I don’t really like that they seem to be floating the idea of adding ads to the mix, but as long as this stays a separate part of the service from the on-demand section, I don’t exactly hate it.
I’ll occasionally have parties where we’ll use Pluto or similar services just to have something on. Usually something like the The Asylum channel to have a stream of something going that we’re not really invested in but that we can comment on and go “what the fuck was that‽” once in a while, and kind of do our own little MST3K thing.
And sometimes you just kind of want something on in the background while you’re doing stuff, and I know I’ll sometimes get a little bogged down trying to choose what I want to have on even though I’m not really going to be actively watching it.
I remember once upon a time there were some people who really wanted Netflix to add a “random episode” option, I wasn’t really one of them, but this could kind of fill that niche.
Also, if they curate it right, it could be kind of a cool way to drop new episodes. Say a new episode of a star wars show drops at midnight (or whatever-o’clock) For those who care to watch it immediately as it drops, they just need to be tuned to the star wars channel and it will come on automatically, no having to refresh and hit play. And leading up to the new episode they can do a mini marathon of relevant episodes from other star wars shows and movies that will help you understand what’s going on in the episode, maybe even create some new content summarizing content from the books, comics, and video games, etc. sort of an extended “last time on…” segment for the new episode. I’d also want it to be immediately available on-demand when it drops, but it could be kind of a good way to get yourself back up to speed about what’s going on in the show.
So there are ways this could be a cool addition to the service. Whether they actually use it that way is another matter entirely.
There was one team fairly recently that thought they had developed one that got a lot of press, but it turned out to not be true.
But that was only for that one specific case, it didn’t prove that room temperature superconductors can’t exist in general, there are still other teams working on developing them, and theoretically they could be possible, we just haven’t quite worked out what materials will exhibit superconductivity at room temperature, under what circumstances, and how to make them.
And we have some materials that come pretty damn close, Lanthanum decahydride can exhibit superconductivity at temperatures just a few degrees colder than some home freezers can manage (although at very high pressures)