nerdrage 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Surprise: Wall Street Journal Editorial Board (Correctly) Explains Why Florida’s & Texas’ Social Media Laws Are Horrible And Unconstitutional

    nerdrage ( profile ), 26 Feb, 2024 @ 03:20pm

    social media is media

    And like other forms of media, it relies on advertisers. In general, nobody will subscribe to social media, because it's too trivial to pay for, which makes advertising the sole business model. What's the first rule of business? The customer is always right. The advertisers, who are the customers, don't like Nazis spewing venom right next to the ads for their fine products. There are some kinds of posts that advertisers like, some that they are neutral on, and some that they run away screaming from. The first type is what's valuable, and any site that knows its business will cultivate that type. The neutral type is okay. The toxic type needs to be removed. It's worthless for advertising anyway, and why keep worthless products on the shelves? People who make content the advertises like should be cultivated. People who make content worthless for advertising should be banned. The users aren't even customers, they're products. Why can't a business decide this product is good, that one must go? The Supreme Court should just let businesses run their business and stop meddling. As for parents worried about what the kids see, that's on the parents to patrol. Take away their phones and laptops. When they're old enough to have jobs and pay for their own electronics and internet connection, then they'll be old enough to look at whatever they want.

  • On the post: Comcast, Paramount Eye Merger Because The Streaming Sector Is Completely Out of Ideas

    nerdrage ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2024 @ 09:47am

    what is the next big idea?

    The next big idea will be something that disrupts Netflix all over again like Netflix disrupted other industries. My money is on AI getting good enough to get into the hands of normal folks. Don't like what Disney is doing with Star Wars or Game of Thrones' final season? Show us your version. Most of this will be trash of course but some will be good and others will be popular for being porny, satirical or pushing certain buttons. Big IP will be a huge part of this because everyone already has an opinion on it, for good or ill. The companies can have lawyers monitor YouTube, where most of this stuff will end up, and take down offenders. Or companies can be smart and add their own mini-YouTubes to their own platforms, where playing with their own IP is sanctioned, so that Google doesn't end up with all the revenue.

  • On the post: Comcast, Paramount Eye Merger Because The Streaming Sector Is Completely Out of Ideas

    nerdrage ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2024 @ 09:33am

    the right idea: give up

    Paramount+ and Peacock are #6 and #7 in a field that will support 4-5 major competitors. It's simply overbuilt. I saw this over a decade ago when I dumped cable TV for Netflix, and suddenly paid less than a tenth of what I'd been paying before, ad-free too. Now multiply me by millions. A lot of money has been yanked out of the entertainment ecosystem. And that's what's behind a lot of the chaos in streaming: strikes, companies with wretched earnings (Warners today), M&A talk. The industry needs to be radically slimmed down to match demand. I'm only surprised it's taken this long.

  • On the post: Comcast Gets A Wrist Slap For Using Dumb And Misleading ’10G’ Marketing To Confuse Customers

    nerdrage ( profile ), 09 Feb, 2024 @ 09:10am

    genius marketing

    Verizon: Oh yeah? Well we have...100G! AT&T: So what! We have...InfintyG! Nyah Nyah! I should go trademark InfinityG right now, shouldn't I?

  • On the post: Disney, Hulu Follow Netflix In Password Sharing Crackdown As Streaming Enshittification Accelerates

    nerdrage ( profile ), 08 Feb, 2024 @ 01:06pm

    unfortunately the password sharing crackdown WORKED

    As far as we know - and Netflix never reports churn - password sharing crackdown appears to have worked or at least didn't inhibit their growth. So now Disney has gotten the message and is following suit. People! Stop knuckling under to these stupid companies. You can cancel & churn around. None of them are worth an annual subscription. 1-2 months per year, tops! And ignore the ad-based tiers. They are playing you for suckers, making you PAY to watch ads?!?

  • On the post: ‘The Messenger’ Implosion Once Again Shows The Real Problem With U.S. Journalism Is Shitty Management By Visionless, Fail-Upward Brunchlords

    nerdrage ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2024 @ 09:08am

    good username

    I might have to swipe it.

