On Streaming
The other day I was thinking about the current video streaming landscape. It seems like a new service sprouts up every week: Peacock, Paramount+, HBO Max (and is that separate from regular HBO?).
I decided to do a little research into the subject and found some pretty fascinating insights.
How Has the Pandemic Impacted Streaming?
Like many people, I relied on streaming TV shows to get me through those first few months of the pandemic. Most people I talked to were either “binge watching” old favorites like The Office or trying out new (and horrifying) shows like Tiger King.
According to data from more than 24,000 users, the average Netflix account has streamed 1,130 hours. That's 47 days of content!
And that's just on Netflix.
Even more surprising, a study conducted by NPD found that the average user has 7 streaming services. This is up from 5 in April 2020.
At first I thought these numbers were too high to be true, but we have five services (that I can think of) in our household.
A Growing Business Model
Not surprisingly, being a streaming provider is a profitable business. Year over year, the video streaming market has grown by 12% (and is projected to do so through 2027).
I personally zone out when it comes to financial analysis, so I found this infographic from VisualCapitalist helped paint the picture:
New Problems = New Ways to Hack People
So what if you forgot about one of your seven(!) streaming services? While many will happily keep billing you month-over-month, others will reach out if you've not logged in for a while.
It's a pattern that some criminals have gone through great (read: unnecessary) lengths to exploit. Research security firm ProofPoint identified an elaborate scam in which hackers made a fake video site (complete with fake movie posters) to dupe users into calling a support line and ultimately load malware on their computer:
Even if you're not into #security, the article is worth a browse for the fake movie posters. My favorite is Dog: woof.
Final Thoughts
One thing I'm curious about: why is the music industry handled differently?
If I want to listen to a song, I can usually find it find it on Spotify, YouTube Music, etc. But if I want to watch a show I have to consult a ouija board to figure out what new app I need to download just for that show.
Let me know if you have any thoughts about it. I'm also brand new to this blogging thing and I welcome feedback. I don't have comments here, but you can connect with me on Mastodon: @zstix@fosstodon.org.
PS: this post is my start for #100DaysToOffload – wish me luck!