streaming services essay

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Essay: The Future of Streaming Services

Is Netflix’s recent subscriber loss the beginning of the downfall of streaming? I recall one time my friend and I were watching TV at my house, and we decided to watch “Everybody Hates Chris” on Hulu. When I clicked it and an ad came up, she looked at me in bewilderment and asked why I had ads. I told her I had the student Spotify premium plan that comes with an ad supported Hulu plan, and Showtime, and I would rather have ads on Hulu. She then asked why I would keep ads on Hulu, and that I might as well watch cable. As someone who grew up watching cable television and liked it, I never understood why people didn’t like it. It wasn’t until streaming came along that I saw the potential in ad-free streaming; especially services that allow more creativity than a cable network. Although streaming has become a dominant figure in film and television, it has started to come down from its climax. Recently, Netflix has reported a loss of 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022, resulting in their stock plunging, and are expected to lose 2 million more subscribers. Netflix is now offering a cheaper, ad-supported plan as a result. With Netflix turning to ad-supported streaming, along with other services, what does that mean for the future of streaming? To understand the future of streaming, we have to look at how streaming began. Before streaming services were the norm, Netflix and Hulu were the main players in the field. Netflix and Hulu would pay studios to license their TV shows and movies to stream on their platforms. This is how we were able to watch Marvel, Star Wars, DC, and a plethora of other shows and movies on one service. This was the standard model until one company started to change the media industry forever. In 2009 Disney acquired Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm in 2012, resulting in one of the biggest media monopolies. Then, in 2019, Disney Studios bought 21st Century Fox for $71.3 billion dollars, making it one of the biggest media mergers ever. With Disney acquiring so many intellectual properties (IP), in addition to their already well established library, they knew they could make their own streaming service and gain a lot of money from it; and they have since they are expected to begin turning a profit in fiscal 2024 according to the company’s quarterly earnings report . Many other channels and companies also saw the potential in taking back their IPs and creating their own services, thus spreading all the content we love across different platforms. But isn’t that just cable television? The main appeal of streaming services when they first came out was that it was different and better than cable. Many people liked the idea of being able to watch what they wanted without ads. With the rise of popular television shows being available to binge all at once with no ads came the solution to many people’s problems with cable. However, with streaming services like Hulu, HBO Max, Peacock, and now Netflix adding ad-supported subscriptions, streaming is becoming the new cable. Streaming services still offer many things that cable doesn’t that differentiates it from that model. Although cable television still airs great shows like “Better Call Saul,” “Abbott Elementary,” and “Atlanta,” creators still have to follow heavy restrictions whereas creators that work with streaming platforms tend to have more creative freedom and bigger budgets than creators who make network television. According to The Wall Street Journal, Netflix spent $30 million on each episode of Stranger Things’s upcoming season 4, which is much more than the average cable show costs. Streaming services also have a plethora of options to choose from so that you always have something to watch, on the other hand with cable you are forced to watch whatever programming they have on. However, to be able to enjoy these services ad free, you have to pay a fee that’s not always feasible. Even though streaming platforms still have an edge over cable, the line separating the two becomes thinner and thinner as time goes on. However, it is not only the ads that are blurring the lines between cable and streaming. The main issue is the fact that different companies and studios are creating their own streaming services, making it harder to house everything in one spot. A part of streaming services’ downfall is that the market is oversaturated with them. As of right now there are almost 50 streaming services available in North America, and many of our favorite shows and movies are spread out across these platforms. Before, if I wanted to watch one of my favorite comedy shows, I could head to Netflix because they had shows such as “Friends,” “The Office,” “Parks and Recreation,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” Now, “Friends” is on HBO Max, “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation” are on Peacock, and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” are on Hulu. Since more studios and companies are taking back the rights to their content to create their own platform, you have to pay for different services in order to access all the content you want. The cost of multiple streaming services is about on par to the cost of cable, not making it any more cost effective. The new model of how we watch TV on streaming is starting to change as well. Netflix can be credited for starting the binge-watching model we all have been accustomed to recently. Before, we would all binge watch the latest season of “Stranger Things” in a day, but now with Disney+ and HBO Max, releasing their shows week by week, people tend to stay engaged longer and the popularity of their shows grows as the show premieres. So does this mean the end of Netflix, and by extension streaming services? Not at all. Streaming is here to stay for the foreseeable future, due to their popularity and wide access to TV shows and movies we want to see. Disney+ is still seeing massive success due to their collection of Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar content. Even though it doesn’t look like they are going anywhere, they will have to start implementing changes to their model and fees if they plan on keeping the subscribers they still have. Not evolving to keep up with their audience will result in the steady decline of the streaming model, and to ensure that won’t happen, they will have to listen and adapt accordingly. Although many are complaining about Netflix’s tendency to cancel shows and then increase their price right after, many still prefer Netflix and streaming over cable TV. While Netflix still arguably remains top of the game, if they don’t acclimate to this new playing field, it will only be a matter of time before they get left behind. Image courtesy of Vox

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Rizwan Khan • Aug 30, 2023 at 1:45 am

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The Impact of Streaming Services on the Movie Industry

Transforming entertainment as we know it.

1) Disrupting Traditional Distribution Channels: Streaming services have disrupted the traditional distribution model of movies, challenged the dominance of theaters and altering the way films reach audiences. This shift has both positive and negative implications.

a) Theaters vs. Streaming: The rise of streaming services has led to a decline in theater attendance. According to the Motion Picture Association, global theater attendance dropped by 4% in 2021, partly due to the availability of films on streaming platforms. The convenience and affordability of streaming services have attracted viewers to opt for at-home entertainment.

b) Direct-to-Streaming Releases: Streaming services have provided an alternative distribution channel for filmmakers. Rather than navigating the challenges of securing theater releases, independent and niche films can find a platform and audience through streaming services. This has resulted in greater diversity and access to a broader range of content.

2) Changing Business Models: Streaming services have introduced new business models that challenge the traditional revenue streams of the movie industry. These changes come with their own set of benefits and challenges.

b) Revenue Sharing: Unlike traditional models where studios received a significant share of box office revenue, streaming services typically license content from studios and production companies. The revenue-sharing model in streaming can be less predictable and potentially less lucrative for content creators.

3) Impact on Filmmakers and Content Creation: The rise of streaming services has affected the film industry and content creators in several ways, influencing production decisions, creative freedom, and financial stability.

a) Changing Creative Landscape: Streaming platforms often prioritize serialized content and binge-worthy series over standalone films. As a result, filmmakers are increasingly drawn to long-form storytelling or episodic formats, impacting the diversity and scope of movie production.

b) Financial Challenges: Traditional funding models for films relied on theatrical releases and box office performance. Streaming platforms have different financial structures, impacting the revenue potential for filmmakers and potentially affecting the budgets and scale of their projects.

