix again. But like Tyler says, the Golden Age is done, this is no longer a novel industry, it's just a young industry, and now it's time for the growing pains.

I'm reminded of a period in US history Where a certain group of people was banned from owning private cinema's showing only their products Totally different this time guys, i swear. We're not doing that same shit we did back then

Everybody loses, especially customers... unless you pirate 🧠 This applies to every industry but I would NEVER condone it!

"I Love Lucy" and "The Twilight Zone" are still popular, even though they were shot in black-and-white. Not every older television show is "Perry Mason."

Who'd've guessed that people don't want to pay more for streaming than they were paying for cable? 🏴‍☠️

It’s more likely that everyone will lose, especially the consumer

I've already started watching popcorn time again. Hasn't touched it in like 8-10 years before that

This was fascinating. Thanks for sharing man! Keep up the great content and God bless you :)

So far as I can tell, streaming is at some point going to end up as "cable, but on your computer, tablet or phone and also slightly worse." Hooray for progress?

I agree nobody will win the streaming wars. But, I can assure you I am confidant who will lose.

I love how as soon as he started talking about quantity vs quality, freaking Alf appeared lmao. That earns a sub

Many, if not most, of the so-called "Netflix Originals" have not been made by Netflix and are not owned by Netflix. For instance, the "Defenders" series were made by Disney's Marvel Entertainment and by Disney's ABC Studios. Netflix licensed these shows, and those licenses expired. So, now, the series are available on Disney+, instead. Disney also makes and owns other so-called "Netflix Originals," including "Ratched," "The Politician," and "Arrested Development."

The collectors of physical media are the victors.

I've been getting more and more anti-streaming for the last few years. I've always been a DVD collector, but now I have extra incentive to head to the local buy sell trade store and find shows and movies to own physically because licenses expire. It's very frustrating to watch a movie on netflix and a year or two later go to show it to a friend and it's gone, or any other service. My only hope is that this doesn't revitalize the cable market, that ship has sailed, but I hope physical home media makes a bigger comeback and I'm not talking about buying a digital copy of something because SURPRISE those suck too

The streaming wars have taught me a valuable lesson. And that is that i honestly just dont need to see the latest thing that everybody is talking about. I have no idea whats happening on the baby yoda show... and thats fine.

My mom always makes fun of my younger cousins for there lack of interest in cable TV and to be honest this just proves it’s becoming obsolete. I sometimes struggle finding shows that are even on cable TV anyways. Either way this was a good video and opened up a interesting discussion!

There is someone losing the streaming wars: Us, the consumers---From Daredevil to Friends, shows have been a fuckfest with these services. And with constant questions in quality---Hulu has The Great and Solar Opposites, but then it also has... Which leaves us wondering where are we going to go? We don't have the viewer-based incentives for shows anymore that can both support a show's cost and quality while also canceling unnecessary bullshit far prior to it being greenlit (vast majority of Netflix's animated shows). The hope/promise with streaming service wasn't the prospect of streaming---but consistency; you get these shows and movies whenever you want wherever you want---foregoing airing times for 24/7 accessibility. Except you don't; Daredevil's going to most likely be reset---despite the building the three Netflix seasons had already done in Disney's favor (the 13 episode season better be hour long episodes on god) Shows are constantly picked up/rebooted on different services; Seasons for a show often being split between services. It's all just stupid profits for them and lack of quality content for us.

I’ve noticed also that as there is a shift to more and more streaming services with higher prices, more people are going back to pirating, just streaming using places like putlocker or solar movies for free.

I think the streaming platforms are still sorting themselves out. Maybe what HBO Max did will become the norm. Perhaps the platforms will periodically shed content to keep diverting people from their main content. If streaming platforms introduce widespread advertising then expect this to happen a lot more. With the smaller platforms, their long-term success will depend greatly on the health of their corporate parent who often will make decisions that are not in the best interest of an entertainment division.

These streaming wars remind me of the dominoes of alliances that turned a Austro-Serbian conflict into the Great War-they all jumped into the streaming ship because their competitors were doing so, fragmenting the market shares into smaller and smaller pieces for even relative winners. Everyone went for broke trying to Schlieffen Plan each other, leading instead to a war of content attrition. The only apparent winners are going to be the ones with the least to lose or have the deepest pockets: Hulu’s low operating costs, Netflix’s head start and reserves of shows, and Disney+ is quite possibly too big to lose. Peacock and Paramount Plus and almost all the others will be the Romania and Bulgaria, entering the war late and too small to withstand the attrition. Amazon Prime is probably America, where they’re not actually all-in like France/HBO Max so they’ll come out well.

