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Talking about Netflix

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Posts

  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    Physical media isn't going anywhere. Get off that crazy train right the fuck now. What may be coming down the ropes is a more steam/itunes-like style approach to video, but, the physical shit isn't going to no fucking place.

    It's the same crazy notion I hear when people tell me Kindle is the wave of the future. And I tell them they're fucking looney. At least right now. Why is it not? Because of the monopoly on the internet, with caps, bandwidth restrictions, and that whole horseshit.

    Kindle actually fares a bit better because books are not resource intensive. And doubly so with HD. Physical mediums don't suffer from the "Oh hey someone's looking at facebook and killing my HD stream" syndrome. You're looking at, at least, 10-20 years before physical media for video dies out, or, at least shrivels up. How old is iTunes now? 10.5 years? I can still walk in anywhere and find a metric butt-ton of CDs.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • Skoal CatSkoal Cat Registered User regular
    SyphonBlue wrote:
    mxmarks wrote:
    Netflix offered something really great, and no longer can.

    No, the problem is that they totally can continue to offer something great. They just, for some reason I don't think anyone can properly articulate, decided not to.

    Hollywood saw that Netflix made money off of streaming and now wants their slice and a big slice it must be. That is the reason behind this right there.

    Yea, I suspect that this move is part of contract negotiations. Netflix had an awesome slice of the pie and were forced to give up/sever some of the revenue by spinning off into another company which would require separate contracts.

  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    SyphonBlue wrote:
    mxmarks wrote:
    Netflix offered something really great, and no longer can.

    No, the problem is that they totally can continue to offer something great. They just, for some reason I don't think anyone can properly articulate, decided not to.

    Hollywood saw that Netflix made money off of streaming and now wants their slice and a big slice it must be. That is the reason behind this right there.
    Beltaine wrote:
    If this means Netflix Streaming will get more popular/newer movies quicker than it does now, then I'm all for it.

    These are the key pieces. I'd rather Netflix raise their prices up to $15 a month if it means I can stream any move on release date. I'd pay $20 a month for that, maybe more.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • matt has a problemmatt has a problem Points to 'off' Points to 'on'Registered User regular
    bowen wrote:
    SyphonBlue wrote:
    mxmarks wrote:
    Netflix offered something really great, and no longer can.

    No, the problem is that they totally can continue to offer something great. They just, for some reason I don't think anyone can properly articulate, decided not to.

    Hollywood saw that Netflix made money off of streaming and now wants their slice and a big slice it must be. That is the reason behind this right there.
    Beltaine wrote:
    If this means Netflix Streaming will get more popular/newer movies quicker than it does now, then I'm all for it.

    These are the key pieces. I'd rather Netflix raise their prices up to $15 a month if it means I can stream any move on release date. I'd pay $20 a month for that, maybe more.

    It's not going to happen. Netflix just had a $300 million offer for the Starz catalog rebuffed out of hand. $300 million being 10 times what they were paying previously. Studios are going to grind aggregate streaming sites into the ground unless they get what they feel is an acceptable price for their content, and at this point "acceptable" seems to be the current PPV rates of $3-5 per movie, per viewing. They have no reason to sell content to other providers for lower than they're selling content directly to consumers. Online streaming was fine at first since nobody was doing it, it was an additional revenue stream instead of a competing one. Now though, why would anybody pay $5 for the one-time-use PPV version of a movie when they can pay $15 a month for an entire catalog of movies watchable as often as they please? What's going to happen is things are going to fracture, each studio is going to come up with its own, higher priced, competing streaming solution, or they're going to make sure the price of a site like Netflix no longer undercuts what consumers would pay for PPV or brick-and-mortar rentals.

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  • matt has a problemmatt has a problem Points to 'off' Points to 'on'Registered User regular
    The Engadget article reasons it as DVD being a dying media, which it most likely is, every physical media dies and gets replaced. They're leaving out where the DVD side of Netflix has more and better content at this point though. If Netflix had just signed deals with every studio giving them streaming access to entire catalogs, it would be one thing. But the streaming content quality and quantity has dropped, and in February will drop precipitously with the loss of the Starz catalog. For your $8 DVD subscription you can watch just about any movie now, once you're out of the retarded 30 day exclusivity window. For your $8 streaming subscription you get mostly sequels to Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.

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  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    edited September 2011
    I don't pay $3 a movie as it is with PPV, so who exactly would they be competing with and for?

