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.

> Let’s take the example of an African-American independent or Nigerian film (Nollywood) at € 3,000 per year of use.

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%.

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?

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.

Is that not worth pursuing?

As some comments imply it was strength of or "approach to diversity" 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't get more funding.

> "Diversity is a business opportunity"

No it'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.

No untainted mind watches Game of Thrones and thinks "You know, it's weird that this fiction styled after old Europe is full of white people.". Nobody watches Narcos and thinks "You know, it's weird that this fiction set in Colombia is full of Mestizos and white latins". Nobody watches Big Brother Africa and thinks "You know, it's weird that this reality game show set in sub-Saharan Africa is full of sub-Saharan Africans".

> No it'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.

Do you have any evidence to support this ridiculous claim? Two of the largest movies of the year (Get Out and Girls Trip) are predominantly black produced. The issue is getting Hollywood to fund such ventures, not demand for them.

> No untainted mind watches Game of Thrones and thinks "You know, it's weird that this fiction styled after old Europe is full of white people.".

Actually, people do say this. It's a completely fictional universe, and even if it wasn't written into the source material, the show creators could have made an effort to ensure that it wasn't so eurocentric, at least by casting. No such luck. The main representations of people of color that I remember—the sand vipers—were hands down the worst part of the entire show so far. You think people don't notice this shit? What kind of bubble do you live in? People care that they see people who look and talk like them on TV. Everyone else in game of thrones speaks with out of place ethnic accents; way to screw over everyone but the danes and the brits.

Finally, I'd just like to point out that diversity increases the strength of TV shows. If you watch Friends, it's like they were living in this tiny bubble that only existed in NYC coffee shops. Their world is nearly unrecognizable to me despite having lived in the same city about the same age. Had they had any diversity on the show, maybe it would stand the test of time better. Now it just looks dated and white as fuck—way whiter than you'll ever find in NYC.

> No it'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.

I guess I'm one of the few, but I actively look for diversity in my entertainment. I'm not looking for diversity within a particular show, I'm looking for stories about other cultures, and entertainment from the perspective of other cultures than my own. So the point about race vs source material is irrelevant.

> 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.

They who? You are speaking for the Afrostream subscribers who did exactly that?

> Nobody watches Big Brother Africa and thinks "You know, it's weird that this reality game show set in sub-Saharan Africa is full of sub-Saharan Africans".

I think you're constructing a straw man argument here. The issue isn't that specific shows have an odd race balance. The issue is that our media as a whole is lacking stories of Africa and Asia and Latin America, among other places. We lack stories from the perspective of women and old people too. It's getting better, in part due to market demand, but there are still too many new shows being made that are mostly full of young male LA B-actors.

I remember an LA Times story where they compared the top 10 shows black people watched versus ones white people watched, and they were very different (60 Minutes and Friends, not so much). So there might be opportunity in a better-curated VOD service.