4) Challenges and Potential Solutions: While streaming services have brought about significant changes, challenges remain that need to be addressed to ensure a sustainable and thriving movie industry.

a) Revenue Transparency: Content creators and filmmakers often face challenges in understanding how revenue is generated and distributed by streaming platforms. Increased transparency in revenue sharing and reporting mechanisms would allow for better negotiations and a fairer distribution of profits.

b) Compensation for Creators: As streaming services continue to expand their libraries; creators are grappling with fair compensation for their work. Developing standardized royalty rates and ensuring equitable compensation for artists would help support the creation of high-quality content.

c) Supporting Independent Filmmakers: Streaming services can play a crucial role in supporting independent filmmakers and promoting diverse voices. Dedicated initiatives, funding opportunities, and curated sections for independent films on streaming platforms would encourage the production and discovery of unique content.

• Motion Picture Association. (2022). Theatrical and Home Entertainment Market Environment Report 2021. [Link: https://www.motionpictures.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/MPA_2021-Theatrical-and-Home-Entertainment-Market-Environment-Report.pdf ]
• Barnes, B. (2021). Streaming’s Once-Inevitable Future Is Suddenly in Doubt. The New York Times. [Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/business/media/streaming-movies-pandemic.html ]
• Gaudreau, J., & Akindele, A. (2021). The Impact of Streaming Services on the Entertainment Industry: A Case Study of Netflix. International Journal of Business and Applied Social Science, 7(7), 50-62.
• Smith, R. (2022). Disruption in the Film Industry: Streaming, Subscription, and Revenue Models. Journal of Film and Video, 74(3), 25-39.
• Madrigal, A. C. (2020). Streaming Killed the Cinema Star: The On-Demand Disruption of the Film and Television Industries. Television & New Media, 21(8), 907-923.

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Thank you for your submission., surprise, delight, and data: the future of streaming services.

• Strategy & Insights
• Industry Solutions

Streaming services have become a greater part of our entertainment diet, with 78% of consumers in the United States using a subscription video-on-demand service (SVOD) in 2021, according to Leichtman Research Group . 

So getting and keeping subscribers has become a spending war . That means whoever among the warring parties keeps a hold of the most subscribers wins. But now customer churn, which is when a person stops using a service, has become a way of life for viewers and a moment of reckoning for media and entertainment companies—and it’s just getting worse.

CHURN RATES Deloitte 37% of users canceled a streaming subscription in the last six months Antenna Average monthly churn for streaming video services reached 5.2% by the end of 2021 Churn is up from 3.2% at the start of 2019 Netflix The bellwether of video streaming services, Netflix, recently announced a big decline in subscribers.

In fact, even as Netflix anticipates fewer subscriptions , streaming services are projected to rise to 1.3 billion by 2024, driven by fresh content offerings from providers such as Paramount+, Discovery+, and Disney+. The research found that 58% of customers buy multiple streaming services, and this trend shows no signs of slowing down. In the U.S., the average number of services per household is four and the average churn rate has remained at about 37% across all paid SVOD services in recent years.

This is a big deal because content is king only insofar as it can carry subscribers along a path that does not simply lead them to what they want, but does so in a manner they enjoy enough to keep them there. There has to be a seamless experience from acquisition to recommendations to content consumption to renewals and ads. 

In the context of today’s streaming ecosystem, we must examine methods of turning churn into retention. We will look at the role of user experience (content organization, search, and other ways of squaring desire with navigation), communication, and the role of data.

Then we’ll take a look at the possible future of streaming. 

The current subscriber ecosystem

The continued expansion of streaming content we spoke of above is not one sided. It is compounded by both expanding consumer and business interests. 

“You currently have a lot of different streaming consumers who are looking for entertainment, they are looking for news, they’re looking for sports, they’re looking for documentaries and nonfiction,” said Bill Stratton, Snowflake Global Lead for Media, Entertainment and Advertising. “They want to be entertained, they want to laugh, they want to be informed, so we’ve seen the streaming industry really grow up around that. You saw Netflix really diving into entertainment initially, but also growing some of that documentary space. You’ve seen Amazon start with entertainment, but then add in things like live NFL games to Amazon Prime.”

This explosion of programming is driven by a need to grow and compete, for companies to overcome the limitations of their initial offerings. It is also driven by an increased awareness that subscribers are jumping to competitors to take advantage of promotions, and as their interests change and evolve. Another challenge is the growing number of options to bundle services together, which can often prevent subscriber churn. This can be problematic, as Stratton notes, because of the need to provide a wide variety of communications to consumers while leaving them feeling their personal information is safe. Consumers expect personalization, but they also demand privacy. This trade-off is a critical part of the future of the business.

“The key is to provide value while protecting privacy, ” said Stratton. 

Yash Chechani, Senior Sales Engineer at Snowflake, describes the ecosystem more literally: “I think users tend to have at least one to two primary services that are their default. Then, for some other content, you might essentially opt in, watch something, and then opt out.”

Content, navigation, communication

“The bottom line is, which service has the most content the viewer wants to watch?” said Chechani. “That to me has proven to be the one aspect that sets a successful streaming media company apart. The problem in this environment is that everybody has their own content. Everybody has their niche, everybody has their content that somebody wants to watch. Do you have enough content to be the primary service for a user?”

Content might be a north star for streaming services, but it is not the only figure in the equation. Another is navigation and user experience. If your main streaming service has the latest popular children’s animated movie but you can’t find it, then in a very real sense, it does not have that movie. 

“I think everyone’s joke is ‘I don’t have an hour to find the movie I want to watch,’” said Cassandra Bruni, Senior Product Manager for Industry Solutions at Snowflake. “It becomes really difficult when you’re inundated with so much choice. We see data as a solution to the challenge of effective navigation and search.”

This is where data comes in

Bruni sees data as a solution as well as a challenge.  

“Data collection really isn’t a problem,” said Bruni. “There’s no shortage of data. It’s the ability to connect that data together. It’s the ability to answer the integral question of data: ‘So what?’ In terms of recommendations, that is a complex question. What people like, when and why they like it, and where they go from here are questions which, if they can be answered, are answered by leveraging a lot of data.”

And that data is not just about viewer content preference. 

There are two pieces of essential data that make up that vast pool of information. First, there’s what you watch and you love—behavior-based data. Another, however, is how a company’s platform performs for the viewer. 

“It’s about providing a comfortable, natural viewing experience without interruption, so that the viewer is completely absorbed in the content environment,” said Stratton. “This means that everything from bit rate to design to ad load all needs to be optimized for the viewing experience.”

The key to slowing down churn starts with delivering on subscriber expectations. Salesforce lists the actions a provider can take to meet those expectations, in the following order: 

• Deliver high-quality content consistently.
• Make it easy to use everywhere.
• Deliver value for the money. 

Surprise and delight

So, in addition to the right content—having what you want to watch—a service must have smart navigation, including an effective data-based recommendation engine, to let you find that content. It must provide that content in a way that does not distract or frustrate. But there’s one more thing a service must have: active communication with its users. 

“Many services have anywhere between 5,000 to 60,000 media artifacts,” said Stratton. “It’s not reasonable to expect consumers to know everything that is in there. By leveraging ML, personalization engines can be built to increase engagement and prevent subscribers from leaving because they can’t find the content they love.”

Bruni notes that a tangible challenge to that is that “past behavior isn’t always a perfect predictor of future behavior. Any personalization engine has to keep in mind that people aren’t machines. And so there needs to be a little bit of room for surprise and delight.”