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • Modern ManModern Man Registered User regular
    Beltaine wrote:
    If this means Netflix Streaming will get more popular/newer movies quicker than it does now, then I'm all for it.
    The only reason I still keep the disc option active is because there are so many movies/shows that aren't available streaming, or aren't available as soon as the physical option. I'd be happy to ditch the entire physical side of Netflix (excuse me, "qwikster"), but I still need it to watch many shows and movies.

    Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
    Rigorous Scholarship

  • VanguardVanguard But now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Yeah, physical media is here to stay. While all forms (books, music. and movies) have been in decline, there will always be an audience for this stuff. The MP3 revolution is already seeing pushback as vinyl has made a small resurgence. Why? Because some people will always want a physical copy of the media the own.

    Anyway, I am not and have not been a Netflix subscriber, so this doesn't affect me. Living in a big city, I pretty much can get anything I want from the library, which I recommend more people take advantage of. The NYPL and BPL both allow you to request holds to be sent to whatever branch you want. Sure, it's not your mailbox, but walking isn't a bad thing.

    What I can't find there I find on Hulu 99% of the time.

  • matt has a problemmatt has a problem Points to 'off' Points to 'on'Registered User regular
    Also this is interesting.
    I first questioned Netflix's prospects last Christmas. Clearly I was way too early. The stock was at $184 at the time. It then soared all the way up toward $300. Various people told me I was an idiot to be negative. "Brett, you don't understand," they'd say. "Netflix is different" ... and so on. Since then it's given up all those gains, and tumbled back to $157. That's 15% lower than it was at Christmas.

    What happened during that time? In the first two quarters of this year Netflix spent $160 million of stockholders' cash buying in shares at an average price of $222. So far investors have lost $47 million on that deal.

    Who benefited? Anyone selling stock during that period.

    Prominent among them is Reed Hastings, the Netflix founder and CEO. Yes, he's been selling stock for years. But in January he announced a new plan to dump stock, under the automated "10b5" rules. According to an analysis of public filings by InsiderScore, he's cashed out about $41 million since, at an average price of $236. In other words, by curious coincidence, the profits he's made selling this stock are almost as much as the company has lost buying it.

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  • matt has a problemmatt has a problem Points to 'off' Points to 'on'Registered User regular
    bowen wrote:
    I don't pay $3 a movie as it is with PPV, so who exactly would they be competing with and for?

    The services compete. In the studios minds, if the only option is a $3 PPV movie or a full-price sale, that's what they're going to get from consumers. If the options are the $3 PPV, a full-price sale, or someone with a $15 unlimited streaming subscription through a third party service, the studio is only going to get a fraction of that $15. They're using the "a pirated copy is a lost sale" argument, just applying it to a streamed copy in this instance.

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  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    Someone else has probably already pointed this out, but Red Box must be fucking dancing on the tables of their office right now--and not just because Qwikster is an awful name. Maybe it's a regional thing, but those machines are everywhere here in Georgia--at least one in front of every Krogers, right off the bat, as well as one in front of every Walgreens Pharmacy, and they're just as like to have a line of four or five people as no-one using them.

  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    So I went to qwikster.com

    I'm sorry but I cannot look at that and not see a vagina.

  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    Big Telecom will hire POCs and strip the United States of all life before we have the necessary infrastrutcture to end physical media.

    3DS Friendcode 5413-1311-3767
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    bowen wrote:
    SyphonBlue wrote:
    mxmarks wrote:
    Netflix offered something really great, and no longer can.

    No, the problem is that they totally can continue to offer something great. They just, for some reason I don't think anyone can properly articulate, decided not to.

    Hollywood saw that Netflix made money off of streaming and now wants their slice and a big slice it must be. That is the reason behind this right there.
    Beltaine wrote:
    If this means Netflix Streaming will get more popular/newer movies quicker than it does now, then I'm all for it.

    These are the key pieces. I'd rather Netflix raise their prices up to $15 a month if it means I can stream any move on release date. I'd pay $20 a month for that, maybe more.