I've found that Tubi TV, Pluto TV, IMDB TV, and a whole score of free-with-ads streaming services have just as good of a selection as the paid streaming services. *At that point, why bother paying for streaming?*

And the absolute worst part is don't expect any home media release for anything produced on the streaming platforms.

I feel like eventually there will be bundles just like cable now... For example a low tier bundle, mid price bundle and then the everything bundle that you pay for monthly and get to stream any show on any platform. Just not sure which company will offer these bundles. Maybe cable companies or one of the current streaming services

Not only does Hulu have part of the Fox family like Disney+, but TubiTV is also Fox owned. So you've got 3 streaming services for Fox.

How many times have you gotten the desire to watch a show, sat down and spent an hour and a half looking for something that seems good?

What annoyed me about streaming Is the fact I can't buy a copy of the shows, I am not interested in renting (which streaming basically is), nor can expect to have internet all the time, and there are shows I want to watch on multiple different streams (and I can't afford to pay for that many).

May everyone remember this: the one thing that killed streaming was GREED. That said, even if other companies hadn't launched their own streaming services and let Netflix have all the market share, it wouldn't guarantee a good outcome for everyone. Netflix itself has a lot of problems outside of the US: shows with forced inclusivity that makes zero sense to audiences outside of the US, cancelling successful shows after 1 or 2 seasons, interesting shows constantly disappearing from the platform due to licensing, etc. - the fact that they cracked down on shared accounts was just the cherry on top.

I kinda feel like a good solution might be to have more joint ventures in streaming rather than individual ones? Rathr than attempt to solely have money all on one's own, these companies could pool together like with Hulu and attempt to share funding and content within one service, cutting down the burden of marketing or producing content or such. Paramount+ and Peacock are pretty weak on their own, but if they attempted to have a joint venture streaming service, it could probably turn out pretty well. Of course, I admittedly have very little knowledge of business, so whether this is even possible, let alone realistic in the face of typical corporate greed or even how these things work, I don't know.

Pretty much all of Hulu's shows are on Disney Plus here in the UK, mainly as not only does Hulu not exist here, they even IP block people outside the US from watching it. Netflix also lost all their BBC shows like Top Gear and Doctor Who to BritBox here.

I like Hulu because it has Futurama, King of the Hill, and The X-files. Takes me back to my childhood when I would watch them every Sunday evening. And they are just great shows.

I think THE OFFICE and FRIENDS will still be relatable and watched by youngsters in 2032. The Office isn't about relatability, it's about telling ppl how an office should not be, thru jokes. Whereas, Friends is a feel-good show, a far-fetched fantasy that we all wanna live in.

Oh man you were so spot on with this video its like you came from the future to warn us haha.

I rather just collect blu-rays and DVDs at this point honestly.

the sheer amount of streaming services means that any content people actually want is strewn about between too many different services. Because people don’t want to buy 5 services, this means that no service will prevail. If a streaming service wants to be on top, they need to consolidate all content into one place.

I didn't even realize I had Prime video until about a year after I started my Amazon Prime account. Glad I did though. Good Omens, Invincible, The Boys, Vinland Saga, and Reacher have all been enjoyable shows for me

AND THE WINNER IS..... the pirate bay

Gotta say, I’m a big fan of Hulu just for its live tv option. Being able to use my Nintendo Switch as a cable box is pretty sweet

Streaming was at its peak in 2017, HD netflix was 9.99 a month and Hulu was about the same. If the prices didn't literally double, I wouldn't have switched to other... certain websites lol

I remember when Netflix first started streaming, if you wanted to watch a movie, you'd have to select a DVD as if you were going to rent it and them click the streaming option, but if you wanted to watch a TV show, since this was back in the age of "lets split one seasons into five volumes" you would have to search for all the volumes and switch DVDs when you wanted to go to the next one, and sometimes they didn't even have all of the volumes, let alone the entire show

One of my griped with traditional television is that shows never end, and if they do, it feels like they suddenly woke up one day to the news that they were getting cansled. So in traditional television, there are so few good endings to a show, and in storytelling, the ending is half the experience, if the ending suck, the show sucks. Its here i am hopeful in the future of streaming, since they only need quantity of shows, and the quality is a bonus, if you are only getting 12 episodes, you can plan around that, and get a good show, take Terminal List that just came out, it has a beginning, an middle, and an ending, and its a good show to boot. There is a time and a place for a comfort show where you can just pull up an episode and chew down on it, wihtout having to engage in the story as a whole, but that isnt who i am, and that isnt why i watch TV, am here for a story, and i dont wana slog trough 540 episodes of mediocre filler to get to the conclusion. But then agen, am not gona subscribe to 50 different streaming services to only see the good once, so i guess that is their loss.