“Recommendation engines try to predict the next steps you’re going to take in your journey, to understand how your taste is evolving and predict where you may want to go next,” said Stratton. “That’s the textbook way of solving the problem. But there are a lot of different ways to optimize personalization.” 

Organizations could also build an entire personalization machine to deliver the most captivating next steps on their subscribers’ journey. That said, “There is always a balance between human and machine content curation,” Stratton noted. “The most effective personalization efforts involve both.”

The future of streaming

How will streaming look in the future? How will we experience it? 

According to Stratton, bundling across services and creating personalized bundles of content and advertising is one direction the future will take. He also sees an increase in engagement with live content through in-play sports betting and a continued expansion of gamification. Some consumers want to sit back and have a passive experience while others want engagement and activity. One size does not fit all.

Some streaming services are already building games for their platforms, and gaming companies are building games for cloud platforms. 

“Games that were traditionally only on a company’s gaming console are now available on smart TVs,” said Stratton. “As data processing gets more advanced and as the streaming capabilities evolve, you’re going to see gaming less as its own community and more as another genre of entertainment.”

Chechani sees a possibility that, once the technology makes it a smooth experience, customization might become more of a part of personalized story creation and not just story delivery, perhaps in conjunction with VR. 

Thinking about the industry as a whole, Bruni predicts more consolidation. 

“Unfortunately for us all there’s no crystal ball. But, thankfully there are clear market signals for this. I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point we see super-platforms over the top of the consolidation we have already seen. We’ve already started to see it, but I think more is coming,” she said. 

She also believes that consolidation is not going to stop with streaming services. We’ll see more partnerships between streaming and non-streaming entities, such as cellular phone services. 

In the end, as Stratton noted, you cannot quantify art to its last digit, and television and movies are mostly considered art. Those moments in art which are predictable are never the ones that catch people like wind under a bird’s wing. Those require the aforementioned surprise and delight. 

“You can’t always formulate art,” agreed Bruni. “But you can do a really, really good job of using data and technology to help inform what we can do next.”

To learn how Snowflake can enable improved subscriber experiences, click here .

Enabling Data-Driven Subscriber Experience with Snowflake

How Cloud Streaming Services Use Analytics to Attract Subscribers a...

By using data analytics, cloud streaming services can expand their existing subscriber base, boost ad revenue, and produce content that is attractive to consumers.

What Is Generative AI?

Generative AI is transforming the way we live and work, using neural networks and deep learning algorithms to generate original content.

What Is an OTT Platform?

OTT (over-the-top) media services and platforms – aka streaming platforms – have proliferated in recent years, resulting in a flood of new customer data sets.

What Is Data Engineering?

Data engineering describes the process of designing and building various systems for collecting, storing, organizing, and analyzing data from a various sources.

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The Woes of Being Addicted to Streaming

I feel unsettled when I stream music on Spotify. Maybe you feel that way, too. Even though it has all the music I’ve ever wanted, none of it feels necessarily rewarding, emotional, or personal. I pay a nominal fee for this privilege, knowing that essentially none of it will reach the artists I am listening to. I have unfettered access to an abundance of songs I genuinely love, along with an abundance of great songs I’ve never heard before, but I can’t shake the eerie feeling that the options before me are almost too perfect. I have personalized my experience enough to feel like this is my music, but I know that’s not really true—it’s simply a fabricated reality meant to replace the random contours of life outside the app.

The truth is that if you’re using Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, or any other streaming service, you’re not paying for music so much as the opportunity to witness the potential of music. Music becomes an advertisement for the streaming service, and the more time and attention you give it, the more it benefits the tech company, not necessarily the music ecosystem. In Spotify, each song’s play count is prominently displayed, in effect gamifying the music industry so that tracks tacitly compete against one another inside the app. They even go so far as to turn the amount of time you spend in their app into a badge of honor during their annual year-end promotional campaigns. So you’re in the top percentile of Big Thief listeners? That’s not just a measure of your love for an artist’s music , but also a reflection of the time spent enriching the value of a company.

In addition to co-opting corporate social media strategies to benefit from the attention economy, tech companies have inherently made songs fleeting, cheap, and sometimes intrusive , corrupting the cultural exchange between artist and listener. Music is now leased to you through a secret system that you don’t understand, by a company with which you should have no emotional connection. Instead of simply buying a physical product or even pirating music from Napster—both of which created uniquely personal libraries of songs that helped define the identities of a generation—millions of users now sit side by side at the ledge of one great big trough of recorded music for the monthly price of a Chipotle burrito.

There have been many passionate and excoriating essays written about how streaming services have short-changed artists with minuscule payouts. But as the reviews editor of this music publication, I find myself asking: What does a platform like Spotify afford the most engaged music fans and what are the lingering effects of its use? As the independent musician and writer Damon Krukowski once wrote, there are alternative and radical solutions to combat the upstreaming of profits and homogenization of sound that the streaming era has come to stand for. But as one of nearly half a billion people who pay a small fee to rent the vast majority of the history of recorded music—not to mention the 2 billion people per month who use YouTube for free—I have found that, after more than a decade under the influence, it has begun to reshape my relationship with music. I’m addicted to a relationship that I know is very bad for me.

I know I am addicted to Spotify the same way I was addicted to nicotine or Twitter. It makes me happy, aggrieved, needlessly defensive. Oh, you boycott Spotify and only buy CDs on Bandcamp? Good for you. I use Spotify every day for hours on end, when I’m working, at the gym, running, when I want to put some music on while making dinner, when I go to sleep.

I write off part of my Spotify use as a hazard of my job, but I just can’t get enough of that sweet streaming asbestos outside of work, too. Even though I buy a fair amount of records every year, Spotify is my main delivery system for music. It’s like being hooked on rolling papers or the yellowed smell of a casino—not the actual vice itself. The ease, the look, the familiarity—I’m addicted to the emotional labor it does for me when its “Radio” feature instantly creates a playlist of songs that kind of sound like, say, “Breakdown” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers while I’m sitting outside on a nice afternoon. It loosely organizes what I love and what I might love and, for the most part, it’s absolutely correct.

I’ve sometimes rationalized that it is not an unhealthy addiction: I use Spotify in a way that reflects who I am, I bend it to my whims. For the last 10 years, I have kept playlists of favorite songs—both old and new—I discovered each year, a living record of growth and change in taste. I listen to weekly playlists that are made by friends and colleagues and artists, silently connecting with their interests. I’m going beyond the algorithm, operating at a higher frequency, clipping between the walls that cannot contain my taste profile.

The seeds of this addiction were planted in the late 2000s, when the music industry was struggling to adapt to the new digital era, unsure of how to wrap a tourniquet around the vast hemorrhaging of money caused by such a fast-moving paradigm shift. The streaming era as we know it began in an unlikely place, with good intentions: On October 10, 2007, Radiohead released In Rainbows and allowed fans to pay what they wanted for its digital files. After 1.2 million downloads, the average price paid per album was $2.26. Case studies in setting a new market price don’t come in a tidier package than this.