    It's not going to happen. Netflix just had a $300 million offer for the Starz catalog rebuffed out of hand. $300 million being 10 times what they were paying previously. Studios are going to grind aggregate streaming sites into the ground unless they get what they feel is an acceptable price for their content, and at this point "acceptable" seems to be the current PPV rates of $3-5 per movie, per viewing. They have no reason to sell content to other providers for lower than they're selling content directly to consumers. Online streaming was fine at first since nobody was doing it, it was an additional revenue stream instead of a competing one. Now though, why would anybody pay $5 for the one-time-use PPV version of a movie when they can pay $15 a month for an entire catalog of movies watchable as often as they please? What's going to happen is things are going to fracture, each studio is going to come up with its own, higher priced, competing streaming solution, or they're going to make sure the price of a site like Netflix no longer undercuts what consumers would pay for PPV or brick-and-mortar rentals.

    This is because studios are fucking retards and don't realize they aren't competing with netflix for this space, they're competing with piracy. Going over to netflix streaming is the single greatest thing any company can do to combat piracy, because the more convenient your content is to access the less people are going to steal it.

  • enc0reenc0re Registered User regular
    Obviously splitting the service in two doesn't improve consumer experience. So this must be all about getting content. As it stands, I've been reading articles suggesting that Netflix DVD and Instant business were hurting each other. Netflix would get DVDs later, because they also had a streaming service. Maybe the inverse was happening as well. I've been an instant-only customer for a while. Ironically, I may resubscribe to physical if the video game service ends up sweet. Finally, it must be tough to compete with Red Box logistics since those guys don't have to ship movies back and forth constantly.

  • AthenorAthenor Battle Hardened Optimist The Skies of HiigaraRegistered User regular
    Eh. I personally believe that if most people are okay with the price of an item, then they'll pay for it; this is what Apple proved with the iTunes store.

    The core problem, in my mind, is that the perceived value by the studios is extremely out of whack with reality. Of course every company will try their hardest to sell a product for as much as possible, legally or otherwise. But for most people, a movie is something you see once, maybe twice, and then move on. In the past, that price was $20-40 for a DVD, or a $4 rental or something (rental rights are astronomically expensive compared to just purchasing a DVD at Wal-Mart). Now, things are shifting - the physical media is being removed, and subscriptions allow people to pick and choose, a la carte. You know, that method that Cable refuses to allow because most of their channels aren't fiscally viable? Yeah.

    Quite honestly, I only buy DVD/Blu-Rays for the special features and to have a physical copy. To my knowledge, none of the streaming sites give you those special features, and I don't like the impermanence of iTunes. But I know I'm in the minority on those ones.

    So yeah. People will be geese over product, but if they actually sold DVD or movie rights at prices that made sense, you would't see this being such an issue. Not to derail too much, but I swear that all that American business schools have taught people in the the last 20-30 years is to make as much of a profit as you can short-term and then bail before the consequences come in. Am I the only one who thinks that selling a product at a lower price will get more people to buy it, allowing you to earn a long term profit and sustainable income?

    He/Him | "A boat is always safest in the harbor, but that’s not why we build boats." | "If you run, you gain one. If you move forward, you gain two." - Suletta Mercury, G-Witch
  • Modern ManModern Man Registered User regular
    [This is because studios are fucking retards and don't realize they aren't competing with netflix for this space, they're competing with piracy. Going over to netflix streaming is the single greatest thing any company can do to combat piracy, because the more convenient your content is to access the less people are going to steal it.
    Exactly. The studios need to be looking at Netflix as a source of new revenue, rather than a competitor. I find it hard to believe that the content providers and Netflix don't have the imagination to come up with a pricing model that works for both of them.

    For the studios, getting paid $0.50 (or whatever) every time someone streams your movie on Netflix is better than getting nothing when someone pirates it, whether in digital or physical mode.

    Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
    Rigorous Scholarship

  • TomantaTomanta Registered User regular
    This is because studios are fucking retards and don't realize they aren't competing with netflix for this space, they're competing with piracy. Going over to netflix streaming is the single greatest thing any company can do to combat piracy, because the more convenient your content is to access the less people are going to steal it.

    That. And they don't realize it. Streaming also gives them a profit stream on stuff that would normally sit on the shelf and do nothing, particularly TV.

    For instance. Right now I'm working through MacGyver and The Dead Zone on Netflix streaming. Unless it is a ridiculous sale I would not get those on DVD. I would not rent them (if I even could). But studios are making money off those shows by my watching them - either direct profits if their contract is worded that way or in aggregate because those shows create value for Netflix.

    I don't even consider pirating anything because I can always find something to watch on Netflix (while I wait for DVDs of stuff I can't get on streaming).

