Lightbox One year free subscription warning / discussion

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2130 posts

Uber Geek

#1546150 3-May-2016 16:41

mattwnz:

Hasn't premier league now gone to another provider? But certainly a good idea. Almost like a freemium model. Even charging for premium shows could be an idea, although I imagine that would put a lot of people off. With this sort of thing, it is all about getting the customer numbers up, even if run at a loss for several years. This is how many successful SaaS providers have built their business.

Hmm, I don't know if it would put people off altogether. If the main content was free, but HBO shows like Game Of Thrones were paid, I could see people maybe wanting to pay a reasonable sub for a promptly-screened season of that rather than having to subscribe to an entire Sky package just to see it.

I'd love a service where you could pick from a list of all the TV shows, and they were all priced individually depending on what they were (GOT would be premium content, for example, and the back-catalogue of Time Team would be cheap), and then select exactly which ones you want to have streaming access to, then get billed a monthly sub. If you finish binge-watching something, remove it and pay less next month, or add another show. No limit on how much or little you spend. I'm sure there's probably some enormous pitfall that I'm overlooking, but I could get behind a service like that. The problem with most of them is you have to buy a whole service or at least a whole channel and end up with content you didn't want, or you have to buy the content outright at a higher cost, or rent it and be limited to how quickly you need to watch it.

Geek girl. Freelance copywriter and editor at Unmistakable.co.nz.

ockel

2031 posts

Uber Geek

#1546151 3-May-2016 16:43

mattwnz:

ockel:

trig42:

I think an opportunity for Lightbox lies in NZ content. And Sport.

How they do that, and how much it will cost? I don't know, but imagine if they picked up the online rights for Rugby (or perhaps, just overseas rugby for a start), or the league, or Netball or cricket? I'm sure Sky has them all locked up tighter than the proverbial, but if they could nab one of them and do a good job of it...

Yeah, maybe they can start with:

English Premier League
PGA Golf
French rugby (Top 14).
ROTFLMAO.

Hasn't premier league now gone to another provider? But certainly a good idea. Almost like a freemium model. Even charging for premium shows could be an idea, although I imagine that would put a lot of people off. With this sort of thing, it is all about getting the customer numbers up, even if run at a loss for several years. This is how many successful SaaS providers have built their business.

I think my point was that Lightbox has tried this already. Given that all Spark subscribers got Lightbox free for 12 months - and it seems very few bothered to add-on the sports - the concept has tried and got no traction.

French Rugby - was "coming back in 2015" and never returned even at $5/mth that it was.

PGA Golf - European Tour got canned and although the PGA Tour is still on LightboxSport you've got ask whats going to happen when that contract expires.

Premier League - LightboxSports (a JV with Spark) didnt want to front up to renew it even though the price inflation on the content was minimal compared to other markets. If Spark were keen to add sports then renewing this wouldve been a no-brainer. Clearly didnt get enough subscribers to warrant it.

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

ockel

2031 posts

Uber Geek

#1546163 3-May-2016 16:49

littleheaven:

mattwnz:

Hasn't premier league now gone to another provider? But certainly a good idea. Almost like a freemium model. Even charging for premium shows could be an idea, although I imagine that would put a lot of people off. With this sort of thing, it is all about getting the customer numbers up, even if run at a loss for several years. This is how many successful SaaS providers have built their business.

Hmm, I don't know if it would put people off altogether. If the main content was free, but HBO shows like Game Of Thrones were paid, I could see people maybe wanting to pay a reasonable sub for a promptly-screened season of that rather than having to subscribe to an entire Sky package just to see it.

I'd love a service where you could pick from a list of all the TV shows, and they were all priced individually depending on what they were (GOT would be premium content, for example, and the back-catalogue of Time Team would be cheap), and then select exactly which ones you want to have streaming access to, then get billed a monthly sub. If you finish binge-watching something, remove it and pay less next month, or add another show. No limit on how much or little you spend. I'm sure there's probably some enormous pitfall that I'm overlooking, but I could get behind a service like that. The problem with most of them is you have to buy a whole service or at least a whole channel and end up with content you didn't want, or you have to buy the content outright at a higher cost, or rent it and be limited to how quickly you need to watch it.

