Netflix CEO: Amazon Losing Up to $1 Billion a Year on Streaming Video • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix CEO: Amazon Losing Up to $1 Billion a Year on Streaming Video

#41

Post by khuey » Sat, Nov 17, 2012, 2:10 PM UTC

dangrossman wrote: post #26

rgbrgb wrote: post #18

I think they'd do well to devote resources to making browsing videos less like shopping on Amazon. When I log into Netflix, I feel like a valued customer. They go out of their way to find stuff I'd love to watch and NEVER try to sell me anything. I've payed money and they want to give me a great service. Comparatively, browsing videos on Amazon feels like I'm in Walmart. I am bombarded with continuous advertisements,…

Hook up a Roku or other set-top box to your TV. Run the Amazon Instant Video app. It works just like Netflix. No store, no ads, just flipping through box art to choose movies or shows to watch.

Or install Adblock Plus.

Re: Netflix CEO: Amazon Losing Up to $1 Billion a Year on Streaming Video

#42

Post by kbutler » Sat, Nov 17, 2012, 5:14 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #15

kbutler wrote: post #8

> Netflix CEO: Amazon Losing Up to $1 Billion a Year on Streaming Video I'm skeptical. This posits that Amazon is spending about 1/4-1/2 of what Netflix spends (Netflix on track for $2.1 billion this year), to stream about 1/20th as much (Netflix 33% of internet traffic, Amazon 1.8%), from a greatly inferior content catalog. I think Bezos & Co. can cut better deals than that.

How would he do that? Hastings says the estimate is based on head-to-head competition. If I'm selling streaming rights for property A, I'm going to go with the people who pay me the most. If Bezos says, "But gosh, we aren't showing it to as many people," my answer will be "Tough!"

There are lots of options besides a blanket per-title or per-library fee.

One possibility would be per-stream (per-view) licensing.

Another could be per registered user or percentage of revenue.

Amazon's best bet may be to include prime streaming as an incremental addition to their paid rental streaming licenses.

Lots of options, and Amazon has enough reach and enough channels to customers that I expect a smart business to be able to structure a better deal than paying 40-80 times as much for delivered customer value as a single-channel competitor.

Re: Netflix CEO: Amazon Losing Up to $1 Billion a Year on Streaming Video

#43

Post by dangrossman » Sat, Nov 17, 2012, 7:42 PM UTC

khuey wrote: post #41

dangrossman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hook up a Roku or other set-top box to your TV. Run the Amazon Instant Video app. It works just like Netflix. No store, no ads, just flipping through box art to choose movies or shows to watch.

Or install Adblock Plus.

AdBlock Plus would not change anything. He's complaining about Amazon Instant Video's web interface being part of the Amazon store, so when browsing videos to watch you also see the list of other formats you can buy each in, related products, 'customers also bought' products, etc. These are not ads and AdBlock does not remove them as it'd simply be wiping out the whole page.

Re: Netflix CEO: Amazon Losing Up to $1 Billion a Year on Streaming Video

#44

Post by dromidas » Mon, Nov 19, 2012, 8:19 PM UTC

Hollywood and movies licensing isn't suitable for competitive businesses. One site can do it (netflix) but once more than one tries it everyone will lose. The source of the problem is that Hollywood itself is a monopoly, it gouges so much from the distributors like Netflix/Amazon that any attempt to divide subscribers to their services between each other will end up killing both parties.

Same thing happening with Spotify and Rdio.