To compete against piracy, they also have to be easier than piracy. Netflix won against piracy because Netflix was easier and lower friction than hunting down pirate copies (because of the "one-stop-shop" aspect of Netflix).
Attempting to bring back a multitude of individual walled gardens, each wanting a separate entrance fee, will, as this article correctly notes, simply make piracy again the easier, lower friction, alternative, and the industry will kill the golden goose even before it is fully hatched.
In a few years, "subscription fatigue" will become well known and remembered as the trigger that caused streaming services to collapse because of their own greed and stupidity. Every provider thinks they can beat others and capture (or steal) viewers' attention and time in a zero sum game.
People have already gotten used to subscribing for a month, binge watching a few favorites and then canceling. Unless monthly prices go up a lot and push people to favor lower annual subscription prices, many of these services will see users using them like utilities — turn on for a month or two in a year and then turn it off.
Pricing games that make it costlier for viewers to watch what they want, when they want, where they want will only hurt all the providers. Piracy will come back with even better user experiences than before. After all, piracy's USP has usually been a better user experience.
If you are a pirate this is what you get:
http://i.imgur.com/GxzeV.jpg
To compete against piracy, they also have to be easier than piracy. Netflix won against piracy because Netflix was easier and lower friction than hunting down pirate copies (because of the "one-stop-shop" aspect of Netflix).
Attempting to bring back a multitude of individual walled gardens, each wanting a separate entrance fee, will, as this article correctly notes, simply make piracy again the easier, lower friction, alternative, and the industry will kill the golden goose even before it is fully hatched.