One of The Onion‘s Jokes Came True: Overstock.com To Launch Streaming Service
Does the O have it? O, we do. O.
That’s not a pithy “Not The Onion” style joke we’re making here about the ridiculousness of such a concept. This is a real thing that the satirical newspaper legitimately predicted two years ago. May God have mercy on all our souls.
On Tuesday, Overstock.com CEO Patrick M. Bryne that in an attempt to capitalize on their role as Amazon’s largest competitor, they will soon be offering their 20 to 40 million users video-on-demand and streaming service that they hope will be comparable to that of Amazon Prime. Starting in the middle of this year, customers who pay the yearly $20 loyalty program fee will have access to 30,000 VOD titles, as well as future original and acquired streaming VOD content.
“We will be a competitor to Amazon,” said Byrne. “We think our loyalty program is better than Amazon’s. We give you five to 25 percent back on what you spend. So we pay people back for their digital downloads.”
This isn’t the weirdest thing Overstock has done to get attention in the rapidly changing marketplace—remember that time they installed a Bitcoin ATM at their global headquarters and then put out a press release about it?—but it does sound vaaaaguely familiar. Are you feeling the deja vu right now?
That feeling is probably because you read something similar on The Onion in November of 2013. By similar, I mean almost exactly the same. Seriously, they even got the day of the week right:
In a broad push to offer new content to the website’s millions of customers, executives from online retailer Overstock.com officially announced plans Tuesday to develop a slate of original online programming.
The Onion‘s “coverage”, of course, finds more fodder for humor in describing all the original shows Overstock will eventually produce, such as “13-episode run of a single-camera situational comedy starring Jason Schwartzman”—alluding to Schwartzmann’s co-written pilot for Amazon, Mozart in the Jungle, which was picked up in October 2013 and just saw the release of its first season only a month ago. Weird timing, that.
If Overstock ever does get into the original content game, though, I know an actress who’d probably be on board. She’s very committed to the O.
(via AdWeek)
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