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What Netflix Could Have Said This Week

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Re: What Netflix Could Have Said This Week

#91

Post by meterplech »

ctdonath wrote: post #27

Unified queue. Regardless of media, business structure, delivery mechanism, company name, etc. methinks what all customers want is a single place to choose & queue content, filtered by whatever options they desire, delivered on whatever medium is available and they pay for via a spectrum of contracts (from unlimited-per-month to single order). Just make sure it's all on one queue. If multi-queue, then only because on…

I think a unified queue hurts the loyalty for instant queue people. Whenever I am on instant queue and I search for a movie and see that it's not available for instant I am annoyed. You could argue that it would help convert me to DVDs- but I know that it doesn't, especially afte the recent price hike. In fact, it really just makes me think about how Netflix streaming lacks material.

If they feel the true future of their product is in streaming than I think this makes sense. They aren't trying to hold onto the low-margin DVD my mail people. They are trying to encourage more streaming customers and move forward in a drastic way.

Maybe the better way to accomplish this is to make the netflix classic website as discussed in the article include the non-streaming movies and just have people with instant queue not even see other movies.

Regardless- I don't think one queue is necessarily better.

Re: What Netflix Could Have Said This Week

#92

Post by kreek »

I like the idea of keeping it under one brand but Netflix "Classic" reminds of me of "Classic" Coke. It's like AT&T calling home phone service "Classic" phone :)

It could be Netflix:Online and Netflix:Offline or Netflix:Instant and Netflix:Delivered etc.

Re: What Netflix Could Have Said This Week

#93

Post by maaku »

ctdonath wrote: post #59
pyoung wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My best guess as to why they are splitting the queues is due to the availability issues on the streaming side affecting customer 'morale', so to speak. i.e. when a streaming-only customer searches for a title, and then finds that it is only available on DVD, their perception of the service is diminished. I think the end goal of this move is to kill off or sell the DVD portion of the service entirely, so by splitting…

That is the main reason why I want a unified queue: inconsistent availability. I put "Scarface" on my queue, but being a low priority it's pretty far down; I was content that someday it would reach the top of the DVD queue and show up, or that on a whim I could hit "Play Now" and stream it. One day I noticed it was tagged for removal from streaming a few days hence, and didn't have time to watch it in the meantime. S…

That post was impossible to read.

Netflix, thanks for doing this to your customers.

Re: What Netflix Could Have Said This Week

#94

Post by sambeau »

By keeping one brand it becomes more difficult to sell-off the silver disk business without impacting the download business negatively.

Better to make a clean break now.

The only way the Netflix Classic plan makes any sense is as a staging post to splitting the company in two. This would have been good PR as well as a sensible internal business step. It lets everyone get used to the idea gradually.

Re: What Netflix Could Have Said This Week

#95

Post by sethg »

gentle wrote: post #73
maratd wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm curious, do you have numbers backing the higher profitability of their streaming business over DVD-by-mail? Simple reasoning will get you to that conclusion. There are no physical plants to maintain. No physical inventory to maintain. No postage costs. You do have the costs of bandwidth, computing power, and licensing fees. I would imagine those are less than the above. On top of that, they wouldn't be throwing…

Yeah, you mention it, but I think you're vastly underestimating licensing costs. Hollywood / content producers have them over a barrel, especially now that they're spinning off the DVD business. On top of that, those servers don't run themselves and those infrastructure costs you so quickly dismiss are significant.

This. When you own a DVD, you can rent it out as many times as you want and you don’t owe the studio another dime. When you have a digital movie on a server, every act of streaming it to a customer constitutes “copying”, subject to a license fee. And the studios want to milk that revenue source for all it’s worth and then some.

Re: What Netflix Could Have Said This Week

#96

Post by evolve2k »

meterplech wrote: post #91
ctdonath wrote: post #27

Unified queue. Regardless of media, business structure, delivery mechanism, company name, etc. methinks what all customers want is a single place to choose & queue content, filtered by whatever options they desire, delivered on whatever medium is available and they pay for via a spectrum of contracts (from unlimited-per-month to single order). Just make sure it's all on one queue. If multi-queue, then only because on…

I think a unified queue hurts the loyalty for instant queue people. Whenever I am on instant queue and I search for a movie and see that it's not available for instant I am annoyed. You could argue that it would help convert me to DVDs- but I know that it doesn't, especially afte the recent price hike. In fact, it really just makes me think about how Netflix streaming lacks material. If they feel the true future of t…

I disagree I think a unified queue is where it is at. I want to keep my ratings linked with my queue and have social engagement around my queue also.

Services like goodfil.ms (http://goodfil.ms.) and GetGlue (http://getglue.com) are good at helping people discover and find films within their own networks.

Eventually streaming of films will become a commodity; Netflix, Apple, Hulu and the cable networks will all vie for market leadership of streaming; and IMHO whoever creates the best social queue is where the long term value is.

Facebook are clearly going to make a play at this with their Watch button - it'll be interesting to see how exactly, but it's not difficult to imagine them serving up "8 of your friends have watched Scarface" in place of their ads - then directing you through to Netflix for viewing.

Re: What Netflix Could Have Said This Week

#97

Post by pyre »

maratd wrote: post #66
BlazingFrog wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, do you have numbers backing the higher profitability of their streaming business over DVD-by-mail? I do agree that, if they wanted to get rid of their original line of business without looking like that's what they were doing, this would be the best way.

> I'm curious, do you have numbers backing the higher profitability of their streaming business over DVD-by-mail? Simple reasoning will get you to that conclusion. There are no physical plants to maintain. No physical inventory to maintain. No postage costs. You do have the costs of bandwidth, computing power, and licensing fees. I would imagine those are less than the above. On top of that, they wouldn't be throwing…

You're simple reasoning seems to be: "I don't know if the costs for handling physical media are cheaper than streaming low-latency high-bandwidth video over the internet, but I imagine that it is." I'm failing to see how "I imagine" == "simple reasoning." Just sayin'.

You're also making the assumption that aside from the distribution mechanisms, everything else is the same. That's far from the truth. Netflix most likely has to do separate deals with the content owners for DVD and for streaming that likely have vastly different terms.

You're also ignoring the possibility that Netflix views the DVD side of the business as a noose around their neck in negotiating deals for streaming content with the content providers, and the separation is an attempt to free up their hands.

Re: What Netflix Could Have Said This Week

#99

Post by fpgeek »

RandallBrown wrote: post #81
ShawnJG wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Def unified queue. They are violating a golden rule. not giving the people what they want. They've lost the Value in Value Added Service. As of today there stock is down 40% from when this whole debacle started.

I believe it was Henry Ford who said "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have said "a faster horse"." Sometimes you have to do something that customers might not "want" to get to something that they really do want. If this lets Netflix improve their streaming service without being bogged down by dvds then I'll be all for the change.

There's a difference between "giving the customer exactly what they're asking for" and "listening to what the customer cares about". Ford said to avoid the first. Netflix is failing to do the second.
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