Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Netflix Is Killing BitTorrent in The US

torrentfreak.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 102 posts

Re: Netflix Is Killing BitTorrent in The US

#11

Post by protomyth »

phlux wrote: post #5
ChuckMcM wrote: post #2

I don't find this surprising. "Piracy" is the expression of a market that is unserved, which is to say that a product is offered at price X, the consumers price is Y which is The MPAA and RIAA and a bounty of plaintiff lawyers are trying to increase the cost of the risk, and people like Netflix are getting the price paid by the consumer below X. When the inequality ceases to hold, people switch into being paying cust…

Actually, I dont buy this due to the fact that piracy is largly around fresh content, where netflix movie library is fairly old. Sure, it is getting better titles all the time - but given the fact that hollywood thinks that paying $30 to see a movie at home after it has been in the theatres for 60 (or was it 90) days is a viable price - You will always see piracy of the latest content. Further - given the quality of…

I could see Netflix's library of older content taking the place of some fresh content pirating. There was a theory that the iPod dropped sales of new music because people now had an easy way to listen to their entire music library and "rediscovered" old songs. This lead to not purchasing new music for a period. Netflix could inspire much the same phenomena with the added bonus of newer content being added.

Re: Netflix Is Killing BitTorrent in The US

#12

Post by enjo »

pdubroy wrote: post #4

The article doesn't actually offer any evidence, apart from the fact that Netflix has doubled its subscribers.

Exactly. If anything I'd bet the opposite might be the case. After all, Netflix streaming and Hulu have both been an enabler for a lot of folks to drop their cable subscription altogether(my wife and I have, for one).

The only problem is that there are still a few shows we really want to see (like Game Of Thrones) that we can't find a way to legally acquire. Without cable there is no HBO.

I bet more and more people are going to be turning to piracy to get the content they want when they cut that cable cord.

Re: Netflix Is Killing BitTorrent in The US

#13

Post by gojomo »

phlux wrote: post #5
ChuckMcM wrote: post #2

I don't find this surprising. "Piracy" is the expression of a market that is unserved, which is to say that a product is offered at price X, the consumers price is Y which is The MPAA and RIAA and a bounty of plaintiff lawyers are trying to increase the cost of the risk, and people like Netflix are getting the price paid by the consumer below X. When the inequality ceases to hold, people switch into being paying cust…

Actually, I dont buy this due to the fact that piracy is largly around fresh content, where netflix movie library is fairly old. Sure, it is getting better titles all the time - but given the fact that hollywood thinks that paying $30 to see a movie at home after it has been in the theatres for 60 (or was it 90) days is a viable price - You will always see piracy of the latest content. Further - given the quality of…

Are you sure the 'fresh content' head dominates the aged long-tail?

The fresh content will dominate top-N lists, sure. It will also dominate headlines, because it will more often be the subject of newsworthy early-leaks and enforcement actions.

But there is so much more old content, and the collection/completist/sampling motivations so important for unauthorized sharing, that I could easily see the old content swamping the new in terms of total copies or total bandwidth.

Re: Netflix Is Killing BitTorrent in The US

#14

Post by jaysonelliot »

If I could rely on a streaming movie from Netflix to play uninterrupted and without flaws from beginning to end, it would be wonderful.

That, and if I could find the movies I want to watch, of course.

The reality for me, at least, is that I cannot watch two hours of streaming video from Netflix without the picture freezing or skipping at some point, even if it's just a little bit.

I love film, and that's unacceptable. I need to either go to the store and get the DVD, rent a download (not streaming) from iTunes, or hit the high seas. I need to watch movies when I want, and I need them to play perfectly.

That rules out Netflix, at least for me, at least for now.