  • On the post: ‘The Messenger’ Implosion Once Again Shows The Real Problem With U.S. Journalism Is Shitty Management By Visionless, Fail-Upward Brunchlords

    nerdrage ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2024 @ 09:06am

    never heard of 'em

    Wasn't Messenger something to do with AOL once upon a time? Funny how this company went under and I never got a chance to even check them out because I never heard of it. How was it marketed, or was it? I'm looking for a good AD FREE news source that goes beyond the headache inducing partisan babble. A good global news gathering function would be valuable, and not just the country du jour that is blowing up that week.

  • On the post: Netflix Eyes More Price Hikes… And Slowly, Steadily Becoming More Like Comcast

    nerdrage ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2024 @ 08:41am

    good point about password sharing

    TechDirt is one of the few sites that actually realizes Netflix has never proved anything about password sharing. Maybe it was a huge disaster for them and they lost a ton of subscribers but a different ton of subscribers signed up for different reasons. We'll never really know.

  • On the post: Netflix Eyes More Price Hikes… And Slowly, Steadily Becoming More Like Comcast

    nerdrage ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2024 @ 08:38am

    most of Netflix's growth is overseas now

    Of the 13M new customers, 10M were outside North America. Maybe Netflix hasn't jacked up the rates insanely in those countries. And I know Latin America and Asia still pay half of North America. Why should they be pissed off at Netflix like we are?

  • On the post: Court: No, You Can’t Sue Facebook Claiming It Takes Down More Pro-Palestinian Speech Than Pro-Israel Speech

    nerdrage ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2024 @ 03:46pm

    for the billionth time

    The way social media works is, if the advertisers are happy, then the business model works. The users are not the customer, they are the product. So the real question is: do advertisers like running ads against controversial content about the Middle East situation or any other situation, really? And if so, what skew would they prefer? A business-minded social media platform would naturally encourage more content that pleases their paying customers. And then there's Elon Musk, experimenting with the opposite approach.

  • On the post: Netflix Suddenly Cares About Net Neutrality Again After Comcast’s Peacock NFL Success

    nerdrage ( profile ), 26 Jan, 2024 @ 09:21am

    Netflix is becoming like Comcrap...

    Netflix has degenerated into a consumer unfriendly company but in any argument with Comcrap, I'll side with Netflix. And it's obvious what Comcrap is doing. They don't want the old codger audience because advertisers don't value viewers over 45. So put the games where the codgers don't always know how to access them (which is not to say there aren't tech savvy codgers around!)

  • On the post: Cable Giants Insist That Forcing Them To Make Cancellations Easier Violates Their First Amendment Rights

    nerdrage ( profile ), 26 Jan, 2024 @ 09:16am

    the issue is not free speech but monopoly control

    Comcrap et al could have free speech to jerk their customers around and make things inconvenient and difficult for them to understand if the customers could respond by kicking Comcrap to the curb and signing up for a competitor who can write in clear English and not play BS games. In order for that to happen there would have to BE competitors in all markets in all parts of the country. So until the free market can solve this problem, Comcrap et al should be regulated like power and water, as a monopoly utility. Instead of their BS being controlled by consumers, it will be controlled by the PUC. High time for this to happen. Broadband access is no more optional to a modern lifestyle than power or water. It's a utility and should be regulated as such.

  • On the post: Fractured Streaming Services Don’t Suck Enough To Keep The NFL’s Peacock Experiment From Being A Success

    nerdrage ( profile ), 24 Jan, 2024 @ 10:38am

    most people are pretty dumb

    Netflix's success is another sign of this. Why do people give them money year round when they barely have enough to be worth subscribing to for one month per year.