    If anything, the streaming side of Netflix is ridiculously underpriced right now. But any studio not named "HBO" that tries to compete with just their own content likely won't be able to provide as good of a value.

    Although that does raise an interesting thought. If you bumped up the "studio" to the "media conglomerate" level and, say, Disney or Time-Warner launched a streaming service for a reasonable monthly fee that included *everything* (TV and movies) under their rather massive umbrella that could possibly be competitive.

  • mxmarksmxmarks Registered User regular
    The Engadget article reasons it as DVD being a dying media, which it most likely is, every physical media dies and gets replaced. They're leaving out where the DVD side of Netflix has more and better content at this point though. If Netflix had just signed deals with every studio giving them streaming access to entire catalogs, it would be one thing. But the streaming content quality and quantity has dropped, and in February will drop precipitously with the loss of the Starz catalog. For your $8 DVD subscription you can watch just about any movie now, once you're out of the retarded 30 day exclusivity window. For your $8 streaming subscription you get mostly sequels to Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.

    No, you can watch any movie when you queue it up and it gets mailed to you. The word "Now" has totally changed to "Absolutely right this second" with Instant.

    And people aren't grasping the difference between "DVDs are a dying format" and "DVDs are not profitable to keep producing/providing". People are still making DREAMCAST games. I can go buy vinyl. All physical media will always have people who want it.

    But if the people who want it aren't that big of a group anymore, you need to adjust to focus on those who are. Netflix has said forever they're mostly streaming content to subscribers now. Keeping the biggest group of people happy (even just by branding THAT side of buisness with the official NETFLIX name) is in thier best interest.

    PSN: mxmarks - WiiU: mxmarks - twitter: @ MikesPS4 - twitch.tv/mxmarks - "Yes, mxmarks is the King of Queens" - Unbreakable Vow
  • Skoal CatSkoal Cat Registered User regular
    edited September 2011
    Modern Man wrote:
    [This is because studios are fucking retards and don't realize they aren't competing with netflix for this space, they're competing with piracy. Going over to netflix streaming is the single greatest thing any company can do to combat piracy, because the more convenient your content is to access the less people are going to steal it.
    Exactly. The studios need to be looking at Netflix as a source of new revenue, rather than a competitor. I find it hard to believe that the content providers and Netflix don't have the imagination to come up with a pricing model that works for both of them.

    For the studios, getting paid $0.50 (or whatever) every time someone streams your movie on Netflix is better than getting nothing when someone pirates it, whether in digital or physical mode.

    Because they want to run their own services. And make more money. And stop making a fortune for other people.

    Skoal Cat on
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    Basically by fighting Netflix they're doing what the RIAA did in fighting digital music: they're going to lose billions in profits to piracy, wring their hands and shout "WHY WON'T SOMEBODY STOP THE CRIMINALS!", not realizing that most of the time, those people just want it NOW and would pay if they could get it NOW.

    This isn't an endorsement of piracy, it's just how things work. If people have the option to get something immediately as part of a service they already pay for, they will. If a show they want to check out is on netflix, and they're already considering buying it, they will. This isn't rocket surgery, what they are doing is exactly the same as Sony refusing to sell dvds at a reasonable price in China and then claiming with a straight face that pirates in China are costing them eleven billion dollars a year.

  • armageddonboundarmageddonbound Registered User regular
    Streaming is not the solution that people think it is. Netflix is LOSING content on the streaming side. Even at its peak it wasn't a great selection by any means. It's just there and easy, so people will watch whatever looks remotely interesting. It was doing so great because it was crazy cheap and had the added bonus that you could still see whatever you wanted* by queueing up the dvd for delivery. That's not the case any more. Add in the fact that you could lose access to your favorite show just because some contract was sold or ended and I just think peoples love affair with netflix streaming is very inelastic, if I can use a econ term.

  • adytumadytum The Inevitable Rise And FallRegistered User regular
    Well, I already stopped using Hulu because a 5 week wait to see a new episode is obnoxious and simply can't compete with other options like DVRs that are essentially free and without advertisements.

    Now that Netflix has stripped out and separated their services, there's no particular reason to stick with either. Amazon offers cheaper streaming, though without the ubiquitous device support (I believe they lack iOS and native game console support at the moment, though they do have apps available through various TV manufacturers and there are software options that will let you stream *anywhere*). I'm sure there are other BRD-by-mail services, which I will look into when I have the time to watch movies again.

    GG, Netflix- rather than being my one-stop-shop, you now have to compete on price with other providers.

