The Gizmoplex - the cost of a streaming service

[BoB3K]

So, I've been meaning to bring this up. It's interesting but definitely a side topic, so I thought I'd start a new thread.

A streaming service is a service that must be maintained.  According to the breakdown I've seen, Joel has around $60K set aside for building the Gizmoplex and like $6000 (HA) for creating mobile aps.

But here's the thing -- you have to pay to keep the service running.  It has to be up and streaming.  There's storage, bandwidth, IT support.

Now, let me tell you something else I know--

My wife works as a Project Controller for a government contractor.  She has some projects where they have services up and running and use Amazon Web Services (AWS) to back them.  And, let me point out that when you get AWS, you're not getting a software solution, you're just getting 'cloud' storage and computing resources, stuff like database usage and streaming services, as well as some level of tech support, I'm sure.  But the rest is up to you; it's just the resource for you to build/deploy your solution on.

Would you like to know what the cost is for AWS for her one customer?

...[he's made the big lead up, and now for the reveal]...

$80,000.  A month.

That's not for any man hours for people working the project, or anything else.  Just the line item to be sent to Amazon.

$80,000 a month.

[monkeypretzel]

I really feel like Joel has bitten off more than he can chew with the Gizmoplex idea. That we haven't gotten any but the barest outline of his ideas on how it will be run is par for the course, but the little we do have is about Joel being more concerned with the "feel", the world-building aspect, how it is going to look. Again, that's how Joel's brain works, because he is super focused on how things appear and look over how they are actually going to function, but a streaming service is a LOT of work, and I honestly feel like he sat down with someone for a few hours, did a few sketches, and though "Hey, yeah, this is gonna be great! Complete control of content AND delivery! The fans'll LOVE it! Let's DO it!" and handwaved away the actual technical information because that's boring, dull, non-creative nuts and bolts, too inside baseball for anyone to actually understand or care about.

If Joel has a serious plan on how to pay for and maintain a streaming service, plus hire the dedicated worker(s) to provide technical support, I want to hear the details, boring as they may be.

Also, from reading comments online and at the Kickstarter, it seems the consensus among the fans is that the price for a month's subscription to the Gizmoplex will be $10, based on the add-on table. I thought so too, but now I'm not so sure. I think it's going to be more than that, probably at least $12 and maybe $15. That sounds reasonable for one new episode a month (if you're a person who doesn't mind paying $60 for a MST3K DVD set of four episodes) and one separate live event a month, but the content would have to keep up, meaning no break, no month off, one episode a month for the foreseeable future. I'm not sure Joel can deliver on a schedule like that given his past performance. He has a tendency to run late on delivery of content aside from his live shows, which brings up another point: can Joel deliver a live tour simultaneously with recorded content? That is spreading a painfully thin, perpetually super-busy Alternaversal extremely thin.

I'm going to be accused of being a hater yet again for even bringing any of this up, but I think these are things it's worth seriously thinking about, given what we've seen over the past five years. I don't believe this is hate, I believe these are relevant questions that should be considered by everyone who donates to the Kickstarter.

[Diet Kolos]

At this point I don't think it's really worth worrying about beyond idle speculation about the base number of subscribers potentially needed.

The Gizmoplex itself really wouldn't be worth the subscription until they get to about 9+ episodes funded anyways, and that's a ways off. So it's mostly hypothetical at this point.

[comedyc]

This all reminds me of the first short The Mads riffed last night lol

[BilLumberg]

Good luck getting a streaming service with one show on roku, fire tv, or apple tv devices.

[majorjoe23]

Can’t pretty much anyone get on Roku? I swear some channels are just running off some dude’s laptop.

[wedestroymyths]

Didn't we see somewhere that this thing was going to be built on top of an existing service? Vimeo maybe? I wonder if Vimeo has some sort of reasonably-ish priced product that takes care of the hosting work etc... I still have a lot of questions about this. I'm excited for new episodes, but I'm very skeptical about the Gizmoplex part of equation.

[majorjoe23]

Yeah, it's built on Vimeo.

[BoB3K]

Apr 14, 2021 23:17:28 GMT -5 majorjoe23 said:

Yeah, it's built on Vimeo.

Well, not present tense, but yeah, that was apparently mentioned in the KS comments.  Something called Vimeo OTT.  Here is the link:

vimeo.com/ott/home


They even have a pricing page mentioning numbers like $500 a month. But, keep in mind, Joel isn't talking about some site that is just a storefront with MST3K branding and a list of eps to stream, he has all these 'original' ideas about live events and viewing parties and the first streaming service from the Moon!!

[BoB3K]

Apr 14, 2021 15:15:08 GMT -5 comedyc said:

This all reminds me of the first short The Mads riffed last night lol

Great! I haven't watched it yet, but I just downloaded it. I'm still working through Phantom from Space.

[said43]

Apr 14, 2021 20:14:29 GMT -5 majorjoe23 said:

Can’t pretty much anyone get on Roku? I swear some channels are just running off some dude’s laptop.

I think some of those channels aren't that advanced.

[GarrettCRW]

It was never stated how recent the dude's laptop was.