You mean like iTunes, Google, Quickflix (RIP) or EzyFlix (RIP)? Pay-per-view. Would you pay $2.99 or $3.49 for a 45 minute show? Thats what was charged. Even back catalogue movies ranged from $2.99 to $6.99.

You can still get Game of Thrones via Neon. I think its same day. Whats that $20/month? Or $5/episode. Not too dissimilar to the PPV concept in terms of pricing. Main content cant be free - someone has to fund it, either a subscriber or advertising. Theres no such thing as free. Even Spark giving away Lightbox to its subscribers isnt free - its subsidised by Spark. It'd even venture from an accounting perspective that Spark Broadband will be "paying" Lightbox (Spark Ventures) $12.99 per Spark subscriber that takes the service. Not free content - subsidised content.

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

littleheaven

2130 posts

Uber Geek

#1546224 3-May-2016 17:33

ockel:

You mean like iTunes, Google, Quickflix (RIP) or EzyFlix (RIP)? Pay-per-view. Would you pay $2.99 or $3.49 for a 45 minute show? Thats what was charged. Even back catalogue movies ranged from $2.99 to $6.99.

You can still get Game of Thrones via Neon. I think its same day. Whats that $20/month? Or $5/episode. Not too dissimilar to the PPV concept in terms of pricing. Main content cant be free - someone has to fund it, either a subscriber or advertising. Theres no such thing as free. Even Spark giving away Lightbox to its subscribers isnt free - its subsidised by Spark. It'd even venture from an accounting perspective that Spark Broadband will be "paying" Lightbox (Spark Ventures) $12.99 per Spark subscriber that takes the service. Not free content - subsidised content.

But those services you actually bought the item, or rented it for a very limited time, am I correct? I'm thinking more like a pick'n'mix version of Hulu or Netflix but with a wider choice. They only charge around $13NZ a month for the whole shebang, but there's stuff missing. I'd be nice to have a service that had even more content to pick from, but you only ordered and paid for what you wanted to see. If you chose something that cost them very little, like old shows (Buffy comes to mind) then it might be $1 per month to stream it, for argument's sake. Whereas maybe GOT might be $10 per month to stream. The idea being that you could pick 10-20 shows you really wanted to watch and pay maybe $30-$50 a month (depending on what you picked). Like I said, it's probably deeply flawed and would never work, but I would love to be able to do it.

Geek girl. Freelance copywriter and editor at Unmistakable.co.nz.

ockel

2031 posts

Uber Geek

#1546795 4-May-2016 18:51

trig42:

I think an opportunity for Lightbox lies in NZ content. And Sport.

How they do that, and how much it will cost? I don't know, but imagine if they picked up the online rights for Rugby (or perhaps, just overseas rugby for a start), or the league, or Netball or cricket? I'm sure Sky has them all locked up tighter than the proverbial, but if they could nab one of them and do a good job of it...

So Optus has English Premier League soccer at $15/month (not to dissimilar to what PremierLeaguePass pricing for NZ was) but only for Optus customers spending less than $85/mth (spend more you get it for free!). Exclusive to Optus customers to attract new subscribers.

Why didnt Spark offer the same for NZ? Optus spends A$50m/year and makes it exclusive. Spark doesnt want to spend NZD$5m/year to do the same. So either Optus shareholders are swallowing a shareholder lemon or Spark thinks theres no market to attract subscribers in NZ. But gives away general entertainment (not even movies!) to attract/retain subscribers.

Maybe there isnt the opportunity in Sport that you think there is.

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

Oblivian

7297 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#1547462 6-May-2016 09:36

A workmate has just made the comment they think the catalogue is now a fraction what it was when he signed up for the trial initially. Is anyone able to confirm..

Some names such as Torchwood vanished? and 4 pages of sci-fi Genre has been cut back to nearly 2?

If thats the cause.. maybe its a bit of a wool-pull-over

ockel

2031 posts

Uber Geek

#1547485 6-May-2016 09:55

Oblivian:

A workmate has just made the comment they think the catalogue is now a fraction what it was when he signed up for the trial initially. Is anyone able to confirm..

Some names such as Torchwood vanished? and 4 pages of sci-fi Genre has been cut back to nearly 2?

