Well the whole “Twimance” causing a stir on the internet isn’t the only confusing relationship. Closer to less good-looking is the fact that HBO won’t be partnering with Netflix. Considering they have some major properties, this isn’t good for Netflix, which is having it’s own problems as of late – and though I have confidence in them, they are in a rather rocky industry.
But hey, HBO has their own streaming, right? And then there’s Crackle. And Hulu, and . . . well we’re up to our armpits in various streaming services all of a sudden. Of course they don’t all carry each other’s stuff, or in the case of some anime, everyone carries it (Really, do THIS many services need to carry “Queen’s Blade?” Wait, nevermind.)
So it’s some not-quite-walled gardens, battling it out. This misses a larger factor near and dear to this cable-cutter’s heart.
Namely, after awhile, some people may not give a damn about series if they have to go through a lot of rigamarole to get them, or get a specialty service they don’t want, or watch something drop off of a service. It’s like taking all the annoyances about cable and adding brand new ones.
So at some point do people stop caring about The Hot Thing? Or waiting for the DVDs? Or pursuing alternate media (I can just read Game Of Thrones, even if it lacks the awesome of Dinklage).
I see this as a possible danger because in trying to keep up with big things, you have to face all these service annoyances. If you get cable, you face cable annoyances. Really, at some point people may just not care and buy eps on iTunes, get DVDs, or just give the hell up (which in a way I kind of did). There’s enough media out there that the Big Thing is only big because others say so.
I see this re-dilution of media access actually being bad for the media companies. It looks bad, creates ill will, and diminishes interest.
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach for professional and potentially professional geeks, fans, and otaku. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/