  • iTunesIsEviliTunesIsEvil Cornfield? Cornfield.Registered User regular
    Apothe0sis wrote:
    600K people cancelled their Netflix subscription since the price increase.

    That has got to hurt.

    I was one of them!

    I'd consider the streaming service if it wasn't mostly old shit I don't want to watch

    I'm considering dropping my Netflix (streaming-only) plan for a Hulu Plus account. Newer shows with episodes available the day after they air on TV, plus previous seasons of those new shows, for the same price.

  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    And in a rather absurd result of legal streaming getting worse, illegal streaming is once again getting better. While Hulu and netflix were at the height of their convenience it was becoming more inconvenient to find illegal streams. Not because the people at the companies were being effective at shutting them down, but because why would the pirates bother to put something online when the companies themselves already had and in HD too.

    Now that prices are exploding, and access to content is shrinking, once again sites that pirate stuff are again stuffed to the brim with content.

    Convenience and perceived value is king in these issues. Most people are glad to pay a fair price for content if they can get it quickly, but it is rapidly becoming clear that the companies have a different definition of 'fair price'.

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • Skoal CatSkoal Cat Registered User regular
    Fact is, I'll probably never drop Netflix streaming unless their kids stuff drops off into nothing. I know we'll be loosing a lot with Stars, but I haven't actually seen their logo on anything in awhile, so we should be good.

    I'm also sharing a plan with my mom, so that's pretty sweet.

  • AtomBombAtomBomb Registered User regular
    I imagine that Netflix has been thinking about this for awhile, but my guess is that the recent stuff with USPS had to be a factor in them pulling the trigger now. If USPS dropped Saturday delivery, or if the turnaround on mail doubled or tripled, it would severely affect if not break their DVD model.

    I love Netflix, and the bigger they get the more I worry. They depend on massive infrastructure (USPS or broadband) that they don't control and that they get cheap or for free. The broadband providers would love for Netflix to go away. I'm sure USPS appreciates the revenue, but they have a bad habit of pricing their services lower than what they actually cost. I'm still amazed that Netflix can send 20 to 30 physical DVDs back and forth to my house every month for around $10. Of course, that's only when I'm maxing out my 3 at a time service. I'm sure that if everyone did that all the time the service would never have been viable. The broadband companies are in the same boat really, advertising massive bandwidth that they never thought the average consumer would use. Now if you get grandma a Roku she can pound the network just as hard watching Gunsmoke as her nerdy grandkids did when Napster was all the rage.

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  • Johnny ChopsockyJohnny Chopsocky Scootaloo! We have to cook! Grillin' HaysenburgersRegistered User regular
    edited September 2011
    If the videogame selection is good and the same price as Gamefly, you had better believe that I'm restarting my Netflix DVD account under Qwikster. Same price as Gamefly, potentially more stock AND a distribution center in my actual city and not 700 miles away in Bumfuck, TX? SIGN ME UP.

    Johnny Chopsocky on
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  • taoist drunktaoist drunk Registered User regular
    Netflix’s holy grail is to get each person, not each household, to have a separate streaming subscription, the way everyone also has a separate Facebook account. Separating a per-household service like DVD rentals-by-mail helps simplify that eventual transition.

  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    Going back to the death-of-physical-media tangent, I think it's useful to look at the state of CDs.

    CDs have been around, what, almost 30 years now? They are well established. They are still what a lot of people buy if they want a whole album. Almost every new car still comes with a CD player. People still listen to CDs. This, though digital distribution options have been available for a pretty long time, both legal and extra-legal. You don't see a lot of dedicated music stores, but if you go into Target or Walmart you see a pretty good sized CD section.

    And consider that this is for a market where digital distribution makes so much sense. Often, people are just interested in a single song, not an entire album. You can buy that song for $1 using a pretty convenient distribution service. There are online radio stations that allow you to pick and choose songs along whatever metric you choose. And yet the CD market still exists. You go into a Starbucks and they're still selling CDs. Granted, this is largely because the music industry is retarded and averse to change, but I don't see how that won't apply just as equally to the video market.

    Meanwhile, movies are not songs. Few people notice a quality difference between a CD and songs streamed from their online radio station, or the song they bought from iTunes, whereas the video and audio quality between BD and streamed HD is pretty obvious. It is easy to burn your own CD full of music. Songs are tiny and easily manageable while movies are big, clunky things. Almost everyone has access to something like iTunes whereas a huge number of people don't have the bandwidth to stream HD movies. CDs have pretty much no reason to exist anymore, yet they still do, and have been for just about ever and probably will be for some time.