If thats the cause.. maybe its a bit of a wool-pull-over

Most rights tend to be of finite life. Netflix, for example, has 24% less titles than Feb 14 (I think). Lightbox will probably also be learning which content works in terms of viewing and which doesnt (from an economic point of view). Things will ebb and flow in terms of the number of titles. Also in that time the competition for streaming rights has probably increased substantially and the pie might be getting carved up across more players rather than less.

Lemontv keeps regular stats on whats currently available - maybe the webbie for Lemontv has the ability to pull historical catalogue details (or not).

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

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old3eyes

9119 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#1547577 6-May-2016 12:23

ockel:

Oblivian:

A workmate has just made the comment they think the catalogue is now a fraction what it was when he signed up for the trial initially. Is anyone able to confirm..

Some names such as Torchwood vanished? and 4 pages of sci-fi Genre has been cut back to nearly 2?

If thats the cause.. maybe its a bit of a wool-pull-over

Most rights tend to be of finite life. Netflix, for example, has 24% less titles than Feb 14 (I think). Lightbox will probably also be learning which content works in terms of viewing and which doesnt (from an economic point of view). Things will ebb and flow in terms of the number of titles. Also in that time the competition for streaming rights has probably increased substantially and the pie might be getting carved up across more players rather than less.

Lemontv keeps regular stats on whats currently available - maybe the webbie for Lemontv has the ability to pull historical catalogue details (or not).

Just tried this site for a few programs I know . While they come up with some of them it doesn't say who has it. i.e Earth 2 is on Netflix US, It's listed but that's it but no info that's it on anything. 37 Hours is on Lightbox but it's not listed..

Regards,

Old3eyes

PhantomNVD

2619 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1547608 6-May-2016 13:23

old3eyes:

ockel:

Oblivian:

A workmate has just made the comment they think the catalogue is now a fraction what it was when he signed up for the trial initially. Is anyone able to confirm..

Some names such as Torchwood vanished? and 4 pages of sci-fi Genre has been cut back to nearly 2?

If thats the cause.. maybe its a bit of a wool-pull-over

Most rights tend to be of finite life. Netflix, for example, has 24% less titles than Feb 14 (I think). Lightbox will probably also be learning which content works in terms of viewing and which doesnt (from an economic point of view). Things will ebb and flow in terms of the number of titles. Also in that time the competition for streaming rights has probably increased substantially and the pie might be getting carved up across more players rather than less.

Lemontv keeps regular stats on whats currently available - maybe the webbie for Lemontv has the ability to pull historical catalogue details (or not).

Just tried this site for a few programs I know . While they come up with some of them it doesn't say who has it. i.e Earth 2 is on Netflix US, It's listed but that's it but no info that's it on anything. 37 Hours is on Lightbox but it's not listed..

37 hours doesn't show on Lightbox for me, and its not on LemonTV? 37 DAYS on lightbox you mean?

old3eyes

9119 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#1547699 6-May-2016 16:11

PhantomNVD:

old3eyes:

ockel:

Oblivian:

A workmate has just made the comment they think the catalogue is now a fraction what it was when he signed up for the trial initially. Is anyone able to confirm..

Some names such as Torchwood vanished? and 4 pages of sci-fi Genre has been cut back to nearly 2?

If thats the cause.. maybe its a bit of a wool-pull-over

Most rights tend to be of finite life. Netflix, for example, has 24% less titles than Feb 14 (I think). Lightbox will probably also be learning which content works in terms of viewing and which doesnt (from an economic point of view). Things will ebb and flow in terms of the number of titles. Also in that time the competition for streaming rights has probably increased substantially and the pie might be getting carved up across more players rather than less.

Lemontv keeps regular stats on whats currently available - maybe the webbie for Lemontv has the ability to pull historical catalogue details (or not).

Just tried this site for a few programs I know . While they come up with some of them it doesn't say who has it. i.e Earth 2 is on Netflix US, It's listed but that's it but no info that's it on anything. 37 Hours is on Lightbox but it's not listed..

37 hours doesn't show on Lightbox for me, and its not on LemonTV? 37 DAYS on lightbox you mean?

Yes I meant 37 Days. I was typing in the wrong name. Not a bad mini series..

Regards,

Old3eyes

jmh

458 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1547712 6-May-2016 16:56

littleheaven:

ockel:

You mean like iTunes, Google, Quickflix (RIP) or EzyFlix (RIP)? Pay-per-view. Would you pay $2.99 or $3.49 for a 45 minute show? Thats what was charged. Even back catalogue movies ranged from $2.99 to $6.99.

