Donde Esta La Biblioteca
Kanopy and hoopla
I had heard of Kanopy, but not its competitor, hoopla. Until writing this, I had never used either and after polling some friends I’m guessing that’s probably the case for most of you as well.
For the uninitiated, Kanopy and hoopla are completely free streaming services, with no ads, available with your local library card. It works like this: We pay taxes, a tiny portion of which is used to fund the library system. The libraries pay the streaming services every time you watch something, and the streaming services pay the studios to license content.
The content on Kanopy is not going to blow anyone away, but it’s better than most entertainment content on free AVOD and FAST streamers, and it’s ad free. A lot of library content, but they also have deals with Criterion, A24, A&E, and Kino Lorber. A ton of classics, documentaries, BBC, a curated section for kids, and movies I would actually enjoy watching. I was not as impressed with the selection of content on hoopla, but it did include comics, ebooks, audiobooks, and music, and they do have support for offline viewing where Kanopy does not. Kanopy’s parent company, OverDrive, also owns Libby, which has ebooks and audiobooks.
What was most shocking to me though, is that according to Kanopy’s GM, Jason Tyrrell, in an interview in IndieWire – it is profitable. This blew my mind, considering that we don’t pay for it (directly), and it’s not like public libraries are swimming in cash. There is a catch, in that you can’t watch an unlimited amount of content. It’s limited for a large portion of the catalog, due to the pay per view model the libraries use with Kanopy. But still, it’s sort of amazing that this is profitable, while Peacock, Paramount+, Max, and Disney+ are not.