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

Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

marketwatch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 417 posts

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#401

Post by wool_gather »

noelsusman wrote: post #175
atombender wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People aren't asking for a single distribution channel in the sense of a single monolithic company owning all the IP. They do want (1) convenient apps that aggregate, such as Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video, and (2) a way to get all the content without having to pay lots of individual companies (I'm subscribing to around 5 streaming services myself). Why can't video be like music? Spotify and Apple Music aggregate pr…

This is a good point, though Spotify hasn't been without its bumps. It has lost money almost every year and substantially reduced the total amount of money artists receive from people listening to their music. Artists have been forced to find alternative revenue streams to remain solvent, and it has taken a hammer to the "middle class" of musicians. All of this has been great for the consumer since we get cheap music…

It's funny; I think that Spotify is an insanely good deal. I would absolutely pay more for the service, a lot more. I'd probably use it more if I were paying more, too, so maybe it wouldn't work out for them. But in my opinion, they're underpriced.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#402

Post by Wowfunhappy »

OkGoDoIt wrote: post #285
inetknght wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also don't get why everyone is clamoring for one company to control all video entertainment distribution. Isn't that what we hated about cable? Didn't we beg for the ability to pick and choose what we actually want to pay for? Now we finally have that and people instantly want to go back? Why? 1) I don't want to pay for content I won't watch. 2) I don't want to be required to pay for content I won't watch in orde…

Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft all offer paid rentals of nearly anything, on a per movie, episode, or season basis. So what you are asking for definitely exists. It’s just priced disproportionately high compared to the streaming packages that are popular these days.

* Except, annoyingly, for Netflix and Amazon originals. I waited a year for Stranger Things Season 2 to come out on BluRay. :(

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#403

Post by perl4ever »

Osiris wrote: post #322
perl4ever wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like there is some pitfall in making a recommendation algorithm that more and more people are falling in to. I don't watch TV or have Netflix, but I listen to streaming music, and I noticed something weird. I used to listen to Pandora, and it recommended a lot of different artists that I liked on hearing them for the first time. It single-handedly gave me a taste for 21st century music. But there wasn't enou…

Pandora has almost no variety at all. Even a playlist like "90s Alternative" which should have thousands of potential top songs plays the same songs every time I listen Google Play Music has been the best for me in terms of variety, but it's buggy as hell. It freezes up if it can't play an ad for some reason, won't automatically play when bluetooth is connected (like Pandora does), and other annoying things. (I ride…

I don't think I started with a playlist like that. It's been a while, but I think I started with specific artists/music (albeit from the 90s) that I liked. I don't think you can expect individually satisfying suggestions if you request generic music in the first place.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#404

Post by edanm »

icelancer wrote: post #252
mjevans wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Industry can't get this simple message in to it's collective head: The convenience needs to be better and cheaper (including perceived risks') than piracy to win. These are the things they MUST do: * One payment, that's reasonable. * All the content from FOREVER accessible FOREVER in one place. Honestly, that's it for most people. For me they also need to... * Be DRM free so that it actually works on OSes that re…

>> The convenience needs to be better and cheaper (including perceived risks') than piracy to win. Exactly. People saying "well it's not profitable" or this that and the other are missing the boat. Piracy is always going to exist and it's always going to be basically free. There is no beating that. That is the new reality we are in. Now, they must adjust to that reality, whether they like it or not. Many services hav…

It kind of sounds like you're getting your history backwards here.

Piracy has existed for almost 2 decades at this point. Back then, people were making the argument that the industry needs to adjust, needs to make things as simple and cheap as piracy is, etc.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#405

Post by edanm »

archey1 wrote: post #75

Netflix is just getting more expensive and less interesting to me. With all of the content I like being taken off to be hosted on network exclusive streaming platforms that I refuse to pay for - I'll probably eventually just cancel Netflix as well going back to the tried and true method of just buying bluray box-sets of the content I want to watch. Or piracy. I think the critical mistake that all these megacorps are…

> I think the critical mistake that all these megacorps are making is that people don't actually want to pay for a bazillion streaming services.

I don't think anyone is making this mistake. It's just still in their interest to sell that.

And to be quite clear, it doesn't seem like there is a viable alternative that's priced at a level most people are willing to pay.

Of course people want a super convenient option, that's all in one place, and that's cheap to boot. But... it doesn't work economically. People would also want to all be driving Rolls Royces that cost 5 cents. For some reason, when it comes to physical goods, people understand that that's impossible, but when it comes to digital goods, they don't.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#406

Post by NotSammyHagar »

lonelappde wrote: post #296
dragonwriter wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why can't video be like music? Music is still fighting being “like music”. > Spotify and Apple Music aggregate pretty much all the music in the world now. There have been a number of recent media reports about how exclusives, which never were absent from streaming music, are playing a bigger role now. > You don't have to sign up Warner and Sony and a thousand other labels to play music. Well, yeah, we haven't gotte…

Right. Streaming video will be like Spotify as soon as Disney+ finishes buying every IP franchise.

I wonder how far they can go before they are told they can't buy anything more? I think they have too much right now.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#407

Post by NotSammyHagar »

xiphias2 wrote: post #343
didibus wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it is happening though. Can I just say... pay 10$ a month for access to 10 TV shows of my chosing? Or even better would be to pay by the minute at a rate where it ends up that 1h of TV every month is around 10$. But where the selection of shows is the entire catalogue of all shows ever.

It sounds great, but as the content is already created, this business model doesn't reflect the real cost of business either. The more people watch the same shows, the better the synergy between content creators and viewers.

Well, a big company can work to make money on all their productions, like when they make a ton of money with a few big shows like say friends. I have a vision that a lot of money goes to the endless division of licensing to all those middlemen negotiating small different broadcast allowances, that have to be implemented, enforced, checked, have lawyers on both sides, produced etc. That's overhead must waste a lot of money. What if every programmer had a middleman negotiate your wage and take 15%? That wouldn't make it more productive, but would pay for a lot of useless businesspeople in the middle.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#408

Post by eridius »

kelnos wrote: post #332
eridius wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't like the proliferation of streaming services because of the cost. Buying "just NBC" or "just CBS" is still preferable to the old model of "if you want ESPN you have to get dozens of other channels at the same time". But buying just a single network's content only works if the price is such that you can subscribe to all of your networks and not end up paying more than the old cable model cost you. The pro…

The issue with "buy NBC" or "buy CBS" is that I don't care at all about networks. I care about particular shows. If I could pay $1/mo each for 20 different shows, I'd be fine with that.

$1/mo each doesn't pay for the show though.

If all you care about is a single show, buy the show on iTunes. Each episode costs $3, or you can buy the whole season for cheaper (seasons are usually around $30, though it depends on how many episodes are in the season).

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#410

Post by didibus »

xiphias2 wrote: post #343
didibus wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it is happening though. Can I just say... pay 10$ a month for access to 10 TV shows of my chosing? Or even better would be to pay by the minute at a rate where it ends up that 1h of TV every month is around 10$. But where the selection of shows is the entire catalogue of all shows ever.

It sounds great, but as the content is already created, this business model doesn't reflect the real cost of business either. The more people watch the same shows, the better the synergy between content creators and viewers.

Right, but I think you're conflating two things. How a business will successfully offer what consumers want in a sustainable manner and what consumers would want. Saying, that wouldn't be a viable business model doesn't mean that if someone could make it viable it wouldn't allow them to take over the market and shake the industry, since it would deliver on what customers might want most.

And that's kinda what Netflix had set out to do at first, and I'm hoping are still trying to do.

Post reply on HN