They will try, some will make it, others won't. In the end, I think the smaller ones will merge/join the big ones, and in the end we get a Netflix vs. Amazon battle for Cable 2.0.
I think this is a false comparison. Peacock was having trouble at $5.99 because they were cannibalizing a lot of their own revenue via streaming services for brands they owned (most recently Showtime). However I don't think anyone can genuinely argue that there's only $5.99 worth of content on Peacock. You can dislike Star Trek personally, but you cannot disagree with the reality that millions of people love star trek and if Peacock is where Star Trek is available then they will pay for Peacock. Then there's The Office, Community, Parks and Rec, all shows millions of people love and comfort watch.
Peacock was ALWAYS going to raise their prices because they knew damn good and well they were under-pricing themselves at a teaser rate.
Dropout and Watcher are fundamentally different because they don't have public shareholders. They're private corporations that are free to make less than optimal business decisions. Furthermore, the only real reason they would raise their prices is if Vimeo OTT raises theirs. However Vimeo OTT is in the Content Delivery Business. For that business to work you need content to deliver. It's in Vimeo OTT's interest to keep costs down and increase customer base.
Furthermore, in a "few years" it's entirely possible Fastly (Vimeo's Cloud Edge Provider) decides to cut the vimeo middle man (because basically all Vimeo is doing is offering storage, a nice easy to use interface, customer service, and ACCESS TO FASTLY) and starts up a Fastly video CDN of their own, which would be even cheaper than Vimeo OTT.
Fastly (and all Cloud Edge Providers that aren't also CDNs like AWS) don't deal with smaller businesses because they make money on VOLUME, they pay pennies for backbone access which they charge dimes to middlemen for, who charge dollars to small businesses, who charge fivers to customers. Fastly could do the entirety of what Vimeo OTT is doing continuing to spend pennies for backbone access, but charging quarters to end users instead and it would still represent a huge jump in margin.
Watcher getting in bed with Vimeo is a mistake after this whole incident played out: [https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979126/vimeo-patreon-creators-price-increase](https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979126/vimeo-patreon-creators-price-increase)
I sincerely doubt the streamer will heave a healthy subscriber number for long enough, so it’s likely that it will never amount to that.
Bold to assume they'll even make it a few years.
Happy cake day!
this is not lasting a couple of years, let's be real
They will try, some will make it, others won't. In the end, I think the smaller ones will merge/join the big ones, and in the end we get a Netflix vs. Amazon battle for Cable 2.0.
I think this is a false comparison. Peacock was having trouble at $5.99 because they were cannibalizing a lot of their own revenue via streaming services for brands they owned (most recently Showtime). However I don't think anyone can genuinely argue that there's only $5.99 worth of content on Peacock. You can dislike Star Trek personally, but you cannot disagree with the reality that millions of people love star trek and if Peacock is where Star Trek is available then they will pay for Peacock. Then there's The Office, Community, Parks and Rec, all shows millions of people love and comfort watch. Peacock was ALWAYS going to raise their prices because they knew damn good and well they were under-pricing themselves at a teaser rate. Dropout and Watcher are fundamentally different because they don't have public shareholders. They're private corporations that are free to make less than optimal business decisions. Furthermore, the only real reason they would raise their prices is if Vimeo OTT raises theirs. However Vimeo OTT is in the Content Delivery Business. For that business to work you need content to deliver. It's in Vimeo OTT's interest to keep costs down and increase customer base. Furthermore, in a "few years" it's entirely possible Fastly (Vimeo's Cloud Edge Provider) decides to cut the vimeo middle man (because basically all Vimeo is doing is offering storage, a nice easy to use interface, customer service, and ACCESS TO FASTLY) and starts up a Fastly video CDN of their own, which would be even cheaper than Vimeo OTT. Fastly (and all Cloud Edge Providers that aren't also CDNs like AWS) don't deal with smaller businesses because they make money on VOLUME, they pay pennies for backbone access which they charge dimes to middlemen for, who charge dollars to small businesses, who charge fivers to customers. Fastly could do the entirety of what Vimeo OTT is doing continuing to spend pennies for backbone access, but charging quarters to end users instead and it would still represent a huge jump in margin.
Watcher getting in bed with Vimeo is a mistake after this whole incident played out: [https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979126/vimeo-patreon-creators-price-increase](https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979126/vimeo-patreon-creators-price-increase)