But as free-market and egalitarian as it was, the experiment was meant to motivate fans to go out and buy an actual physical copy of the album. Devised by Radiohead’s managers Bryce Edge and Chris Hufford while they were “a bit stoned,” the pay-what-you-want stunt was a means to an end: “If we didn’t believe that when people hear the music, they will want to buy the CD, we wouldn’t do what we are doing,” Edge said at the time. A lot of Radiohead fans did buy the album when it came out—it sold 122,000 copies in America alone in its first week—but by then, the downloaders outnumbered them by a wide margin. So even though Thom Yorke later described Spotify as “the last desperate fart of a dying corpse,” his band all but invented the model of what would become the streaming era: turning music into an ad that you pay very little for, with no real incentive to go and buy what it is advertising.

Another important shift was happening in 2007. Seeing the writing on the wall, several high-profile artists were abandoning their longtime major labels to find other avenues of distribution: Madonna left Warner to sign with touring giant Live Nation, a bellwether of where the real money was being made in the industry. (JAY-Z would make a similar move the following year.) Nine Inch Nails left music mogul Jimmy Iovine’s label Interscope and independently put out an instrumental album, Ghosts I-IV ; by Trent Reznor’s estimation, the collection made millions more than it would have had they released it with the label.

Into this stew of major label woes—which included the lingering piracy boogeyman—came Spotify. Launched in 2008, the streaming start-up was a direct attempt to both stem piracy and circumvent anti-piracy laws in its native Sweden. In addition to offering a way for online listeners to legally play music, Spotify acquired its user base in markets around the globe because of how easy it was to use. No more paying per song on iTunes, no more navigating the murky waters of P2P servers, no more waiting for albums to download. Here, finally, was a solution: legal music, a lot of it, right now, for cheap.

After officially launching in the U.S. in 2011, Spotify quickly turned into a potential panacea for everything that was ailing the music industry. Two years later, newspapers were asking: Can Spotify Save the Music Industry? A race to market dominance ensued. By 2014, Reznor had mended fences with Iovine and became the chief creative officer of Iovine’s new streaming platform, Beats Music, which wanted to set itself apart from competitors like Spotify and Pandora. Instead of an algorithmic platform that served you what you wanted, its team of curators would provide you with a more human experience. Iovine saw that, through artist and influencer-created playlists, you could confer taste, status, and criticism—the stuff that the former record-buying public supposedly pined for. One of Iovine’s maxims at the time: Access is average; curation is everything. Seeing the promise of a more bespoke streaming experience, Apple bought Beats for $3 billion and relaunched the service as Apple Music in 2015.

That same year, JAY-Z stood on a stage with Madonna, Rihanna, Daft Punk, Kanye West, and several other A-list musicians to announce the artist-majority-owned service Tidal, with “a mission to re-establish the value of music.” Touting hi-fi streaming and better payouts for artists, Tidal seemed like a much-needed counterweight to Apple Music and Spotify. Finally, here was a platform not funded by Silicon Valley VCs but by (admittedly already wealthy) musicians who understood the art and work that goes into the process of creation. But since its launch, its growth has lagged dramatically behind its competitors. Last year, JAY-Z sold the majority of Tidal to Square, a mobile payment company owned by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

Each successive introduction of a new tech company into the streaming era sought to solve a problem created by the digital era: pirating, the devaluation of music, and the lack of human connections music once relied upon. At this point, music piracy has generally been on the decline for five years. Major labels have plugged the holes in their coffers by licensing the vast majority of their music to streaming services and meting out payouts to their signees. The exception has always been the independent-minded Bandcamp, which includes a Radiohead-style pay-what-you-want option at a record’s point of sale, and fosters holistic connection between musicians and listeners through hubs run by labels and artists. Earlier this year, Bandcamp was acquired by the software company Epic Games.

Much like social media, the streaming era has created a simulation of real life. Each company uses its technology to digitize and replace the analog practice of buying, listening, and connecting to music, all while capitalizing on the nostalgia of those activities. The seamlessness of the experience—the ease with which one song bleeds into the next, and the buffet of decisions laid before you on Spotify’s home screen—creates an artificial scarcity out of vast abundance. For me, it has caused a kind of nagging depersonalization, an experience so divergent from, say, holding an album in my hands, or being in a record store, that I feel like a little bit of a hack every time I open the app. But I also understand that for the majority of subscribers, this simulation of a beautiful, vibrant, limitless music industry is possibly all they could ever want.

Let’s say there are three general categories of music listeners: Passive, Auxiliary, and Intentional. Most of the world falls into the Passive category, absorbing music like inhaling oxygen: without much thought at all. For them, there is either music playing, or maybe it’s not music playing, who can be sure? There is perhaps little to no interrogation into why any sound is floating down from the speakers at the grocery store; it simply exists at the same megahertz as the shopping cart and the fluorescent lights and the cereal selection. Songs are liked and not liked, if they are thought about at all, and the whole relationship is pure and elegant.

The second is the Auxiliary listener, someone for whom music enhances a primary experience to make it more interesting. Common forms of auxiliary listening involve music accompanying a visual stimulus, like film scores or needle drops in movies, music videos or their modern-day equivalent: a song snippet looped in a TikTok. But the Auxiliary listener chiefly uses music as a utility: to relax, to work, to go to the gym, to get drunk, to do drugs, to have sex, to dance, to fall asleep. Music is not your life, but what was playing while you lived it.

The last is the Intentional listener, someone who chooses to listen to music for the pleasure of it in and of itself. This is admittedly the tiniest category of people, a subset that spends a remarkable amount of time listening to albums, mixtapes, DJ sets, and playlists without distraction. They are purposeful about what they select and why—for them, there is a pleasure to be found in the flow of listening to music and the emotional, intellectual, and biographical response that it creates untethered to anything but the chemical responses in the brain. Some of these people use drugs to enhance this connection, but not all of them. Music, for these people, is life.

It’s important to make these distinctions because I believe that, for Passive and Auxiliary listeners—again, the vast majority of people in the world —Spotify and the streaming era writ large have achieved an ideal compromise. The technology has made accessible what had previously been difficult or kept behind the gates of record stores or music criticism. For an older generation, there is a sudden and overwhelming pleasure in being able to listen to all the music from your life instantly, retracing the decades through a digital library.

The cognitive dissonance occurs when people in the Intentional group—people like me—try to tell people in the Passive and Auxiliary groups how to listen to music. I know the global financial devaluation of music is irreversible, and there are only a small percentage of total music listeners for whom the phrases “buy from brick-and-mortar stores” or “support Bandcamp Fridays” means anything. But what I fear is that the streaming era is actually writing the same listening histories for those who can’t be bothered with Intentional listening–all exclusively based on proprietary algorithms that seem like a way to discover music but, in fact, act more like a feedback loop.

A close friend, an Auxiliary listener, recently sent me a Spotify link to an album by classic rock revivalists Greta Van Fleet, noting that it would be good music for the gym. This sent me into a bit of a panic spiral for three reasons. One is that I wondered why I neglected to share my professional life with him: In 2018, my pan of their debut album drew the attention of those beyond Pitchfork’s usual purview, with Barstool Sports suggesting that the band must have “fucked my girlfriend,” and GVF fans threatening to “TP” my house via homemade signs they held up at concerts. The second is that I realized I am but a tiny little dust mite in the universe, and my own opinion on Greta Van Fleet is largely irrelevant beyond the scope of a few thousand music snobs and select GVF fans, and what’s actually important in the world is the bond close friends have despite these relationship glitches. Third is that Spotify knows me better than my close friend.

