Streaming video becomes the "surface streets" of the Internet superhighway

Disney has announced its own streaming video service, and it will pull much if its content from Netflix when the new service premiers.

This article asserts that the growing number if streaming sites (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, CBS All Access, Disney, ad infinitum) means that the video piracy industry will remain healthy.

I agree, and I think it is the result is clueless corporate executives.  But the growing number of streaming services is going to be a bigger and bigger problem for consumers.

The article above continues:

While legal streaming services work just fine, having dozens of subscriptions is expensive, and not very practical. Especially not compared to pirate streaming sites, where everything can be accessed on the same site.

The music business has a better model, or had initially. Services such as Spotify allowed fans to access most popular music in one place, although that’s starting to crumble as well, due to exclusive deals and more fragmentation.

I am often pretty hard on movie and TV studio/network executives. They do not generally come from the creative side of the industry.  Because of the way our capitalist free enterprise system works, their world revolves around quarterly profits reports for investors.

Such executives study success, and then look for ways to replicate that success. That's why there are vampire shows all over right now.  Every time a TV show is succesful, we tend to get clones.  And this is not just the 36 different CSI series. Vamires are all over the place in the media because of Twilight.  Harry Potter spawned Percy Jackson, Miss Peregrine, and The Magicians (yes I know about them being books first).

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has resulted in DC developing its common universe of individual hero movies plus team-ups.

It's why the X-Files and Stargate and Star Trek are back, or coming back.

Studio and network executives see past success as a path to future success.

So what does that say about streaming services?

Netflix and Hulu have been successful.

Studios/networks have shared in that success, via contract.

No doubt the executive think somewhat along these lines:

A lot of people watch our shows, but the streaming service takes a cut, so we don't make as much money as we could.  If we had our own, we wouldn't have to share.  But we'd better have something BIG to launch it and get people to subscribe (with automatic renewal if at all possible).

The problem is, as the article above says, people aren't going to pay for endless streaming services.

Making money from people watching TV and movies is marketing. Marketing is SUPPOSED to be about understanding the customer.  I think the studios and networks have failed to properly analyze their customers.

For decades, the consumer's model was "set your DVR or other recorder to get the program on cable."

Then it was "I pay for one or two places where I can catch the shows, if I mess them on cable).

Now for many people the home video model is "discontinue cable and subscribe to a couple of inexpensive services."  Or downloading copyright infringed video, of course.

The industry argues "piracy is unnecessary because pretty much everything is available inexpensively online."  But this breaks down if you REALLY understand your customer.

The five streaming services I mentioned above would cost more than my current cable bill, but the expectation is that I will subscribe to more and more, because I like one or two additional shows on each?

People with unlimited entertainment budgets probably will. The TYPICAL consumer will have to make value judgments.  Some will just say "____ sounds interesting, but I guess I won't be able to watch it because it's not available on my services."

Others will find the copyright infringed shows.  

I am NOT advocating piracy.  I teach copyright law in several of my classes and infringing other people's intellectual property is never a good idea.

I AM saying that the studios/networks are chopping up the superhighway into a bunch of less desirable surface streets.  Not in terms of bandwidth, but in terms of convenience and usability.

In my always humble opinion, I think that they would succeed better by consolidating their individual lanes into a single interface with feed equal to or less than cable.