I see your point, but I don't think this would qualify as decentralized. It went from 1 to maybe 8 players depending on where you are, but they are separated and closed. Each one of them is centralized, it's just that there are several competing ones. Each one is taking away their shows or making some third party ones exclusive, so the more there are, the less vale each provides.

And of course the issue is that each one has to be paid separately, so there's a economic incentive to participate in as few as you can.

With Lemmy for instance, you might want want an instance that's very connected with others, one that's quite closed and focussed or even create several users or even spin your own instance to have it your way.

[–] ItsMeSpez@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Excellent point. Calling the current streaming landscape decentralized is like calling the current social media landscape decentralized, since you can choose between twitter, reddit, tiktok, or meta. It's unfortunate that it's unlikely that a properly decentralized network for video will exist, since the hosting costs are so astronomical.

[–] WarmApplePieShrek@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

A centralized service's hosting costs are astronomical because they are trying to serve the whole world. Is your Plex server hosting cost astronomical? What if you share it with friends? Everyone contributes to a decentralized service. Piracy is decentralized, and the hosting costs are not astronomical.