The more time I spend on Spotify, the more it pushes me away from the outer edges of the platform and toward the mushy middle. This is where everyone is serviced the same songs simply because that is what’s popular. Four years ago, while the app’s algorithmic autoplay feature was on, I was served the Pavement song “Harness Your Hopes,” a wordy and melodic—and by all accounts obscure—B-side from the beloved indie band. As of this writing, the song has over 72 million streams, more than twice as much as their actual college rock hit from the ’90s, “Cut Your Hair,” the one Pavement song your average Gen X’er might actually recognize. How did this happen? In 2020, Stereogum investigated the mystery but came up empty-handed from a technological perspective, though the answer seems obvious to me: Whereas many Pavement songs are oblique, rangy, and noisy, “Harness Your Hopes” is among the most pleasant and inoffensive songs in the band’s catalog. It is now, in the altered reality of Spotify, the quintessential Pavement song. When frontman Stephen Malkmus was asked about this anomaly, he sounded blithely defeated: “At this point we take what we can get, even in a debased form. Because what’s left?”

The whole “Harness Your Hopes” situation is in part a result of what’s called “cumulative advantage.” It’s the idea that if something—a song, a person, an idea—happens to be slightly more popular than something else at just the right point, it will tend to become more popular still. (On the other hand, something that does not catch on will usually recede in popularity, regardless of quality.) This is the metric of how most social recommendation algorithms work—on Facebook, the more “likes” an article has, the better odds a user will read it. But when this is applied to what songs are sent to which people, Spotify can engineer its own market of popularity as well as what song defines a band. Popular songs on Spotify are popular within the app because they are what most people are listening to. So from both a behavioral psychology and business perspective, it makes sense for Spotify to assume that you want to listen to what other people are listening to. The chances of the average listener staying on the app longer are much higher if Spotify curates songs that have had a similar effect on people whose taste matches theirs.

This is one of the main addictive chemicals of most streaming services: Recommend a handful songs—out of millions!—that feel uniquely personal but in fact are just what everyone else is hearing, too. If a Passive or Auxiliary listener lets the algorithmic Spotify Radio play songs based on Tom Petty’s “Breakdown,” the results are almost purely based on chronology, tempo, and feel. Gone are the filigrees and the autobiography of the song and how it existed in the world to you , the listener. Instead, everyone’s experience is now the same.

For instance, Spotify’s radio station for Ludacris’ “What’s Your Fantasy” doesn’t link to any OutKast songs, even though I watched Ludacris open for André 3000 and Big Boi when that song was released in 2000, and both acts are from Atlanta. Is Spotify aware that Big Boi is a huge Kate Bush fan? Does Spotify know that singer-songwriter John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats is a metal head? If you have seen Darnielle cover metal bands from Dio to Gorguts to Nightwish, or are familiar with one of his most popular songs, “The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton,” you know that he loves some sick riffs and moonward barks. But all of that intimate (and publicly available) knowledge is lost to machine learning. Tuning into Spotify’s Mountain Goats’ Radio won’t turn up any Dio at all—just literate and mostly acoustic indie rock songs that sound similar to the Mountain Goats. Left to a streaming service, these kinds of textured and unique connections are smoothed over or erased entirely.

I have committed my personal and professional life to making sense of music, of finding connections and context within songs to create a critical framework that allows me to organize everything I listen into an ornately chaotic web. If I started a Fugazi radio playlist, maybe I would throw some Red Hot Chili Peppers on there—you’ll hear it. If I started a Pavement radio playlist, how could I not include the Louisiana rapper Young Bleed’s song “How Ya Do Dat,” where he calls himself “ slanted and enchanted ”? I would argue that Prince’s “When Doves Cry” and Parquet Courts’ “Instant Disassembly” both utilize a stilted, inverted grammatical style in their lyrics and are absolutely in conversation with each other.

When music is so abundant and our attention is scarce, there’s power in adding more intention to your listening diet, more chaos, more risk. The thrill in finding music that is wired to your singular life is not that thousands of other people have found the same thing. It’s that the music becomes something confounding and unique, a true reflection of where you are and where you’ve been. The beauty of the algorithm of your mind is that it makes perfect sense to no one but yourself.

This week, we’re exploring how music and technology intersect, and what today’s trends and innovations might mean for the future. Read more here .

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Netflix And Amazon’s Expansion Strategy Essay Examples

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Streaming Services & Film Distribution

The Rise of Streaming Services: How Digital Platforms are Shaping the Future of Film Distribution

The rise of streaming services has revolutionized the landscape of film distribution, reshaping the way audiences consume and engage with films. Platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ have disrupted traditional distribution models, offering viewers unprecedented access to a vast library of films from the comfort of their homes. This essay examines the transformative impact of streaming services on film distribution, analyzing how digital platforms are shaping the future of cinema in the digital age.

Streaming services have democratized film distribution, leveling the playing field for independent filmmakers and diverse voices. These platforms provide a global stage for filmmakers, allowing their films to reach audiences worldwide without the need for traditional theatrical releases.

Moreover, streaming services offer filmmakers greater creative freedom, as they are not bound by the restrictions imposed by studio executives or traditional distribution channels. This newfound creative liberty has given rise to a wave of innovative and bold storytelling, as filmmakers embrace the opportunities presented by digital platforms.

Streaming services have also opened doors for niche and indie films that might not have found a wide theatrical release. These platforms cater to diverse audiences with a wide range of tastes, providing a platform for unique and original stories that might not fit the conventional blockbuster mold.

In addition to offering a vast library of films, streaming services invest in original content, producing high-quality films that rival the productions of major studios. This commitment to original content has resulted in critically acclaimed and award-winning films, attracting top talent and further blurring the line between traditional cinema and streaming platforms.

The convenience and accessibility of streaming services have led to changes in audience behavior. Viewers can now watch films at their own pace, pausing, rewinding, and resuming films whenever they like. The ability to access content on multiple devices has made film-watching more flexible and adaptable to the modern lifestyle.

The data-driven nature of streaming platforms has also altered the film industry's approach to content creation. Streaming services use viewer data to analyze user preferences and behavior, informing their decisions on content acquisition and original content production. This data-driven approach has allowed streaming platforms to cater to specific audience segments effectively.

However, the rise of streaming services has also raised concerns about the future of traditional cinema and the theatrical experience. Some argue that the ease of access to films on streaming platforms might discourage audiences from visiting theaters, potentially impacting the cinema industry.

In response to these changes, many filmmakers and industry professionals are exploring hybrid distribution models that combine traditional theatrical releases with simultaneous or subsequent streaming releases. These models seek to maximize the film's reach while also preserving the cinematic experience for audiences who prefer the theater.

