alt Hacker NewsThe article is surprisingly missing the most important part: a cost comparison. I understand and share the frustration with rising prices and ads creeping into paid plans, but for people who value optionality and broad access, streaming is still meaningfully cheaper than owning content.
In many cases, the price of a single movie is comparable to an entire month of a streaming service, which gives access to thousands of titles. Ownership can make sense if you repeatedly watch a small, fixed catalog over many years, but for most casual or exploratory viewing, the economics still favor streaming.
Replies
Some people do not mind buying art or paying artists for their work.
If we assume an artist gets 1¢ per stream of a song, and that album is 10 songs long, you need to listen to it 100x for the artist to get the same as just buying a $10 CD from Bandcamp.
I understand this example is missing the cuts given to other parties (label, etc) but it is still more to the artist than streaming unless you obsessively stream the same albums repeatedly.
Spotify is cheaper because your favorite local indie band makes far less from it.
Additionally, thrift stores have loads of CDs you can rip for extremely cheap.
For the most part, you aren't meaningfully paying for content when you use streaming services. This has the effect of making it not cost effective to produce good content you enjoy, while still costing you money to pay for the services, most of that money being funneled towards slop and execs. The ecosystem as a whole would benefit if you set aside the money you would ordinarily pay for streaming, and instead spent it on choice works you appreciate, while downloading whatever you like.
For movies specifically, you should consider paying substantially more than you would on streaming if you watch any substantial amount of movies. It is very hard to fund good movies with only streaming revenue.
Fair enough! However you need to consider:
- Depending on your taste you will need to subscribe to multiple servics. Shows / movies I enjoy are scattered across Netflix, AppleTV+, Prime, Disney+. And it's increasingly unlikely that IP is licensed out (i.e. no Star Wars on Netflix)
- There is a surprising amount of movies which are not on any streaming service (at least in Germany) OR they are but you still need to buy a digital copy or rent
- The UX of self hosted solutions like for example Jellyfin or other open source can (surprisingly!) be better than the paid solutions. I.e. no ads & and no UX redesigns
I'm not opposed to streaming services at all. I will subscribe to them as long as it's value for money.
However in recent years streaming services got worse while self hosted solutions got much much better.
Your point - subscription is cheaper than self hosting - may still hold, but the balance has definitely shifted in favor of self hosted solution.
I don't think it'll become mainstream in the near future (or ever) but for me personally it's worth it!
It's also not "either / or". You can both self-host and have subscriptions, but maybe you can cut down on some subscription services:)