On the topic of Hulu in Europe, Canada, New Zealand and Singapore they just added it to Disney + for no extra cost under the label “Star”. As far as I’m aware only the USA requires extra payment for Hulu.

1995 to 2015 I'd say was the Golden Age of the internet. That sweet spot where it was a wild west of content made with nearly pure motivations of creativity and very humble and small scale profit incentives. Once corporate smelled money in the water from stuff like Netflix and Google owned KZfaq, it was over. The Internet is getting dragged down from this novel space of fresh ideas to be more and more in line with what the dinosaurs of the media industry understand. Remember when Homestar Runner and Ask a Ninja was the hottest shit you could watch on the internet? That's the golden age. Not because of the quality of those shows, but because of the genuine, grass roots creativity behind it.

I currently just have Paramount and Hulu (though I'm about to pause the latter). Paramount has been a mainstay not because of their difficult to use interface, but because I love Star Trek and they've been putting out new episodes and series like crazy. I want to show my support for the franchise. But in general, I might subscribe long enough to watch the couple of shows that interest me on a service, then cancel when done. Since nothing is consolidated on a single service or two (and too many good shows get cancelled prematurely), it's harder and harder to justify paying monthly subscription fees.

I think tv stations, especially in smaller countries are going to have to end up reinventing strategies or fold if they don't produce enough of their own content. Here in Iceland we have two general tv networks; The national broadcasting association (RÚV) and Channel 2 (Stöð 2). While Rúv might be safe, I don't know if Stöð 2 will be. Thing is, both have to deal with a hell of a lot of broadcast rights for content they rent from content producers which are nowadays popping up with their own streaming services. While that's all fine and dandy, it'll undoubtedly influence smaller networks when they can't get content the viewers want anymore because the creators simply aren't subletting the broadcast rights anymore.

Regionally it gets confusing too. As a Brit, I just found out we don’t have Hulu. Also we have Prey, family guy and American dad on Disney+ and I had no idea certain regions didn’t as well despite hearing constantly about things like Australian Netflix being empty by comparison

The way you describe time slots makes so much sense to me. There is only so many shows that could exist on TV at any given time so the amount of importance and weight a good or legendary show could have on how you grew up and what you found interest in was way different. I feel like my generation was probably one of the last ones that'll ever experience media in that way since everybody now just can consume whatever they want and the level of attachment to shows is smaller as a result.

I appreciate the joke of using the it’s always sunny friends intro when talking about it

I’m glad you like HBO’s Animals it would be cool if you made a video about it

This is exactly one of the reasons why I buy physical media

I think Netflix will survive. I mean they started with DVDs, started making their own content when studios started taking their stuff off, and now they're doing an ad supported version. They continue to evolve so I think they'll survive. Also people like their original content like Arcane, Cobra Kai, Squid Games, etc. Hulu will survive, however I think Disney will eventually buy all the shares and merge it into Disney+. Why have two streaming services? I'm not sure if the smaller, newer streaming services will survive, but who knows. I think some of them will merge. There will probably be 4 major streaming services like how there was 4 major networks.

lol the its always sunny clip when you mention friends was nice

It’s amazing how they expect to win and remain having profits while every month they add more ads and jack up the price more.

Another thing to keep in mind is "Hulu with Live TV." My mom still want to watch her cable TV channels but I'm tired of dealing with the cable box and the much higher price increases with traditional cable. So for the same price of a basic Spectrum cable TV package, we get Hulu on-demand, Hulu with Live TV and cloud DVR, and recently Disney+ and ESPN got added with the $5 hike. No need for a pesky cable box or having to call just to cancel or add channels. We're subscribed to it just like any online streaming service.

One of the thing I found on Amazon Prime is that some of the movie and show require you to have another subscription from another stream service to watch it. Another thing they do is that they made the unknown movies or shows no longer prime meaning if you want to watch them now you'll have to buy all of the episodes even though the reason people watched them was because they part of prime.

I remember watching a lot of cartoons on analogue TV back in the 90's and 2000's but most of the stuff I enjoyed was not put on reruns very often. Then my parents bought a Netflix subscription in the early 2010's, back when the service was getting big. I logged in on my Nintendo Wii and was surprised to see that a lot of my favorite cartoons from back then were in the service. Then all the Cartoon Network stuff was moved to HBO Max. All the Nickelodeon stuff was moved to Paramount +. All the Disney stuff was moved to Disney +. Some of these cartoons were never relisted or took a lot of time to get into their respective platforms. Now just like in the 90's you're not sure if some of the content you enjoyed is gonna be available or not in your particular service. So we're back to square one, only things are more cumbersome, dystopian and expensive than back then.

