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

Netflix will raise streaming prices for new members this quarter

gigaom.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 50 posts

Re: Netflix will raise streaming prices for new members this quarter

#41

Post by markhelo »

ChrisLTD wrote: post #8

I'm bearish on Netflix because... a) Everyone and their sister seems to have the technology for a streaming video service. b) They have no shortage of big name competitors like Amazon, Hulu, and Vudu. c) Content companies that provide the bulk of value to Netflix subscribers can keep raising their licensing fees until Netflix is left with zero profit.

Netflix has done a great job building that service and it is easy to underestimate how hard it is to build. Amazon has EC2 and Google has Youtube. There are no other realistic competitors in the streaming service at that scale for now in my opinion.

Re: Netflix will raise streaming prices for new members this quarter

#42

Post by shirro »

The thing I find most interesting about a service like Netflix is the complete inversion of costs of product and delivery for someone in Australia. A monthly Netflix subscription costs less than a couple of coffees here. The data caps on Internet connections and the inaction of successive governments to address market failures means I could pay hundreds of dollars a month to stream a service like Netflix. It can be quite a lot cheaper to buy box sets of shows or take out a cable tv subscription than pay data costs but you don't get the same flexibility.

I thought the towns local video store would have followed others around the world into bankruptcy by now but they are still charging $7 for an overnight rental and still have customers.

Re: Netflix will raise streaming prices for new members this quarter

#43

Post by BigBadBionicBoy »

BigBadBionicBoy wrote: post #2

To raise prices when apps like popcorn time come around and threaten your very existence seems like the height of stupidity to me.

Downvote me all you want fuckers.

If a product becomes easily available for free, it DOES threaten the livelihood of a business that sells that product.

Popcorn Time and any future apps that make it easy to stream pirated content do pose a danger to fee based content providers.

Re: Netflix will raise streaming prices for new members this quarter

#44

Post by Drizzle_Returns »

r00fus wrote: post #26
ch4s3 wrote: post #11

I understand the price hike, but Netflix feels like its value to me as a media consumer is stagnating. House of Cards and a bit of laziness is why I've kept it, but I consider ditching it whenever I'm reminded of the fact that I pay for it. If they want to survive they need to do 3 things imho: 1. Improve their recommendation algorithm 2. More high quality original series (preferably without extorting Maryland for it…

Netflix's problem is that they can't prevent #3 - case in point, my daughter discovered Ponyo on Netflix which was possible through NF's agreement with Starz. At some point Starz refused to give Netflix a license to their licensable content (i.e., to many Disney titles in this case) at any cost. Of course, we now own the video as it's highly rewatchable for the kiddo, but I wouldn't doubt that Neflix would have happi…

Well Stars would have made a deal with Netflix however they wanted tiered pricing and Netflix said no. The Stars deal also didn't include enough money. $300 million a year is not a lot when compared to Dreamworks deal where they get $30 million per movie.

Re: Netflix will raise streaming prices for new members this quarter

#45

Post by shadesandcolour »

volune wrote: post #12

Why discriminate against new customers? It doesn't seem like a good business case.

The last time they tried raising prices, everyone threw a hissy fit. This is their way of slowly rolling out a new pricing model. Current users will eventually get the new price, but for right now they feel like Netflix is being loyal to them.

If perspective users really can't justify Netflix at 10 dollars, they probably couldn't justify it at 8 dollars anyways.

Re: Netflix will raise streaming prices for new members this quarter

#46

Post by toomuchtodo »

chc wrote: post #33
toomuchtodo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $8 a month is very, very cheap for legal streaming video. Media pricing is subjective. Yes, its cheaper than buying outright on iTunes; but its still more expensive that pirating it. It'll make a great pricing experiment. Everyone values content differently. EDIT: Easy on the downvotes y'all. I don't pirate my content, I'm saying people will .

Any price is more expensive than pirating it. Nobody is going to compete with piracy on price.

Arguably, you can compete on price (Hulu).

The ads model works as long as its not too painful. 2-3 ads/show? Reasonable. 12+ ads per show (because you're addicted to ad pricing on broadcast, and for the love of god please can't we get that on the web)? Pirate Bay.

Re: Netflix will raise streaming prices for new members this quarter

#47

Post by abrowne »

moonka wrote: post #38
abrowne wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they added more older/rarer/foreigner films I'd happily pay more than they charge now (vs. not subscribing currently)!

I wonder if the reason they don't have a lot of the older films is due to the fact that digital rights were never fleshed out? If so, I'd be curious to know if that's the type of thing that can be resolved (and how).

That's always been my suspicion, and it's probably worse the further in time and space you move from Hollywood. So, beyond the most famous examples, older foreign movies will probably never appear.

Re: Netflix will raise streaming prices for new members this quarter

#49

Post by jpollock »

chc wrote: post #33
toomuchtodo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $8 a month is very, very cheap for legal streaming video. Media pricing is subjective. Yes, its cheaper than buying outright on iTunes; but its still more expensive that pirating it. It'll make a great pricing experiment. Everyone values content differently. EDIT: Easy on the downvotes y'all. I don't pirate my content, I'm saying people will .

Any price is more expensive than pirating it. Nobody is going to compete with piracy on price.

Actually, there are substantial secondary benefits to going legal. Giving back to the creator, guaranteed quality, avoiding legal entanglements, cheaper traffic, higher speeds, etc. All things that aren't typically offered by pirated content providers.

The problem is that legal sources have issues around trying to controlling when/where/how the content is viewed, which might be the majority of the value in the media (over and above the content itself).

Re: Netflix will raise streaming prices for new members this quarter

#50

Post by toomuchtodo »

jpollock wrote: post #49
chc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any price is more expensive than pirating it. Nobody is going to compete with piracy on price.

Actually, there are substantial secondary benefits to going legal. Giving back to the creator, guaranteed quality, avoiding legal entanglements, cheaper traffic, higher speeds, etc. All things that aren't typically offered by pirated content providers. The problem is that legal sources have issues around trying to controlling when/where/how the content is viewed, which might be the majority of the value in the media…

> Giving back to the creator

Does the creator truly win out when the content is paid for? I'm using music as an example; not sure how its panning out on the Netflix/video side.

> guaranteed quality

Can you always reliably get 1080p from Netflix? Because you can from TPB.

> avoiding legal entanglements

Which is now a moot point considering the number of judges who have indicated that an IP address in a log can't be tied to a specific end user.

> cheaper traffic, higher speeds

Again, as with quality, I think this depends on your ISP. You'll only get frustrated so many times with Netflix rendition switching or buffering before you'll fire up your bittorrent client, let it suck down 10-20 episodes, and watch at your leisure.

Post reply on HN