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NetFlix: America's Most Underestimated Company

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Re: NetFlix: America's Most Underestimated Company

#51

Post by dkarl »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #31
Vivtek wrote: post #24

Argh, a truly good article marred by one thing: the assertion that BitTorrent is a competitor for NetFlix. This notion just won't die - I use BitTorrent, sure - to get stuff I can't pay for, because nobody is interested in selling it to me. But I'd much, much, much rather toss NetFlix their $9 every month to deliver what I want without the hassle of BitTorrent, and that's the canard that the entertainment industry ju…

You might have morals and/or value your time, but actually I think the article is dead on that they're competitors. A large segment of the population chooses to pirate instead of pay. If BitTorrent ceased to exist (as a technology - not the company), NetFlix would almost certainly gain some customers.

Whoever prefers the hassle and crappy experience of using Bittorrent instead of spending a few bucks a month for Netflix, their money isn't worth chasing. It would be like Econolodge trying to market to the homeless population.

Re: NetFlix: America's Most Underestimated Company

#52

Post by nuclear_eclipse »

duck wrote: post #47
reitzensteinm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might have morals and/or value your time, but actually I think the article is dead on that they're competitors. A large segment of the population chooses to pirate instead of pay. If BitTorrent ceased to exist (as a technology - not the company), NetFlix would almost certainly gain some customers.

A large segment of the population chooses to pirate instead of pay Is there any numbers backing this up?

Anecdote: I have multiple relatives, including a police officer, who are dumb as a rock about how computers work, but through their friends have managed to pick up on how to use BitTorrent + Pirate Bay to pirate not only movies but music. And they see nothing wrong with this behavior, in an extremely conservative portion of Ohio; the same people who insist our President is a Muslim Kenyan.

If this sort of use case has penetrated this portion of the population, I'd have to imagine that it's prevalent enough to be at least a tiny competitor to Netflix et al, if not more.

Re: NetFlix: America's Most Underestimated Company

#53

Post by reitzensteinm »

duck wrote: post #47
reitzensteinm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might have morals and/or value your time, but actually I think the article is dead on that they're competitors. A large segment of the population chooses to pirate instead of pay. If BitTorrent ceased to exist (as a technology - not the company), NetFlix would almost certainly gain some customers.

A large segment of the population chooses to pirate instead of pay Is there any numbers backing this up?

The Pirate Bay alone reports 30 million peers, although it doesn't report uniques so it's hard to tell. But then there are people who just come on, download, and quit.

Really I think the onus of proof would be on anyone claiming that the pirating percentage is insignificant, not the other way around.

Re: NetFlix: America's Most Underestimated Company

#54

Post by reitzensteinm »

dkarl wrote: post #51
reitzensteinm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might have morals and/or value your time, but actually I think the article is dead on that they're competitors. A large segment of the population chooses to pirate instead of pay. If BitTorrent ceased to exist (as a technology - not the company), NetFlix would almost certainly gain some customers.

Whoever prefers the hassle and crappy experience of using Bittorrent instead of spending a few bucks a month for Netflix, their money isn't worth chasing. It would be like Econolodge trying to market to the homeless population.

I agree. I make piratable media, and I don't lose any sleep over it. I'm just challenging the assertion that they're not competitors at all.

Re: NetFlix: America's Most Underestimated Company

#55

Post by rjurney »

cowboyhero wrote: post #40
blizkreeg wrote: post #27

This is a tangential pricing-related question: Why does Netflix, which is solving some hard and interesting problems both on the technical (delivery/algorithms) as well as business side (licenses etc) only charge $9-$15 a month whereas online services like dating sites and project collaboration SaaS tools that are arguably much easier to build get away with charging anywhere from $30 to $60 a month? If pricing is abo…

Remember that Netflix came around in a consumer culture that was renting videos and DVDs from corner shops for maybe $2-4 a pop. Throughout their history, all of Netflix's pricing structures have been designed to stay within that range. It costs Netflix pennies to stream movies. ("Akamai charges a customer like Netflix about 5 cents for an HD movie, compared with about 3 cents for standard definition." See: http://ww…

Why would they want to do that? They're kicking ass on the long tail.