In conclusion, the rise of streaming services has fundamentally transformed film distribution, offering filmmakers greater exposure and creative freedom, and audiences unprecedented access to a diverse array of films. Streaming platforms are reshaping the future of cinema, challenging traditional distribution models, and driving innovative storytelling. The balance between streaming and traditional distribution will continue to evolve as filmmakers, audiences, and industry professionals adapt to the rapidly changing landscape of the digital age.

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Guest Essay

Here’s Why You Hate Watching TV Right Now

By Priyanka Mattoo

Ms. Mattoo is a filmmaker, a former talent agent and the author of the memoir “Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones.”

I try to watch TV, I swear. But every time I sit down to find a new show, I brace myself to run an exhausting digital gantlet. The viewing experience, which used to be relatively straightforward and, dare I say, fun now feels as overwhelming and unpleasant as walking into a dimly lit, warehouse-size dollar store in search of one decent spatula.

This is not something I should admit because I work in television. I started out as an agent and then worked as a producer, and now I’m a screenwriter who sells a pilot every year or so. I love working in television; I just no longer love watching it.

If the goal of streamers once seemed to be prioritizing and supporting great series from a diverse group of interesting creators, that goal seems to have shifted from making better shows to just … making more of them. As viewers, we’re being flattened by a fire hose of programming — and the experience of watching TV feels like a ritual of submission, passively accepting a slush of shows served up by a streaming service’s algorithm.

I’m not the only one who feels this way, apparently. How else to explain the surprising success of Tubi, a free streaming service that’s supported by ads and offers few prestige shows or buzzy hits yet set a new high for average monthly viewers earlier this year, beating out the average numbers for high-profile rivals like Disney+, Peacock and Max?

Tubi isn’t reinventing television; in fact, with its free programming and frequent ad breaks, it’s returning to a successful model. But the executives at Tubi seem to understand that viewers want to feel engaged and invested, not manipulated and pinned down. We want well-curated choices rather than an avalanche of mush.

Scrolling Tubi, my heart warms to find the BBC’s “Pride and Prejudice” and the original “Bewitched”; I save “MasterChef” to watch with the family and flag a new Nicola Coughlan Channel 4 comedy , “Big Mood,” to savor immediately. While Tubi uses algorithms and personalized recommendations, its offerings feel more thoughtfully chosen, a mix of the familiar and the adventurous; as the TV critic Kaiya Shunyata put it , Tubi “feels very much like you’re choosing what you want to watch; it’s not an algorithm choosing it for you.” It’s a potent reminder of what we used to love about watching TV — and how we might rekindle that love affair.

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Music Streaming Industry and Trend Analysis Essay

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Introduction

Industry analysis, trend analysis, works cited.

The world music industry is going through a process of modernization and technological advancement. When the Internet popularity and the development of diverse programs and websites enable illegal music consumption known as piracy, there is a tendency in legal music usage observed worldwide. The newly introduced music streaming industry allows users to access the storages of recordings from their smartphones or other devices for an affordable payment.

Many platforms for streaming, with leading ones, such as Spotify, iTunes, and others, are compatible market players capable of causing shifts in the whole music industry. The technologies applied to the industry development enable consumption growth, guarantee industry revenues, and have a potential to occupy more significant market share in the future.

Technological advancement introduced to the industry of music production caused some consecutive shifts in the business. It “reduced the cost of producing, distributing, and even promoting recordings” (Benner and Waldfogel 129). The sphere is developing attracting large numbers of users who pay for access to the recordings library. Such an approach does not limit the consumers in the choice of the products and offers personalized recommendation procedure for the increase of consumption. According to the analytical data, streaming became “the single largest source of music industry revenues in the United States” in 2015 (Datta et al. 25). The current market size of the sector counts in millions of individuals and its expenditure is anticipated in the future.

The growth rate in the sector is observed in the example of the tendency to use streaming platforms. The advancement of the industry is closely related to the nature of music consumption. Music is described by Benner and Waldfogel as an “experience good,” which is the characteristic that indicates purchasing before usage (131). Also, the tendency to consume new music of less popular artists by the users emphasizes the need for the increase in the industry and the development of new labels, as well as new streaming platforms.

Nevertheless, the current state of the market advancement shows that the vast majority of consumption rates are occupied by active industry players. According to Datta et al., the USA music streaming industry is represented by such top platforms as Spotify and iTunes, “with market shares of 22.8% and 18.3%, respectively” (8).

Among the less popular platforms which constitute a class of less active market players working as the tools for CD and MP3 local listening, such as Winamp, with more than 12% of market share and Windows Media Player, with approximately 10% (Datta et al. 8). Regarding the growing tendency of streaming platforms for all types of devices for monthly payments from the users, there is expected an appearance of new market participants capable of competing with the major players.

The patterns in music production and consumption have shifted during the past several decades. Since the 1990-s, there have been two main participants in the production sphere of music that were competing and making revenue on music recording and releasing. They were “major” companies or labels that had a long history in the business and “independent” labels, that occupied less space in the industry but still were compatible (Benner and Waldfogel 129).

Major labels released high-promoted music by famous musicians for the mass market, whereas smaller independent companies concentrated on less popular and lower-costing releases. However, the pattern changed with the introduction of streaming to the music industry. This influential participant occupied a significant part of the field of business and established new rules of music, as well as film and literature, consumption (Data et al. 5).

The main characteristic of a change in music production consists in lowering the costs of releases and appearance of new independent labels in the market. Streaming gave them an opportunity to popularize the low-promoted musicians and gain revenue out of new technologies. Therefore, the change influenced the consumption of music, too.

The consumption of music is closely related to the trends in the industry and the technological advancement in the sphere. With the introduction of streaming to music, the consumption rates increased due to the shifts in the production sector. Since the number of new popular musicians appeared, there occurred a variety of products. Concentrating on the major singers, consumers, however, look for diversity in music, thus increasing the demand (Datta et al., 5-6).

With a specific pricing system of streaming where a higher payment is required for major artists, there is a tendency to the discovery of new music. Consumers tend to look for new tunes within the affordable range. According to the research conducted by Datta et al., there “long-run shift in music consumption toward more plays, variety, and new music discovery” is observed in the industry over the past decades (6). Thus, the active participation of streaming services in the market leads to a significant change in both, production and consumption of music.

As for the perspectives of the music streaming industry in the future, it shows a constant tendency to growth. From the technological point of view, streaming platforms designed for multiple devices and operating systems offer a personalized approach to music recommendations according to a user’s preferences and listening history (Datta et al. 7). It makes expenditure on new music consumption possible and increases the number of new releases. There are some perspectives in the introduction of new streaming platforms to the market which will attract more consumers and enlarge the market size. On the background of fighting against piracy in the music industry, the streaming systems are expected to regulate the illegal consumption of music and bring the sector to a global level of development.

In conclusion, the music streaming industry is a developing business that has originated during the last decades as an alternative to CD or MP3 recordings purchasing. The advancement in modern technologies caused a change in the sector of music releases, making independent labels compete with major ones. Such a shift caused the introduction of new music with lower production schemes to the industry and took the streaming sector to a new level.