  • On the post: The Sky Is Rising 2024 Edition: Rather Than Destroying Culture, The Internet Has Saved The Content Industries

    nerdrage ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2024 @ 08:54am

    that pay tv graph is amazing

    So pay tv is doing as well as ever, despite being hit by catastrophic losses? The cable companies have lost over half their subscribers over the past decade so they must have doubled the cost on the poor suckers who are left: https://www.statista.com/statistics/251268/number-of-pay-tv-households-in-the-us/

  • On the post: San Francisco Bets Big On Surveillance, Blankets City With 400 Automatic License Plate Readers

    nerdrage ( profile ), 19 Jan, 2024 @ 08:58am

    criminals will just steal more cars to use in crimes

    And these cameras will accomplish nothing.

  • On the post: Piracy Is Surging Again Because Streaming Execs Ignored The Lessons Of The Past

    nerdrage ( profile ), 10 Jan, 2024 @ 09:49am

    streaming still hasn't settled into its final form

    Max still isn't available in the UK either due to some contract with Sky (owned by Comcast, a competitor). Disney now has full control of Hulu (again, Comcast was in the way) so as they merge Disney+ and Hulu in the US, I'd expect it to be the same in Canada. They wholly own both, so why not? They didn't want to expand Hulu till now because it would have increased what they had to pay Comcast for their share of Hulu. It's amazing how long this transition is taking.

  • On the post: Piracy Is Surging Again Because Streaming Execs Ignored The Lessons Of The Past

    nerdrage ( profile ), 10 Jan, 2024 @ 09:46am

    Amazon Prime isn't vital

    The way Amazon is going (more ads, sports focus) means my interest in it is going to fall away. I'll keep my Prime subscription till it's time to renew but I think I'll drop it then. You can get free shipping just by waiting to have $35 worth of stuff.

  • On the post: Piracy Is Surging Again Because Streaming Execs Ignored The Lessons Of The Past

    nerdrage ( profile ), 10 Jan, 2024 @ 09:44am

    Easy to get a great deal

    If you don't watch sports, it's very easy to get a ton of content for dirt cheap. Rotate around the platforms 1 at a time. Watch your shows, cancel, move on. Check back in a year. Repeat indefinitely.

  • On the post: Piracy Is Surging Again Because Streaming Execs Ignored The Lessons Of The Past

    nerdrage ( profile ), 10 Jan, 2024 @ 09:43am

    Amazon's ad strategy

    I'm seeing signs that Amazon isn't overjoyed with their content and is switching to a sports-heavy strategy. Ads and sports go together because sports must be watched live and sports fans have gotten used to ads on broadcast anyway. Is there even an ad-free way to watch sports?

  • On the post: Piracy Is Surging Again Because Streaming Execs Ignored The Lessons Of The Past

    nerdrage ( profile ), 10 Jan, 2024 @ 09:38am

    nobody pirates Netflix

    There's a simple solution to piracy: the content makers can stop making content that appeals to pirates and focus on content for those who never pirate anything. This list of top pirated shows is intriguing because Netflix dominates the streaming nelsens list yet there are no Netflix titles here. Why? https://torrentfreak.com/the-last-of-us-is-the-most-pirated-tv-show-of-2023-231225/ The article doesn't state the answer that I think is true: because Netflix has evolved to be female-skewing and most pirates are male. So if you want to end piracy, make content for the ladies. https://deadline.com/2023/12/netflix-viewership-ginny-georgia-female-young-adult-interest-1235680015/ PS why did Netflix evolve to skew female? Probably because they've never bothered with sports (greedy leagues, that's a whole other story). Anyway we're on track to the status quo I've predicted for years: 4 or 5 major streamers and the rest get consolidated out of existence. The big future trend will be the migration of sports finally to streaming, but that's going to be dominated by the huge tech companies - Apple, Amazon, Google - who can afford to outbid others for overpriced sports rights. Disney might try to hang on with ESPN but I think they should just transition out of sports now. Realistically they can't battle the tech giants. Piracy will continue thru this whole process of course. Piracy predates Netflix after all. But the contest will be decided by which services appeal to the most paying customers and if that means they all need to skew female because those are the paying customers, then that might be the end result. Get ready for a lot more Bridgerton type shows.

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