You can still get Game of Thrones via Neon. I think its same day. Whats that $20/month? Or $5/episode. Not too dissimilar to the PPV concept in terms of pricing. Main content cant be free - someone has to fund it, either a subscriber or advertising. Theres no such thing as free. Even Spark giving away Lightbox to its subscribers isnt free - its subsidised by Spark. It'd even venture from an accounting perspective that Spark Broadband will be "paying" Lightbox (Spark Ventures) $12.99 per Spark subscriber that takes the service. Not free content - subsidised content.

But those services you actually bought the item, or rented it for a very limited time, am I correct? I'm thinking more like a pick'n'mix version of Hulu or Netflix but with a wider choice. They only charge around $13NZ a month for the whole shebang, but there's stuff missing. I'd be nice to have a service that had even more content to pick from, but you only ordered and paid for what you wanted to see. If you chose something that cost them very little, like old shows (Buffy comes to mind) then it might be $1 per month to stream it, for argument's sake. Whereas maybe GOT might be $10 per month to stream. The idea being that you could pick 10-20 shows you really wanted to watch and pay maybe $30-$50 a month (depending on what you picked). Like I said, it's probably deeply flawed and would never work, but I would love to be able to do it.

Be good for someone like me who watches a lot of those pet rescue and property programmes that must be cheap. I also don't feel the need to watch the latest version, so can wait till it's cheaper.

My suggested model would be more like, you pay $5 per supplier and subscribe to programmes of certain types. Eg documentaries, nature, soaps, films, UKTV. You might subscribe to 3 or 4 different categories which would cost $15 - $20. I liked Acorn TV which was around $US5 pm, but couldn't get it to steam properly. It offers UK, NZ and Australian series and features.

ElectronicFerret

125 posts

Master Geek

#1566846 7-Jun-2016 09:02

Glad to see I'm not the only one, I've just (yesterday) been charged $12.99 for the service and had no warning that the free period ran out.

Lightbox support categorically said that I failed to cancel my subscription and "it is your responsibility to maintain your account and cancel if you do not wish to be charged"

I can't dispute it with my bank as I signed up to the service.

I guess I just put the $13 down to a lesson in dealing with Spark. I've been on VoIP for over a year, so as a rule they don't get any of my money

mattwnz

20152 posts

Uber Geek

#1576681 19-Jun-2016 18:20

ElectronicFerret:

Glad to see I'm not the only one, I've just (yesterday) been charged $12.99 for the service and had no warning that the free period ran out.

Lightbox support categorically said that I failed to cancel my subscription and "it is your responsibility to maintain your account and cancel if you do not wish to be charged"

I can't dispute it with my bank as I signed up to the service.

I guess I just put the $13 down to a lesson in dealing with Spark. I've been on VoIP for over a year, so as a rule they don't get any of my money

They reassured me that I would be contacted prior to being billed, when the free sub was about to end., so there would be no nasty bill shock So I would escalate it up to their management to sort it out. Claiming the fine print to get out of refunding it, isn't good service, and doesn't override an assurance. They will probably claim they emailed you but it got caught in their spam folder. I also didn't get any warning email so I don't think with system is working properly, and they have had other bugs. But they then gave all Spark customers a free subscription for the life of their plan, so resigned up again.

Now I am unable to use my subscription because all the devices have been used up. Their system has a bug that whenever windows updates itself, it uses up one of the devices. So I have a whole lot of PC Computers detected, for a single PC. So I have emailed them, but they look to be closed during the weekend, as no reply. They are going to have to sort these things out if it is going to compete.

gzt

17118 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1576730 19-Jun-2016 20:24

It's been a while since I looked at that but don't you have the ability to delete devices yourself? I'm sure I did that..

PhantomNVD

2619 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1576744 19-Jun-2016 20:42

Right here on GZ:

"The 5 device restriction isn't really the problem, it is the 30 days restriction of only being able to delete one device per month."

http://m.geekzone.co.nz/Forums/171/Topic/165608

And on lightbox this is confirmed, delete one device per month, and name each device as you add them to keep track.

https://help.lightbox.co.nz/#/howto/manage-my-devices

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