The personalized approach to users’ activity recommendations concerning their preferences and history of listening allows the platforms (Spotify, iTunes, and others) to increase the volume of products and their revenues. The demand for new music forces independent labels to look for unique talents and introduce them to the business, which contributes to the growth of the music industry as a whole. Thus, the sector occupies a big part of the music business in the United States. It provides new opportunities for musicians and recording labels fighting against piracy as a crucial hazard to the market. Music streaming is a developing industry that shows the tendency to grow in the future.

Benner, Mary J., and Joel Waldfogel. “The Song Remains the Same? Technological Change and Positioning in the Recorded Music Industry.” Strategy Science , vol. 1, no. 3, 2016, pp. 129-147.

Datta, Hannes, et al. “Changing Their Tune: How Consumers’ Adoption of Online Streaming Affects Music Consumption and Discovery.” Marketing Science , vol. 37, no. 1, 2018, pp. 5-21.

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How Music Streaming Changed The Music Industry

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Opinion —

Streaming’s bundling obsession ignores the real problem with subscription costs, opinion: subscribers keep paying more and getting the same..

Scharon Harding - Jul 16, 2024 7:45 pm UTC

Video streaming providers have a big  churn problem . While many streaming companies are not profitable yet, the entire industry is grappling with high and fast cancellation rates.

Users who sign up for streaming services only to cancel a few months later, likely because they watched what they wanted to already or are trying to save money, has created huge churn concerns for streaming companies. Those companies are largely responding with packages that bundle their services with other services, including rival streaming platforms. But with streaming subscribers already pushed to their financial limits, it's time for streaming providers to earn their keep, not piggyback on others.

This week, media research firm Hub Entertainment Research published its 2024 Monetization of Video report with findings from June interviews of 1,600 TV viewers ages 16 to 74. The respondents reportedly each watch at least one hour of TV weekly, and the sample is “US census balanced,” per Hub. When Hub asked respondents if they will "still have/use" their video streaming services a year from now, 85 percent of those using ad-free services said they definitely or probably will, compared to 74 percent of subscribers of streaming services with ads. Further suggesting that ad-free subscription tiers garner more loyalty, 15 percent of ad-free subscribers said they "might/might not" or "probably/definitely won't" have their subscription next year versus 26 percent of ad subscribers.

“Those paying extra for ad-free services say they are more likely to keep that service than cheaper ad-supported plans," the report says. "The act of paying more potentially increases perceived loyalty to that expense.”

Streaming providers charge less for subscriptions that show commercials because they're able to make up the lost revenue through ad sales. Streaming firms like Netflix say they get higher monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) from ad subscribers than those who pay more for commercial-free plans. Despite the lower prices, Hub's research found that 25 percent of respondents associate "excellent" value with paid streaming video on demand (SVOD) services with ads compared to 22 percent who think the same of SVOD without ads.

Churn troubles

Hub's report also highlighted high streaming cancellation rates, noting that 50 percent of respondents “sign up, cancel, then re-subscribe to the same service." Earlier this month Ampere Analysis also detailed high churn rates , saying that 42 percent of US streaming subscribers "regularly subscribe, cancel, and resubscribe" (Ampere said it examined "anonymized subscription receipt data from a panel of 3 million opted-in US email users" between February and March 2024 for its survey).

“As the SVOD market in the US has become increasingly saturated, new subscribers are harder to find, which makes retention all the more important,” said Daniel Monaghan, research manager at Ampere Analysis, said in a statement accompanying the findings.

Streaming providers have largely adopted bundling to combat high cancellation rates, with the idea being that people are less likely to pull the plug on one service if it's tied to others. In Hub's report, 37 percent of respondents said they're “less likely to cancel and then resubscribe to a bundle of multiple services compared to an individual service."

Bundles also carry price savings , a key driver for streaming subscriptions. Per Hub's report and following a slew of streaming price hikes, people are approaching the limit of what they're willing to spend on streaming subscriptions:

But streaming services could better prove their value if they went beyond pricing and tried building loyalty through improved selection and features.

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-secret-service-director-testifies-in-house-hearing-on-attempted-assassination-of-trump

WATCH: Berated by House members, Secret Service director says ‘we failed’ in Trump rally security lapse

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said Monday that her agency failed in its mission to protect former President Donald Trump, as lawmakers of both major political parties demanded during a highly contentious congressional hearing that she resign over security failures that allowed a gunman to scale a roof and open fire at a campaign rally.

Watch in the player above.

Cheatle was berated for hours by Republicans and Democrats, repeatedly angering lawmakers by evading questions about the investigation during the first hearing over the July 13 assassination attempt. Cheatle called the attempt on Trump’s life the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades, and vowed to “move heaven and earth” to get to the bottom of what went wrong and make sure there’s no repeat of it.

“The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13th, we failed,” she told lawmakers on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.

READ MORE: Director of the Secret Service faces calls to resign in aftermath of Trump rally shooting

Cheatle acknowledged that the Secret Service was told about a suspicious person two to five times before the shooting at the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally. She also revealed that the roof from which Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire had been identified as a potential vulnerability days before the rally. Cheatle said she apologized to Trump in a phone call after the assassination attempt.

Yet Cheatle remained defiant that she was the “right person” to lead the Secret Service, even as she said she takes full responsibility the security lapses. When Republican Rep. Nancy Mace suggested Cheatle begin drafting her resignation letter from the hearing room, Cheatle responded, “No, thank you.”

In a rare moment of unity for the often divided committee, the Republican chairman, Rep. James Comer, and its top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin, issued a letter calling on Cheatle to step down.

The White House didn’t immediately comment on whether President Joe Biden still has confidence in Cheatle after her testimony.

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Democrats and Republicans were united in their exasperation as Cheatle said she didn’t know or couldn’t answer numerous questions more than a week after the shooting that left one spectator dead. At one point, Mace used profanity as she accused Cheatle of lying and dodging questions, prompting calls for lawmakers to show “decorum.”

Lawmakers pressed Cheatle on how the gunman could get so close to the Republican presidential nominee when he was supposed to be carefully guarded, and why Trump was allowed to take the stage after local law enforcement had identified Crooks as suspicious.

“It has been 10 days since an assassination attempt on a former president of the United States. Regardless of party, there need to be answers,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York.

Cheatle acknowledged that Crooks had been seen by local law enforcement before the shooting with a rangefinder, a small device resembling binoculars that hunters use to measure distance from a target. She said the Secret Service would never have taken Trump onto the stage if it had known there was an “actual threat.” Local law enforcement took a photo of Crooks and shared it after seeing him acting suspiciously, but he wasn’t deemed to be a “threat” until seconds before he opened fire, she said.

“An individual with a backpack is not a threat,” Cheatle said. “An individual with a rangefinder is not a threat.”

Cheatle said local enforcement officers were inside the building from which Crooks fired. But when asked why there were no agents on the roof or if the Secret Service used drones to monitor the area, Cheatle said she is still waiting for the investigation to play out, prompting groans and outbursts from members on the committee.

“Director Cheatle, because Donald Trump is alive, and thank God he is, you look incompetent,” said Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio. “If he were killed, you would look culpable.”

Rep. Ro Khanna, one of the Democrats who joined the calls for Cheatle to resign, noted that the Secret Service director who presided over the agency when there was an attempted assassination of former Republican President Ronald Reagan later stepped down.

