This is what Spotify and others like them need to do, too - try to take away artists from the labels. But I think Spotify already signed a non-competing contract with the labels.
The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show
71–80 of 114 posts
Re: The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you rather they use Silverlight forever instead? Without some form of DRM on playback, there is no Netflix (or Hulu or any other legit web-based streaming for premium content).
I'd rather them not use DRM at all. I don't use them precisely because of their DRM proliferation. But it's not the point - the point is that DRM is a dying trend altogether, and making it a Web standard is nonsensical. It's not different from proposing to make Flash or Silverlight a Web standard, when the whole Web is shifting to move to pure HTML. That's besides the mere fact that DRM is unethical and goes against…
> the point is that DRM is a dying trend altogether
Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Steam, Microsoft, Sony and Spotify all disagree with you. DRM isn't dying, the goalposts have just moved. I think people are starting to become more educated on what is and isn't acceptable DRM. If it's handled transparently then most people don't care. If it is handled poorly (I'm looking at you Installshield) then it's the nightmare we imagined.
There are certain things I can accept DRM on, streaming movies from Netflix, streaming movies from Spotify, cheap games from Steam, and reasonable SaaS subscriptions. And there are some things even I won't accept DRM on, ever. My music collection and my book collection, mainly. I'll pay the rent price for a game or movie, but I'll never pay the owner price and have you rent it to me. That's how I see DRM and that is how I instruct others to treat it.
Re: The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show
#73> With Netflix spending a reported $100 million to produce two 13-episode seasons of House of Cards, they need 520,834 people to sign up for a $7.99 subscription for two years to break even. Isn't that ignoring profit vs income?
When Netflix owns the content, their marginal costs per subscriber are near zero -- essentially just bandwidth and compute fees.
But out of those new subscribers, you need to filter out people who would have subscribed even if Netflix didn't have House of Cards
Re: The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show
#74I would have preferred they spent a few hundred million per year on lobbying and amicus briefs to urge Congress and the Courts to adopt compulsory licensing. Then Netflix would be able to stream HBO shows without HBO's permission for a reasonable fixed fee. So could Amazon, and Hulu, and Google Play. All of them could compete on service, rather than in backroom negotiations. Instead, consumers should look forward to…
Lobbying against the MPAA would not be cheap and would take many years to be successful, years that Netflix doesn't have.
Re: The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show
#75"The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us." - Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer. This is the kind of disruption that we actually need for traditional media companies.
I love the directness and honesty in that statement.
Re: The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, the cost of entry for creating a high quality book is much lower than for creating a high quality movie/tv show. This allows a wider variety of viewpoints, forms, styles, and ideas to be expressed in book form than tv.
Kind of sounds like YouTube.
Except that you can't produce longform, high quality content on YouTube for any cheaper than you can produce a tv show.
Re: The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kind of sounds like YouTube.
Except that you can't produce longform, high quality content on YouTube for any cheaper than you can produce a tv show.
Resolution? Distribution? Length? Advertising support? Its a whole different economic (and technical) environment; costs are likely unrelated to any TV model.
Re: The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show
#78I'm not a fan of political shows. That said, I decided to watch House of Cards last night. It's not bad. Having Kevin Spacey as the lead is good. There's a good cast of supporting actors too. The writing is a bit mundane, but not terrible. I know the show is somewhat of a remake of a BBC show from a while back, but I never watched it so my take is purely on this experience. I plan on watching the rest of it. It was i…
> It's not bad. Having Kevin Spacey as the lead is good. I like the show, but Kevin Spacey's southern accent is so terrible it is distracting. I normally wouldn't care, but my I grew up in the Carolinas and he sounds nothing like any person or politician from the area. He needs to drop the accent as it takes away from the rest of his performance. If they wanted a correct southern accent they should have hired Kyle Ch…
When I was at NC State, I met an old doctor who had an accent kind of like that. I had a feeling it was some sort of "Old Raleigh accent of prestige." I've also heard people talk sort of like that in Georgia, where again I got a feeling it was linked to prestige.
His accent might not be spot-on, but I find it plausible.
Re: The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show
#79I'm really hoping this works. Partially because I'm a Netflix subscriber, but mostly because I want HBO, AMC, and Showtime to follow suit eventually. If Netflix shows that they can support a high-profile show with a subscription model, maybe non-cable subscribers can eventually get HBO. Or am I just dreaming?
You want to pay $9 * N content providers per month? I don't.
$9/mth for different content I actually want to watch is much, much more attractive than current cable options.
Re: The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
You want to pay $9 * N content providers per month? I don't.
You wouldn't? I totally would. Seems like a cable package that includes premium content (HBO, etc.) runs at least $100 per month. If I could ditch the cable and instead get 11 HBO-quality content providers (which is much better than I get from cable), that would be a no-brainer. More likely, I would get half as many, and end up with more solid content than I have time to watch, for much less money.
I want to pay for content, not brands. This is just a different version of the problem we have with cable. You're forgetting that most of the content HBO, Showtime, etc. show is not original content, and it overlaps with each other (and Netflix, and Amazon Prime), so you'd be paying for the same content many times over.