r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • 16d ago

News Apple Losing Over $1 Billion a Year on Streaming Service

https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-losing-over-1-billion-year-streaming-service-information-reports-2025-03-20/
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u/ankercrank 16d ago

It’s a catch-22. People hated paying for cable because they were paying for content they never watched. Then came the splintering of content providers, where suddenly there are endless services and no one can sign up for all of them. Meanwhile there’s on demand services that charge you for individual content in a pay-as-you-go approach…

Realistically, this covers all the possible means of getting content, which suggests customers have all the options they’ve ever demanded, yet aren’t satisfied still.

What’s the ask here? One service that has everything? No competition? That sucks.

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u/TheWorldEndsWithCake 16d ago

 What’s the ask here? One service that has everything?

Seems to work with music. I get the revenue model is different, but from the customer POV when I want to listen to Kidz Bop 420, I want it to be available on Spotify because I pay for that. When I want to watch a film or series, I don’t want to have to hunt for where it’s available, download a new app, sign up for a new subscription, VPN into another region, etc.

It’s inconvenient. Spotify has basically all of the music I would find anywhere else, aside from extremely niche stuff. It’s not so much that the value is bad, but people don’t think “wow, what films will I be able to watch in the dazzling Peacock catalogue” but “ugh, Die Hard isn’t here either?? WTF do I pay for this for”. It feels like being annoyed into paying excess subscriptions (like cable…), in an age where piracy is a better option than ever. 

All of the greedy, license-holding piggies want a piece of the pie, which is why we saw a dozen streaming services be born and die since Netflix came on the stage. It’s not unreasonable consumers, but unreasonable producers. 

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u/ankercrank 16d ago edited 16d ago

I’m pretty sure unless regulation forces content to not be “exclusive”, we won’t see this change. The biggest issue is the streaming services are creating their own content. It’s a bit like movie theaters owning the production studios. Unless that’s forbidden by law, I don’t see how this changes.

Streaming services are all basically the same, which is why they started producing exclusive content for their own platforms.

Why won't this be regulated? The same reason you only find Kirkland products at Costco, they exist to help get people in the door.

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u/m2thek 16d ago

"Seems to work with music" for everyone but the actual artists

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u/Valance23322 16d ago

There's more money than ever going to musicians, it's just being divided amongst way more musicians than it used to be.

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u/rawonionbreath 16d ago

That’s because streaming music massively devalued an artists catalogue from what it was 25 years ago.

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u/Valance23322 16d ago

It's because the barrier to entry is much lower, so you have way more people making and distributing music. Back in the day if you couldn't get a record deal and/or radio play you were pretty much limited to tiny live music venues.

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u/rawonionbreath 16d ago

It’s also because most music that wasn’t on the radio was paid for.

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u/cherry_chocolate_ 16d ago

Spotify for a year costs as much as 100 singles. People are paying as much as the high end of iTunes users were a decade ago, so if anything we pay more now. The fact is that obscure artists weren’t making a living off of CDs, they weren’t making a living off of digital downloads, and they aren’t making a living today. That sucks, but it’s better for small artists than ever. Anyone can be on the same platform as the biggest artists, so they have a chance to be discovered. Meanwhile, no small filmmaker can just decide to publish to Netflix.

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u/Meraka 15d ago

Yeah because I’m sure people like The Weeknd are certainly hurting from Spotify not giving him even higher royalties.

It is insanely easier now to have your music be heard than it was 30 years ago. Back then if you didn’t land a record deal fast your music career ended. Nowadays, any random fuck can build fans through streaming services and YouTube. You people spend too much time listening to already insanely rich artists like snoop doggs dumbass whining about not being paid enough from Spotify.

The proof is in the fucking pudding. Point me to any even mid level artist and I’ll show you a millionaire.

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u/rawonionbreath 16d ago

Since you mention Spotify, look how the music industry is doing for content creators.

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u/m2thek 16d ago

The ask is that consumers are always going to want "everything" while paying as little as they possibly can. So yes, I think most people would want 1 service for $1/month, with every movie and TV show that's ever been made in the history of civilization, even though that's a completely unrealistic thing to get.

I agree with you, the current model should leave functionally no gaps: "I want to watch X. Is it on the 2-3 streaming services I subscribe to? No -> Is it digitally rentable for like $5? -> Most likely. If not, it's probably obscure enough that I'm willing to track down a physical copy." But there's still endless complaining.

This is probably just amplified by idiots on the internet, but I just keep getting the feeling that most people don't actually value art and don't think they should have to pay for it.

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u/0neek 16d ago

The way TV networks work makes it impossible for there to ever be a good way to do it. Look at music: Everyone can just put any music on their platform so the real competition is what platform is best. Same with video games. There's a billion website all selling video games but Steam has 99% of the market because their platform is simply better.

If you could get any TV show / movie on any streaming service and it only came down to who has the best platform, then maybe you'd finally start seeing a single goddamn streaming app that doesn't suck from a technical point of view. Maybe one would have a decent search system.

The HBO streaming service can't even handle multiple profiles lmfao

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u/ankercrank 16d ago

There’s no gaming pr music platform that has everything though, there are still plenty of exclusives.

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u/ramxquake 16d ago

Most people are satisfied, don't listen to the vocal minority on Reddit.

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u/rawonionbreath 16d ago

Many consumers are idiots and just want wide reaching commercial free entertainment on-demand for a very low price or no cost at all. They don’t understand that Netflix was in the red and the studios had other revenue streams when the Starz deal was dirt cheap.