More HBO Nordic rant and ViaPlay

I think it is good to give more background to HBO Nordic Fail post. In Finland we usually are at least one season behind American schedule. We just got NetFlix and we had sometime before ViaPlay and then there are some minor players on this kind of services. ViaPlay was minor player before NetFlix came. Now they have gained popularity after NetFlix showed that online streaming services can work.

Because FU HBO Nordic I took One month free trial of ViaPlay. On usability NetFlix is far ahead of ViaPlay. But ViaPlay have different movies. On picture quality ViaPlay was there with NetFlix while viewing from computer. ViaPlay is good addition to NetFlix. Both are so cheap that you can easily have both. If movie is in both I will watch it from NetFlix but there are other good movies in ViaPlay too.

When HBO Nordic announced its launch there were lot of people ready to give money to anyone bringing good netstreaming service to Finland. We knew that NetFlix had some plans but nothing was announced. ViaPlay was there but people watched its cable tv parent ViaSat. Hype was there. Momentum was there. There were lot of people wanting to buy. But nothing happened. Launch was delayed.

Then out of the blue came NetFlix. No hype. No warning. It just came. Reasonalbe price and terms. It worked. I won people to its side. Some started to test ViaPlay also because both had free month offer. But people still waited for HBO Nordic. They had to wait for longer and longer.

HBO Nordic is sitll not launcehd to everyone. It is invitation only service still. And you have to pay for one whole year just to test it. Those who have had change to even buy service are those who were most interrested about service. Ones who subscribed newsletter first and ones who bought devices with free HBO Nordic subscription bundled. Now those people are hating HBO Nordic. Regular people haven been able to buy service. That tells something how launch was handled.

I try not to return to HBO Nordic subject before I have something good to tell about it. I haven't given up on them but lot of things have to change before I take it. Now I am just totally PO'ed  about this whole thing. I really wanted it and they just failed the whole thing.