Matthew Ball has become notable in tech circles over the past few years for his writing on emerging technology trends and the metaverse. In this ‘mini-book’ he has put together a full account of the emergence of online streaming. The book is broken into four parts and is all available for free on this website.
The first part introduces the book and the “streaming wars”. Then the following three parts track the three phases of this industry as Ball sees it. Firstly, access-based competition which was the era that Netflix pioneered by establishing online video streaming as a way to access content. Then there was content-based competition, the era that we are in now where there are a number of streaming competitors trying to win and retain customers with the quality of their content. Over time, Ball thinks we will enter a third era of this industry – platform-based competition.
Platform-based competition will be an era where these streaming companies use their video platforms to sell a whole lot of other products and services. Standalone streaming services won’t survive, instead a streaming service will anchor a larger platform. It is early days, but we are seeing signs of it. Disney+ is selling merchandise related to shows, Netflix has launched a fitness service and is experimenting with games, and Amazon’s Prime Video is promoting its other platforms like Twitch. For the streaming platforms, this may be the answer to one of their longest running challenges – very few of them have found a way to turn a profit.
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