Streaming TV is having an existential crisis, and viewers can tell
washingtonpost.comI hadn't thought about this from the creators' perspective.
I'd have a super hard time being passionate about something if I had any suspicion that an HBO exec could arbitrarily memoryhole my entire works in an afternoon meeting.
I've seen this with some music too. I observed two different artists get completely erased from the goddamn internet. I still have the ghost in my Spotify playlist, but not a single trace on google, YouTube, etc. I can remember what their music sounds like, but I did not have the foresight to rip it out of Spotify. Absolutely gone without a trace. I'm sure whoever created those tracks was hoping for this outcome...
Ripping content is essential in a streaming world.
I use yt-dlp for any content on YouTube I believe I might want to watch more than once.
Youtube used to have a lot of organic content back when I was in college that people have slowly removed for various reasons. But what made me finally set up yt-dlp was when an artist produced a huge amount of content rapping and singing over other people's beats that put them on my radar and made me interested in their original content. The content was up for at least 2 years and as soon as they released their newest album they went back and deleted all traces of the work they had made in between their album releases.
And the new album sucked as well.
I have a batch file I wrote and use Task Scheduler in Windows to run it every night. I scan all of my favorite youtube channels for content and download any new videos. I also download the subtitle files, which I combine into a master text file for each channel, so that if I want to find a particular video later from something that was said in a video, I can search the master file and find the video where they said it. Took me a couple of hours to set it up and get everything working, but I love it.
I also just grab a whole channel if I come across something new using yt-dlp, because everything that is there is ephemeral and will disappear at any time.
Makes me wonder if there could be a market segment addressable here. If somebody wanted to burn their own CDs nowadays it’s never been cheaper, for instance. Perpetual hosting not so much. But buying a NUC and hosting locally is pretty affordable.
"Glorious streaming future!"
Just wait until some network nits get it trough their heads to try and improve their image, protect their brand or some stupidity and suddenly the R rated versions of movies new and old go poof out of existence. We just begun our moronic plowing on ahead with a digital streaming only future and we are already seeing cases of companies being less than intent on keeping even their own media available. (which is literally the EASIEST and CHEAPEST part of the whole streaming concept.. data storage.. literal pennies on the dollar costs)
You will own nothing and like it.. in the most literal sense.
As for the falling sub numbers and such... I have a suggestion.
Start making, buying or financing shows and movies that actual viewers (as in real people who use your service) want to watch, their sensibilities included, and stop making such decisions based off of what market analysts, media/press hacks or social media thinks!