Re: NetFlix: America's Most Underestimated Company

#56

Post by chadgeidel »

blizkreeg wrote: post #27

This is a tangential pricing-related question: Why does Netflix, which is solving some hard and interesting problems both on the technical (delivery/algorithms) as well as business side (licenses etc) only charge $9-$15 a month whereas online services like dating sites and project collaboration SaaS tools that are arguably much easier to build get away with charging anywhere from $30 to $60 a month? If pricing is abo…

Here's my take. A recent blog post at OkCupid (http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2010/07/07/the-biggest-lie...) indicated that most people use dating sites for 6 months. I would estimate Netflix users are multi-year users. Just using those numbers you need to charge more per user.

Obviously this isn't a really deep analysis, but it's perhaps one reason.

Re: NetFlix: America's Most Underestimated Company

#57

Post by duck »

nuclear_eclipse wrote: post #52
duck wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large segment of the population chooses to pirate instead of pay Is there any numbers backing this up?

Anecdote: I have multiple relatives, including a police officer, who are dumb as a rock about how computers work, but through their friends have managed to pick up on how to use BitTorrent + Pirate Bay to pirate not only movies but music. And they see nothing wrong with this behavior, in an extremely conservative portion of Ohio; the same people who insist our President is a Muslim Kenyan. If this sort of use case ha…

That is what I was wondering since I hadn't really seen anyone outside of the tech world use it.

So with that I can see it being a competitor, but then I wonder how do you compete with something that is illegal and not really an entity?

Re: NetFlix: America's Most Underestimated Company

#58

Post by MichaelSalib »

Herring wrote: post #26
Vivtek wrote: post #24

Argh, a truly good article marred by one thing: the assertion that BitTorrent is a competitor for NetFlix. This notion just won't die - I use BitTorrent, sure - to get stuff I can't pay for, because nobody is interested in selling it to me. But I'd much, much, much rather toss NetFlix their $9 every month to deliver what I want without the hassle of BitTorrent, and that's the canard that the entertainment industry ju…

>hassle of BitTorrent What do you mean? I hadn't noticed.

Using BitTorrent to pirate media incurs some legal risk; there is always a chance that a media company will decide to sue you. Now, the odds of that happening are low, but once they decide to sue you, you will almost certainly lose thousands of dollars, even if you end up winning.

In a sense, you can think of the money spent legally purchasing all (or most) of your media as an insurance policy -- you're paying for the right to enjoy media without having to worry about losing tens of thousands of dollars. Low probability high cost scenarios might not trouble younger unattached folk, but I found they weighed more on my mind as I grew older and started a family. YMMV.

Re: NetFlix: America's Most Underestimated Company

#59

Post by RK »

JoelMcCracken wrote: post #14

I have been a Netflix subscriber since February 2006. It is the only service that I have subscribed to for that long, and the only one I never, ever ponder unsubscribing to.

Netflix is probably the only pay service that almost everyone I know in the US has.

Re: NetFlix: America's Most Underestimated Company

#60

Post by pmichaud »

danilocampos wrote: post #42

I love Netflix. They're a role model for other companies, and for me as a person. Netflix has succeeded on the strength of two things: integrity and ambition. They genuinely care about their customers. They work extra hard to make sure people who give them money are happy to do it. In their call centers, CSRs are friendly and empowered. They're instructed to err on the side of doing things that are most likely to mak…

I wasn't so lucky with them. I was a good customer, but they started silently throttling my account, and they wouldn't admit to it either. It's since come out that that's exactly what they were doing.

If it's too expensive to send me that many disks, fine, but don't lie to me about it.

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