Posted on 07/20/2021 5:28:34 AM PDT by gattaca
Amazon Web Services delivers almost all filmed media in the United States to your screen of choice. How are they leveraging that power?
When Amazon announced that it would buy mini-major movie studio MGM in an $8.45 billion deal, I surmised that the real goal here was to raise the cost of acquiring filmed entertainment for its competitors, making Amazon’s bundled Prime Video option look more attractive. I also nodded to the fact that Amazon is a competitor in streaming video and theatrical movie production, while also being a distribution network for streamers. Amazon also sells other streaming services through its website, and through Fire TV, an Amazon device that makes streaming video available. This simultaneous negotiation and competition can create leverage for Amazon in its dealings with rivals, and moves the company closer to taking a cut out of every economic transaction.
But there’s another side to this: No major streaming service actually delivers its product without the assistance of Amazon. That’s true of the major U.S. movie studios as well. And once you understand the totality of Amazon’s role in entertainment distribution, you begin to see its encroachment into entertainment content in a whole new light.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the market leader in cloud computing services. A large segment of the internet runs on AWS servers (about 32 percent in 2020), and the critical nature of this infrastructure is apparent whenever something goes wrong. When you look just at the digital distribution of video, AWS’s dominance grows even further.
AWS is the back-end provider for Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock, HBO Max, Discovery+, and of course, Amazon Prime.
(Excerpt) Read more at prospect.org ...
Monopoly much?
I still have all my DVDS and several players.
So doesn’t Microsoft Azure offer the same things? Or Google Cloud?
What if I only watch movies and TV shows made before 2020?
Damn Amazon, controlling what I watch! Last week I tried to order the second full season of Maverick. Sold out! Amazon is going to be the gatekeeper on the new hollywierd trash I’m looking to watch, yeah right.
I think this is the least of our worries.
Amazon does not control anything I watch. I don’t “do” Television. I have a whole plethora of my families favorite movies on DVD, CD and VHS, and that is what we watch.
Amazon can go pound sand.
the ‘off’ button ... second only to air conditioning ...
They do, and Google for instance has a huge number of servers supporting YouTube, but in this area AWS delivers cheaper and better than its competitors.
Google has 7 US data centers. AWS has 27. That means your video is closer to the consumer and can be delivered faster and cheaper. Everyone goes to AWS, letting them build even more data centers.
They have the power to censor what is on their servers. Remember Parler? Amazon also removed the documentary Created Equal on Justice Clarence Thomas during Black History month. They control 83% of the book market. They banned a book critical of transgenders.
“...Amazon also removed the documentary ‘Created Equal’ on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, during Black History month...”
Did ya hear ONE single peep out of minority communities in America?
That is shameful!
And today I’m cancelling our Amazon Prime.
"There's also a button that says 'Brightness' but it doesn't seem to work." - Gallagher
This is why I keep trying to drum it into the heads of friends and family, if you can’t physically hold it, you may never be able to watch it again. DVD or digital files, great, streaming? Not so much.
Yup
And YouTube where most people watch videos and video clips and even older movies, runs on Google cloud, not on Amazon.
Now of course, I don’t doubt those three collude together on some things.
Never had any delays streaming videos from YouTube. All this talk of “streaming faster” and what not...does anyone even notice the difference?
Not to ment6n Google and Microsoft are richer than Amazon is, with much more profits. And Microsoft has been closing in on Amazon in cloud market share over the past 10 years.
No they don’t. I don’t watch anything other than my politically incorrect DVD collection.
Why, that's un-AmericanAmazon. I watch TCM and old movies.
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