Firstly, the kind of advertising that these streaming services should be focusing on is self promoting the shows that they already have. Much of Netlflix's actions as of late seem to stem from thinking the original content they invested in such as their animated projects, many of which have been cancelled now, have been underperforming because not enough people are watching them and as such are not profitable even though they are very much at fault for not properly promoting said original projects along with the movies and shows they got licensed to stream on their service. Secondly, another reason why the streaming era is a bit of a mess right now is because of bull headed companies looking at Netflix's various successes and deciding they were going to want their very on piece of the pie and started saturating the market with all of these streaming services. All the while not comprehending that the entire point of people transitioning from cable to Streaming was so they no longer had to deal with all the problems of cable and as such these jokers are now trying to turn Streaming into the new Cable. How the heck are aspiring content creators and amazing projects ever going to get the attention they deserve when these jerks keep spreading the attention of the masses even thinner than it already is.

I love the fact that you put a parathesis about the HBO MAX dilemma.

We're currently in the "Sega VS Nintendo console war" stage of streaming services development. We just watch and wait for a majority of the competition to fall like Atari - and eventually Sega did - before the victors will emerge and the market will settle.

I feel like eventually we'll get to a fusion of the old and the new ways, with premium ad free subscriptions or cheaper subscriptions that play just as many commercials as television, and possibly paid 24 hour rental streams of new movies.

I've been a Netflix subscriber since 2003 when it was a DVD home delivery service. I remember when they introduced streaming in 2007/08 and it was free with your subscription. And then it was an $1/mo. extra for streaming on top of DVDs. And now it's $20/mo. for the top-tier package with no DVDs at all. It's hard to believe I've been paying Netflix every month for nearly 20 years. 🤣🤣🤣

I hope renting stores come back. Quite a few have survived in my town so this may be their oportunity to be reborn, just like how the crash of TV has revitalized radio shows. I really hope physical makes a comeback, or a digital store kind of like Steam, I hate streaming services. I really want to have these shows on my fucking shelves and display them. What I mean is, Apple make a physical version of Prehistoric Planet, please. That show needs to be on my shelf alongside my old Walking with Dinosaurs disk that doesn't even work anymore.

I want to watch shows in a cable type format. If an option was available to select 3 or 4 shows that played a couple episodes then played a couple episodes of a different show so on and so forth. Play each show from episode 1 and when the next episode is shown to be the start of your next show have the option to continue the current show. Another issue streaming services cause is the need to pay for multiple streaming services just to watch all the shows all the shows I ewik watch

they're merging paramount and hbo max together so perhaps in the end there will only be 3 left until eventually only one is the reigning champion although me personally I prerfer dvd because i hate constantly looking for something i want to watch and paying yet another service just to be able to watch something.

Truly an inspirational video from a modern philosopher of our times

Interesting points all around. In the end steaming will be the norm. I, a 25 year old, have not watched traditional television for about 15 years now. The lack of ads, a pause button, and being able to watch what I wanted when I wanted made all the other hastle worth it for me. I relied on mainly on KZfaq and sketchy sites that pirated their content back when I was in my tweens and early teens; then I started to use streaming services once they became more viable. Regardless of a golden age or not, cable television is not here to stay. It's taking longer than I thought it would to die, but it WILL die, it's just a matter of how much longer it has to live.

6:15 Me, whos 17 and about to go into a bond marathon icluding the 60's movies and grew up with age old things

Pretty good analysis. I agree completely with prime. I'll just use one service and when I'm tired, cancel another and join yet another. I'm cheap, so I'll just watch content until I'm bored of it

3:54 i love when he said Friends, it shows It's Always Sunny which isn't even on Netflix, it's on Disney+ (at least in my country)

I wish Netflix became the Steam of streaming and I'm sure they wished so too. And while I mentioned Stream, did you notice a lot of video game publishers are pushing their game launchers these days. But Steam won't budge.

It's a classic story of killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. These studios had a pretty sweet deal with Netflix. Netflix would assume all the costs and responsibility of hosting your content and pay you for the right to do so. Practically a license to print money if you have a big backlog of films and TV shows. But it just wasn't enough for them. They got dollar signs in their eyes and have demolished the whole thing. Instead of a couple successful streaming platforms, we have a dozen that are struggling to stay above water.

I wish the studios would invest more in theatrical exhibition at a time when theatergoing is more affordable than ever if you have A List or something similar.

I remember back in 2016 when I used to watch this guy for his history content. I was at that age where all you want to do is know more useless facts than everyone, and oh boy I did. Although now I see that my strange obsession with WW2 and the Cold War was just silly and most, if not all, the information was stupid and useless. Now Cody is producing the same strange and useless information that I LOVE. Also, why did you change his name?