Re: Netflix Is Killing BitTorrent in The US

#15

Post by thecoffman »

jaysonelliot wrote: post #14

If I could rely on a streaming movie from Netflix to play uninterrupted and without flaws from beginning to end, it would be wonderful. That, and if I could find the movies I want to watch, of course. The reality for me, at least, is that I cannot watch two hours of streaming video from Netflix without the picture freezing or skipping at some point, even if it's just a little bit. I love film, and that's unacceptable…

I wonder if that has something to do with your home network or isp? I stream HD netflix constantly through my bluray player and xbox and never have so much as a hiccup.

Re: Netflix Is Killing BitTorrent in The US

#16

Post by danilocampos »

jaysonelliot wrote: post #14

If I could rely on a streaming movie from Netflix to play uninterrupted and without flaws from beginning to end, it would be wonderful. That, and if I could find the movies I want to watch, of course. The reality for me, at least, is that I cannot watch two hours of streaming video from Netflix without the picture freezing or skipping at some point, even if it's just a little bit. I love film, and that's unacceptable…

This sounds like a network issue – though that doesn't take away from your point.

In my case, I can Watch Instantly for an entire movie, in HD, without any trouble at all, and it does start almost instantly.

If you're getting the bone, though, that points to the limitations any bandwidth-intensive business has to contend with as they scale. A decent number of potential customers are stuck with sloppy internet. I wonder at what point Netflix's growth becomes inhibited by the shitty state of US ISPs.

More interestingly, I wonder what moves they'll make to get around those limitations. They are a crafty company.

Re: Netflix Is Killing BitTorrent in The US

#17

Post by phlux »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #9
phlux wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I dont buy this due to the fact that piracy is largly around fresh content, where netflix movie library is fairly old. Sure, it is getting better titles all the time - but given the fact that hollywood thinks that paying $30 to see a movie at home after it has been in the theatres for 60 (or was it 90) days is a viable price - You will always see piracy of the latest content. Further - given the quality of…

"Actually, I dont buy this due to the fact that piracy is largly around fresh content, where netflix movie library is fairly old." Do you have a citation for this? All of the places where people put numbers to piracy that I've seen (like the lawsuits against various anonymous folks) seem to span a whole range of content from older stuff to newer stuff.

My citation is that I am a Netflix subscriber -- and I have seen content available on the Tubes which is still in the theatres.

I have a tough time finding new, contemporary content in the streaming lib of netflix.

Re: Netflix Is Killing BitTorrent in The US

#18

Post by Florin_Andrei »

maratd wrote: post #7

From personal experience, this is only partially the case. Netflix IS more convenient and the cost is minimal, but their library is limited. I can download any movie/show I can think of via "alternative" means. That's not the case with Netflix, especially when dealing with foreign media that requires subtitles. Netflix still has a long way to go before I no longer have uTorrent running 24/7.

It will forever be "only partially the case", no matter how successful Netflix becomes. It's only a matter of proportions.

Re: Netflix Is Killing BitTorrent in The US

#19

Post by phlux »

gojomo wrote: post #13
phlux wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I dont buy this due to the fact that piracy is largly around fresh content, where netflix movie library is fairly old. Sure, it is getting better titles all the time - but given the fact that hollywood thinks that paying $30 to see a movie at home after it has been in the theatres for 60 (or was it 90) days is a viable price - You will always see piracy of the latest content. Further - given the quality of…

Are you sure the 'fresh content' head dominates the aged long-tail? The fresh content will dominate top-N lists, sure. It will also dominate headlines, because it will more often be the subject of newsworthy early-leaks and enforcement actions. But there is so much more old content, and the collection/completist/sampling motivations so important for unauthorized sharing, that I could easily see the old content swampi…

This is HN, hopefully someone smarter than I could come up with an algorithm that could model content bandwidth activity.

Content creates a spike of activity when it is "born" on the internet.

Content maintains activity over the life of its availability.

Activity may be a function of the contents [age, quality, rating, medium, popularity, relation to other content, etc]

\It is a sequel, part of a set, etc.

It would be interesting to be able to utilize the rating from netflix/imdb to predict how much total activity a piece of content might create.

Post reply on HN