All roads lead to cable
All roads lead to cable
条条大路通有线电视
In their fight to win the war for our attention, streamers are re-creating cable from first principles. 在争夺我们注意力的战争中，流媒体平台正从基本原理出发，重新构建有线电视。
How it started
起源
Before Netflix fully committed to becoming a streaming service and leaving DVDs behind, the company experimented with the idea of giving its subscribers a physical box that could access high-resolution digital copies of movies. Films would have been downloaded to the box in the evening and become available to users the next day. But Netflix changed course around 2006 once it saw people were flocking to watch grainy viral videos on YouTube. Though Netflix had already been making waves by disrupting the movie rental business, pivoting to streaming turned the company into a powerhouse that posed a threat to traditional cable services. 在 Netflix 全力转型为流媒体服务并放弃 DVD 业务之前，该公司曾尝试过一个想法：为订阅用户提供一个物理机顶盒，用于访问高清数字电影。电影会在夜间下载到机顶盒中，用户次日即可观看。但到了 2006 年左右，Netflix 看到人们纷纷涌向 YouTube 观看画质粗糙的病毒式视频，于是改变了方向。尽管 Netflix 此前已通过颠覆电影租赁业务引起了轰动，但转向流媒体使其成为了对传统有线电视服务构成威胁的行业巨头。
People loved being able to instantly access large catalogs of movies from their computers without having to sign up for expensive cable plans. Once the company got into original series in 2012, its binge model helped generate buzz and drive new sign-ups. As Netflix’s user base continued to grow in those early years, other companies, like Amazon, Disney, and NBC, realized there was money to be made by launching (or contributing to) streaming services of their own. And while cable didn’t completely disappear as streaming took off, the number of people subscribed to cable plans began (and has continued) to drop over the past decade. 人们喜欢能够直接从电脑上即时访问海量电影库，而无需订阅昂贵的有线电视套餐。2012 年，当该公司开始涉足原创剧集时，其“刷剧”模式（binge model）成功引发了热议并带动了新用户的注册。随着 Netflix 在早期的用户群不断增长，亚马逊、迪士尼和 NBC 等其他公司意识到，推出（或参与）自己的流媒体服务有利可图。虽然流媒体的兴起并没有让有线电视完全消失，但在过去十年里，订阅有线电视的人数已经开始（并将持续）下降。
How it’s going
现状
Streaming is now the most common way that people consume films and television, and many people subscribe to multiple services in order to be able to access all of the things they want to watch. The proliferation of streaming services has led to an explosion of media, but the streaming market’s maturation has also made it much more difficult for companies to find and keep new subscribers. 流媒体现在已成为人们消费影视作品最常见的方式，许多人为了能观看所有想看的内容，会同时订阅多个服务。流媒体服务的激增带来了媒体内容的爆发，但流媒体市场的成熟也使得公司获取和留住新用户的难度大大增加。
Platforms have tried to get ahead of that issue and stay on top of their finances with countless price hikes that have made it much more expensive to keep up with shows compared to when streamers first hit the scene. In hopes of courting more price-sensitive customers, many companies have introduced ad-supported tiers to their paid services. But some have also launched free ad-supported television (FAST) services that look and feel a lot like traditional cable. 各大平台试图通过无数次的涨价来应对这一问题并维持财务状况，这使得追剧的成本比流媒体刚出现时高出了许多。为了吸引对价格更敏感的客户，许多公司在付费服务中引入了广告支持层级。但也有一些公司推出了免费广告支持电视（FAST）服务，其外观和体验与传统有线电视非常相似。
Unlike regular streamers where constant ads and endless choices have become an annoyance, FAST services like Tubi, Roku, and Pluto TV keep things relatively simple. In exchange for watching a few commercials, users can browse through entertainment libraries or choose to focus on channels that are dedicated to specific series. When you look at the way that most FAST services present their channels in long lists, it’s easy to get the sense that they’ve been intentionally designed to mimic old cable interfaces. That might speak to entertainment executives beginning to think that icon-dense carousels aren’t necessarily the best way to show off a streamer’s offerings. It could also be a sign that viewers have grown weary of the algorithms streamers use to suggest what content to watch. But it also feels like as the streaming wars have carried on, newer companies realized that the old guard got a few things right. 与普通流媒体平台中无休止的广告和无穷的选择令人烦恼不同，Tubi、Roku 和 Pluto TV 等 FAST 服务保持了相对的简洁。用户只需观看少量广告，即可浏览娱乐库或选择专注于特定剧集的频道。当你观察大多数 FAST 服务以长列表形式呈现频道的方式时，很容易感觉到它们是刻意设计成模仿旧式有线电视界面的。这可能说明娱乐业高管们开始意识到，密集的图标轮播并不一定是展示流媒体内容的最佳方式。这也可能表明观众已经厌倦了流媒体用来推荐内容的算法。但同时也让人感觉，随着流媒体战争的持续，新兴公司意识到老牌巨头确实在某些方面做对了。
What happens next
未来展望
Because people still want to keep up with all of the new stuff coming out of the paid streamers without having to individually sign up for every service, we’re probably going to see even more bundling in the future. Bundling gives consumers a way to save money on their entertainment budgets, and almost every single one of the major streaming companies has offered some kind of deal that gives you access to one or more of their competitors. Similar to FAST channels, streaming bundles are reminiscent of the tiered cable packages telecoms sell, and some companies, like Verizon and T-Mobile, include access to streaming bundles as perks for their subscribers. 由于人们仍然希望跟上付费流媒体平台推出的所有新内容，却又不想为每个服务单独付费，我们未来可能会看到更多的捆绑销售。捆绑销售为消费者节省娱乐预算提供了一种途径，几乎每一家大型流媒体公司都提供某种优惠，让你能够访问其竞争对手的服务。与 FAST 频道类似，流媒体捆绑包让人想起电信公司销售的分级有线电视套餐，而 Verizon 和 T-Mobile 等一些公司甚至将流媒体捆绑访问权作为给订阅用户的福利。
More individual streaming platforms will likely roll out always-on channels that are designed to give people a way to watch certain series without having to choose a particular episode for themselves. For services like HBO Max, that would be almost like a return to the way HBO’s various channels air on terrestrial television. In addition to helping viewers deal with decision paralysis, always-on channels could also help streaming services ensure that user engagement stays high. And if every streamer in the game decides that paywalled always-on channels, bundles, and even more price increases are the way forward, it’s really going to feel like we’ve come full circle back to cable. 更多的独立流媒体平台可能会推出“全天候频道”（always-on channels），旨在让人们无需自己挑选特定剧集即可观看某些系列节目。对于像 HBO Max 这样的服务来说，这几乎就像是回到了 HBO 各个频道在地面电视上的播出方式。除了帮助观众解决选择困难症外，全天候频道还能帮助流媒体服务确保用户的高参与度。如果游戏中的每个流媒体平台都认为付费的全天候频道、捆绑销售和进一步涨价是未来的方向，那么我们真的会感觉又绕了一大圈，回到了有线电视时代。