Allthestreams.fm — a necessary evil?
Allthestreams.fm is a brain-child of MSCHF. Let's begin with this excerpt their manifesto:
Netflix has all the Netflix stuff, Disney has all the Disney stuff, and never the twain shall meet. Let’s change that, however briefly.
Whenever media becomes inaccessible, piracy thrives again - from the 1960’s BBC 1-hour limit on pop music, to the iTunes store mp3 tyranny of the 00s. Today, All The Streams comes in response to the fragmentation and walled-garden paradigm that has risen to prominence for online video streaming services.
Allthestreams.fm has subscriptions to 6 major video content streaming providers in the USA. User can just tune into one of the streaming channel and Allthestreams.fm just shows you their curated media playlists across different channels, just like old fashioned radio by leveraging the scales of a radio.
My first reaction was, twas' gonna happen one day. I came to know about this website via a college WhatsApp group and I didn't even bother to take a look thinking of which as another pirating website. This perception was changed when I went through TNW's article and I FINALLY gave it a try.
What I thought to be a serious solution to a problem which we are facing or will face most fiercely on the outbreak of 2021, let's take a look.
Where we at w.r.t. streaming services?
US has prominent video streaming services, such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and a dozen more. As per Statista US has close to 293 million internet users consuming one or other such services. While in India internet users are almost double, which are majorly hooked to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and other local player such as Hotstar, Zee5, ALT etc.
With this growing number of people ready to scavenge internet for content, currently has 1 or 2 subscriptions on an average. With this growing number vast Media Publishing houses, who used to have their majority of content listed with niche player such as Netflix or Hulu wants a bigger piece of pie for themselves.
We already know "Friends" is gonna be leaving Netflix by start of 2021. So all the popular franchises will be ultimately going to their respective owner's streaming platform. Where does that leave us, the end users (scavengers)?
allthestreams.fm to the rescue?
Not quite. My initial thought was this is gonna be a service where user just buys one subscription and then can choose to watch from all these streaming platforms, based on user interest (quite a business idea, right? just like old fashioned cable TV)
All The Streams doesn’t care about user-utility, it doesn’t care about scalability - and it certainly doesn’t care about terms of service! All The Streams is made to revel in platform independence, and to demonstrate how even the most lo-fi hacks can be the equal of giants.
My thoughts:
Last night I tried it on my PC, streaming was terrible, so many delays, video quality - not there, no video player options — just a crafty lil website.
Since I started writing this article last midnight, by the time I'm about to finish, I can see FBI notices flashing over the streaming channel feeds (as it isn't legal per se).
But I love the idea, what it represents.🏴☠️
At a time where “up next” tends to be hot algorithmic garbage, pirate radio offers up the idiosyncracy of human decision across an unrestricted breadth of choice. We’re going to play anything and everything we feel like. We’re going to make a frankensteinian playlist of media that none of these streaming platforms could ever recommend to you because it would cost them the profits of their exclusively-owned content. Sit back and enjoy the ride: like all pirate media offerings, we’re doing this for you.
- allthestreams.fm manifesto
Original article on: https://blog.kushalbhalaik.xyz/allthestreams-fm-a-new/