Afrostream is shutting down

I've always wondered whether VOD is an inherently unsustainable business model. The big daddy in the space charges $8-12 per month yet people regularly watch upwards of 10 movies per month on the service. That's less than $1 per movie?! Also, this forces anyone doing a similar business to charge even less than that to break into the market, so there reaches a point where we're talking fractions of pennies per movie on some services. How is any of this sustainable given the massive cost of acquiring the content in the first place, and is there any VOD service with healthy profits that you can point me to?

I've never heard of this product but it's sad to see it not work out. There is a huge gap when it comes to black media representation in the United States specifically and I believe it will be a huge opportunity to whoever can tap into it's potential. Black millennials in particular are such a driver of culture in America it's surprising to see how little they are catered to in terms of product. Especially in regards to social media, the impact of Black Twitter is well documented. Also, for anyone who used Vine it seemed like Black creators were really the base of the content that Vine was known for.

&gt; Let’s take the example of an African-American independent or Nigerian film (Nollywood) at € 3,000 per year of use.<p>What about giving away shares for content? I mean, if Afrostream gave away X% of the shares, in return for the rights to content outside the home country, the cost of content reduces to close to zero, and the money spent on operations and marketing starts to approach 100%.<p>This is a far less than ideal model, to be sure, but then, the company closing is a lot worse! Shares are worth nothing until there is a liquidation event, so maybe the play is to get the content providers to become shareholders?<p>I could see a play where content providers that have content worth essentially nothing (unless there is a marketplace for streaming Nollywood in the west I am unaware of {which is indeed extremely possible}) but for which they may be able to grow a market that, over time, has value. That seems like a win-win, or at least a no-lose-no-lose, situation.<p>Is that not worth pursuing?

As some comments imply it was strength of or &quot;approach to diversity&quot; in the market that caused the failure, it should be noted the post outlined: What caused Afrostream to close is not lack of traction or market demand but lack of capital. The more subscribers gained, the more content thus, more funding required. The VOD industry has high operating costs (content acquisition, marketing, localization, tech, etc) and a longer breakeven timeline (note cited examples of other much bigger but not yet profitable companies including Netflix). Afrostream addressed a sizable but ignored niche with demand demonstrated in user growth and it is unfortunate that they couldn&#x27;t get more funding.

&gt; <i>&quot;Diversity is a business opportunity&quot;</i><p>No it&#x27;s not, few people care about what skin colour the characters in a work of entertainment have, unless it is fundamental to the plot or an aspect of the source material. At very least, they do not care enough to self-segregate and bear separately the cost of producing an entirely different set of works of entertainment which are of competitive quality.<p>No untainted mind watches <i>Game of Thrones</i> and thinks &quot;You know, it&#x27;s weird that this fiction styled after old Europe is full of white people.&quot;. Nobody watches <i>Narcos</i> and thinks &quot;You know, it&#x27;s weird that this fiction set in Colombia is full of Mestizos and white latins&quot;. Nobody watches <i>Big Brother Africa</i> and thinks &quot;You know, it&#x27;s weird that this reality game show set in sub-Saharan Africa is full of sub-Saharan Africans&quot;.