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Originally Posted by fjtorres
They can't.
For the same reason Amazon has APub and uses KU to feature Indies: if you are solely a distributor of others' content you are at the mercy of their whims (and conspiracies).
Note that Disney is pulling all their movies and series off Netflix and starting *two* streaming services. WB is also starting their own streaming service later this year. Last year, the CW pulled their shows off Hulu in favor of their own ad-supported free service.
The media companies see Netflix raking in all the money and believe that as owners of the content they should get a bigger cut of the subscription fees. Or all of it.
That is why Amazon has been investing in products they actually control and not merely distribute for others; books, movies, and hardware. The future is not going to be kind to middlemen and the creator-to-consumer chain will not tolerate many links.
Disintermediation is a threat to everybody: Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Fox, WB, AT&T...
The only defense is to own enough of the product to survive. So Disney buys Fox, AT&T buys TimeWarner, and Amazon owns APub and Kindle Unlimited to minimize their exposure to BPH hijinks.
And everybody who can builds a library of exclusive content.
Its a survival requirement.
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That may be the way that the content providers see things, but long term it's not going to work. People simply don't want to go to a bunch of different sites just to find a movie to watch. The record companies tried it, and it didn't work.
Right now, there are a couple of companies who are trying to be aggregators (Tivo and Apple) who will find the content on the different sites for you, but you still have to have a subscription and the costs really start to mount if you subscribe to more than a couple of sites.
Eventually, as these various sites fail, content providers will start to realize that they actually had a pretty good deal with Netflix and Hulu.