I wonder how long until they stop their DVD shipping side business.
Netflix Long Term View
151–160 of 181 posts
Re: Netflix Long Term View
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see Amazon's model as less consumer-friendly - particularly as I remember well the days of having to go to the local video rental place, making sure to return it on time, paying late fees, etc. I'm happy to pay $3-5 for a few days in which to watch a movie, and then not think about it when I'm done. The price is right, and the convenience can't be beaten.
You could buy a lot of movies outright for only a bit more than Amazon charges, so the price seems a bit steep to me. Obviously not back-breaking, but the price feels wrong.
I've never understood buying a movie, though. Once I've seen it, I'm done. No need to ever see it again. One of the best things about Amazon's service is the hybrid model. Prime for tons of content and when that fails you can rent a la carte. While everyone is fighting the content purchasing wars this seems to give the consumer the most content albeit with inconsistent total pricing.
Re: Netflix Long Term View
#153One day, I can pay less than 50 dollar per month, be able to watch NFL, MLB, NBA and EPL. Then I will switch to netflix.
Re: Netflix Long Term View
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think people consume music in the same way as movies or TV. My wife and I have accounts for Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and we'll get HBO Go. When you're going to sit down for 30-60 minutes, it's not a big deal to search a couple of places. And throw in some central search like what Roku does, it's really no big deal.
I think that the real problem is that most people will not pay for 5 different streaming services. Remember, the median family income in the US is only about 50k, which I'm guessing is less than most people here make by themselves. I predict that the dismantling of "has everything" Netflix results in a resurgence of video piracy (or maybe redbox) -- overall, a net loss for the industry.
> I think that the real problem is that most people will not pay for 5 different streaming services. Remember, the median family income in the US is only about 50k, which I'm guessing is less than most people here make by themselves.
Why won't they pay for 5 streaming services? They're already paying for 100 channels.
Remember, cable or satellite TV together have 80% penetration in the United States. That means that your median family with the $50k income is paying close to $80 per month for video entertainment. ($80 happens to be Comcast's video ARPU.)
If the end-game is the unbundling of video content from the delivery mechanism, then that $80 will buy a lot of streaming services. Probably more than five. Depends how they're bundled.
Re: Netflix Long Term View
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and their original series (in my opinion) eclipse what HBO currently offers. I realize it's your opinion, but...really? HBO has a massive catalog of brilliant shows[1]. Netflix isn't even on the same planet when it comes to original content (but I hope they get there, better for all of us). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programs_broadcast_by_H...
I agree HBO quality is somehow better even though Netflix is paying top dollar. For example, Marco Polo is more expensive than Game of Thrones but much less entertaining.
Don't say the names of those two programs in the same sentence.
Marco Polo made me fear for Netflix's future more than anything I've seen in a long time.
Re: Netflix Long Term View
#156Am I the only one who finds finding something on Netflix to watch increasingly difficult, and contradictory to what they say in that piece. My experience is mostly using Roku (a spinoff from Netflix) and Android. For example if I watch a WWII documentary, then they feel the need to recommend every one they have, for a long time. Oh and "watch" means "seen more than a second or two of", so you get all this crud even i…
> Perhaps the biggest sin is showing me stuff I have already watched
This please, if someone from Netflix is reading, please remove movies already watched from all but the "watch again" category. Also please put back "random picks" category: I found great hidden treasures thanks to it.
Re: Netflix Long Term View
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but we shouldn't downplay the scale of the shift. Today it wants to be HBO, a company that pulls in around $1.3 billion quarterly in revenue[1]; before the shift, it wanted to be Comcast, which pulls in around $16.8 billion quarterly[2]. That's a massive downsizing of ambitions -- so big it's kind of surprising that a share of NFLX today is worth around 5 times what it was worth at the beginning of 2013. The hyp…
Exactly. Netflix pivoted because it realized it couldn't kill cable. It could maybe kill a cable network (and it won't kill HBO, it might kill Starz or Showtime, but not HBO).
Netflix has already killed cable for a lot of users. Cable is an ancient UX where you rely on programmers to decide what to watch for you. That model was never good; it existed only because that's all the technology supported when cable TV was developed. That model is now outmoded.
The only reason Netflix has yet to achieve utter dominance is the copyright cabal that no longer sees why it should entertain Netflix's money-making when they can create Streaming Video Clone Site #2019 for their properties and collect all the money from subscriptions + ads themselves. Netflix eventually realized that their model was utterly fucked as long as copyright law stayed as it is (since their existence was dependent on the continued cooperation of third parties) and has been forced to rely on its own content to carry subscriptions, since everyone and their dog started making unrealistic demands and pulling their content, many to host on their own sites instead.
Consider that under current copyright law, almost the entirety of film history remains inaccessible without an explicit license grant from the rightsholder. If our terms were a little more reasonable, say anything pre-1980 was now public domain, Netflix may have had a chance to exist independent of Big Media's permission. Under current conditions, Netflix can only stream content published prior to 1924 without permission (plus a smattering of mostly-unwanted films that lapsed into public domain due to registration errors or technicalities). Consider that in 1924, sound had not yet been added to film.
Cable television as we know it is doomed. People don't like relying on programmers to decide what content they want to watch, they want to decide for themselves and get their content instantly. Netflix was one of the first services to offer this to the masses, but it can't reap the rewards because of the oppressive state of copyright law.
Once Netflix really breaks away from dependence on Big Media's copyright grants, they may become one of the biggest champions for modernizing our IP laws to reflect the realities of the digital age.
Re: Netflix Long Term View
#158Maybe it's just me. But one thing about linear (live) broadcasts -- and this also applies to an extent to live radio vs. mp3's -- is that there is just something engaging about watching a program that you know other people, at that moment, are also watching. It's also missed when watching a show that you DVR'ed, after the fact -- like the series finale to Lost, or the Super Bowl. If/when live broadcasts are completel…
I've never thought about this with TV, but I've definitely felt it with the radio. There's something about being tuned in that feels like I'm connected to others, or part of a community. If I switch to listening to my own music (even if it's still through an online service like Spotify), it feels disconnected.
I'm not sure how useful this feeling is, and so it may die out, but I wanted to acknowledge that you're not the only one to notice it. :)
Re: Netflix Long Term View
#159Can someone tell me how geo-fencing within the EU is still a thing to stay when one of the EU's main digital agenda goals is to establish a digital single market market? https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/our-goals/pillar-i-di... [Edit] Some sources: Geographical Restrictions, (and different pricing) for digital goods within the EU are clearly discriminatory against the customer. As stated here: http://www.europa…
The EU's competition authority has actually launched an antitrust investigation into this in January 2014: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-15_en.htm
It's a really complicated issue though, but hopefully, geo-restrictions will vanish at some point in the EU, either by legal or political force.
Re: Netflix Long Term View
#160Just a tangent, but the 600m for advertising and 500m for product development is not a Netflix only thing, but it always pisses me off so much to read it. That first number, the bigger number, is a black hole. Advertising is the worst, with its only competitor in my book being the legal system, industry in the industrialized world. It produces nothing of value, because all it tries to do it move money from predispose…
> It is buying market share, without making anything with the money.
Erm. Yes, it's doing something with the money. Buying market share.