“The one thing we have to have in this country are agencies that transcend politics and have the confidence of independents, Democrats, Republicans, progressives and conservatives,” Khanna said, adding that the Secret Service was no longer one of those agencies.

Trump was wounded in the ear, a former Pennsylvania fire chief was killed and two other attendees were injured when Crooks opened fire with an AR-style rifle shortly after Trump began speaking.

Cheatle said the agency hopes to have its internal investigation completed in 60 days. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has separately appointed a bipartisan, independent panel to review the assassination attempt, while the department’s inspector general has opened three investigations.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan delegation of about a dozen members of the House Committee on Homeland Security toured the shooting site Monday. The lawmakers said they were the first group outside law enforcement to climb onto the roof where the shooter positioned himself.

Authorities have been hunting for clues into what motivated Crooks but have not found any ideological bent that could help explain his actions. Investigators who searched his phone found photos of Trump, Biden and other senior government officials and found that he had looked up the dates for the Democratic National Conventional as well as Trump’s appearances. He also searched for information about major depressive order.

The attack on Trump was the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since Reagan was shot in 1981. It was the latest in a series of security lapses by the agency that has drawn investigations and public scrutiny over the years.

Cheatle took over two years ago as head of the Secret Service’s 7,800 special agents, uniformed officers and other staffers whose main purpose is protecting presidents, vice presidents, their families, former presidents and others. In announcing her appointment, Biden said Cheatle had served on his vice presidential detail and called her a “distinguished law enforcement professional with exceptional leadership skills” who had his “complete trust.”

Cheatle took the reins from James M. Murray as multiple congressional committees and an internal watchdog investigated missing text messages from when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The Secret Service says they were purged during a technology transition.

Lauer reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press reporters Michael Kunzelman and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed.

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We rented our house on Airbnb for 15 years. It was so much work that we had to stop.

• Before Airbnb was even invented, my husband and I started renting our home to make extra money.
• We bought multiple homes that we rented on Airbnb throughout the years.
• Airbnb income is not passive, and now I don't rent my home anymore.

Renting your home to strangers for money wasn't even on the horizon when my husband and I bought our first house almost 20 years ago.

But the little bungalow in Louisville, Kentucky , wasn't far from the racetrack where the famous Kentucky Derby runs every May. I thought renting our house to race-goers would be an easy way to make a quick paycheck.

So in 2007, before Airbnb was even invented , we'd started what would eventually be called house-hacking — renting your own home to generate income to pay for itself. We could earn enough over the race weekend to cover three months of mortgage.

We were early Airbnb adopters

It didn't go well at first, though, with our first guests writing us a bad check. So when Airbnb came along with some guardrails to protect hosts, we were super early adopters.

Although it's commonplace now, in those early days, friends thought we'd lost it when we let strangers stay in our house. "What if they lick your plates and put them back?" I'll always remember one aghast friend asking.

Related stories

Renting out that house led to the idea that we could Airbnb a $17,000 triplex in Detroit we bought in 2014 after I fell in love with the city while visiting. We were able to use the income to recoup the renovation costs, and we double-dipped by renting our Louisville house anytime we were in Detroit . We divided our time between cities, keeping that house for a year and a half. That experience propelled us to buy a sprawling Victorian in a historic neighborhood of Louisville in 2016.

"We could Airbnb the shit out of this!" my husband's text read when he sent me the $200,000 listing. A beautiful house that just needed some work, with a third floor guest suite and a carriage house, it had tons of potential as a short-term rental rental. We estimated we could probably cover the renovation cost and maybe even the mortgage with the income . Income that we thought would be passive.

It didn't turn out to be passive, though, at least when it came to the amount of work and worry that went into eventually becoming one of Airbnb's longest-tenured super hosts. Even switching to renting to travel nurses during COVID didn't come without stress, and we eventually sold the house in 2023.

Realtors know that people are looking for short-term rentals

I've been househunting and have lost count of the number of listings I've seen promising income from short-term rentals.

Now, we're not in the old days anymore, and most cities have  licensing requirements  for short-term rentals that restrict the number in any given area and impose tax collections. But not everyone plays by those rules, and sometimes, listing agents on behalf of sellers promote this revenue stream on houses that don't have the required license — and aren't even eligible for one.

After spending a lot of money and time getting the legal permits and licenses for my home, I think this practice is pretty unsavory — especially from a profession that's supposed to have strict ethical guidelines. Even when the listing truly does have legal income potential, it's not a magic bullet or a fast path to riches.

Maybe rentals can be considered passive by IRS definitions, but here's the truth from someone who's been doing this for more than 15 years: rentals are endless work.

Not just the cleaning, or calendar management, or the trying to delight guests or respond to issues. It's also the emotional labor of worrying about reviews. You're only ever as good as your last two or three, and I stressed every detail trying to keep up my all-five-star superhost status.

I've had so many issues with my rental

Owning a home built in the late 1800s can be a source of worry in the best of circumstances. However, inviting a rotating cast of strangers under the roof, strangers who can leave reviews that can make or break your business, brings its own host of additional worries.

Just like I could never turn off my phone in case a guest needed something, I couldn't turn off the worry, either.

When it rained, I worried about leaks — which happened. When it was cold, I worried about the mini-split HVAC going out, which it did — on a freezing Christmas Day. When it was hot, I worried the AC couldn't keep up — which it often couldn't in a 130-year-old third-floor space where guests thought they could set the temperature to 60 on 100-degree days.

But the money was good when it was good , so it was worth it. Until competition ratcheted up, and with that, a push from Airbnb to discount prices. Even before COVID, I'd grown tired of their incessant reminders to cut my price. So when the pandemic hit, I made the pivot to renting to travel nurses at my two spaces. That wasn't a ton less money, but a lot less work. Instead of doing laundry and cleaning and answering a fresh batch of questions every two or three days, it was every three months.

I recommend people do their homework before becoming hosts

To anyone tempted to buy a property just for its rental potential, I say proceed with caution.

Do your own homework to make sure you can legally rent it; don't rely on the listing claims. Check local listings to see how much competition you'll have and how much they're getting. Consider how much time you can siphon from your other job to run your rental, and what that will cost. Evaluate your budget to make sure you can carry the mortgage indefinitely if misfortune — pandemic, natural disaster, terrorist attack, major repairs, a pest infestation — strikes and you lose that income.

As for me, my new home is a single family. Nope, no income to subsidize the mortgage, but also no suitcases rolling around above my bedroom, no nagging worry about what-ifs, and nobody to worry about pleasing but, well, myself.

Axel Springer, Insider Inc.'s parent company, is an investor in Airbnb.

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Streaming brings Olympic-sized changes to the business of broadcast

Also on the daily podcast: evan gershkovich and the illusion of russian justice, and what it means that kamala harris is “brat”.

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A s the Olympics begin, more people than ever will be watching via streaming services. We examine the changing viewing habits transforming sport’s role in the broadcast business. The sentencing of Evan Gershkovich, an American journalist, reveals the empty, performative nature of justice in Russia today (11:10). And the internet has dubbed Kamala Harris “brat” —and that is a kind of compliment (18:34). Runtime: 24 min

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