    And people are expecting DVDs and BDs to be rare niche products in five years?

    Yeah, not going to happen. People like their physical media. Sure, DVDs are losing marketshare. Know why? Because the people who really dig streaming movies are the same people who really love buying DVDs in quantity. Cinema buffs and technophiles. The mainstream market, though, I think they still want to buy themselves a bunch of DVDs and pop them into their players without worrying about the internet hiccuping.

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  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    Or needing internet at each device in the house. Streaming a movie is all well and good to my PC, or maybe even my PS3, but what about if I'm watching a movie in my bedroom? It's not exactly something routinely feasible at this point in time. Not until houses come with media servers and are wired to the brim with technogadgets. Something that's going to cost a pretty penny.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • enc0reenc0re Registered User regular
    AppleTV (or Roku). $99. Streaming problem solved for any room.

  • SheepSheep Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular

    I'm considering dropping my Netflix (streaming-only) plan for a Hulu Plus account. Newer shows with episodes available the day after they air on TV, plus previous seasons of those new shows, for the same price.

    This isn't always the case.

    Hell, the skipped a week of Hell's Kitchen this season.

  • November FifthNovember Fifth Registered User regular
    AtomBomb wrote:
    I imagine that Netflix has been thinking about this for awhile, but my guess is that the recent stuff with USPS had to be a factor in them pulling the trigger now. If USPS dropped Saturday delivery, or if the turnaround on mail doubled or tripled, it would severely affect if not break their DVD model.

    I love Netflix, and the bigger they get the more I worry. They depend on massive infrastructure (USPS or broadband) that they don't control and that they get cheap or for free. The broadband providers would love for Netflix to go away. I'm sure USPS appreciates the revenue, but they have a bad habit of pricing their services lower than what they actually cost. I'm still amazed that Netflix can send 20 to 30 physical DVDs back and forth to my house every month for around $10. Of course, that's only when I'm maxing out my 3 at a time service. I'm sure that if everyone did that all the time the service would never have been viable. The broadband companies are in the same boat really, advertising massive bandwidth that they never thought the average consumer would use. Now if you get grandma a Roku she can pound the network just as hard watching Gunsmoke as her nerdy grandkids did when Napster was all the rage.

    I think the real takeaway here is that Netflix just doesn't have enough control over their own business model. While their mail service obviously has issues, I believe they have even less control over the streaming services. At any point, the major content providers could pull content or price Netflix out of the business. Broadband providers (who in many cases have competing streaming services) could impose further caps or just start throttling Netflix content.

    A few years ago the trend was toward unified digital delivery systems (e.g. Netflix, Steam, Hulu), but the last year has seen those models falling apart as quickly as physical media.

  • templewulftemplewulf The Team Chump USARegistered User regular
    edited September 2011
    ElJeffe wrote:
    Yeah, not going to happen. People like their physical media. Sure, DVDs are losing marketshare. Know why? Because the people who really dig streaming movies are the same people who really love buying DVDs in quantity. Cinema buffs and technophiles. The mainstream market, though, I think they still want to buy themselves a bunch of DVDs and pop them into their players without worrying about the internet hiccuping.

    I think it's less that people like their physical media and more that the Internet hiccups on a regular basis. Even for my household, we have a connection that can exceed 10Mbps, but I still can't get Netflix to stream SD content at the 4 bar level all the time.

    And that doesn't even count the huge swaths of this country that don't even have easy access to broadband, if at all. I would totally support the hypothesis that DVDs will die out in 5-10 years, except that 20% of the country doesn't even have an option to go that route.

    templewulf on
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  • ThanatosThanatos Registered User regular
    enc0re wrote:
    AppleTV (or Roku). $99. Streaming problem solved for any room.
    They were literally giving away OnLive systems at PAX, which can't be all that different.

    I imagine the price is only going to get way, way cheaper from there.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    templewulf wrote:
    ElJeffe wrote:
    Yeah, not going to happen. People like their physical media. Sure, DVDs are losing marketshare. Know why? Because the people who really dig streaming movies are the same people who really love buying DVDs in quantity. Cinema buffs and technophiles. The mainstream market, though, I think they still want to buy themselves a bunch of DVDs and pop them into their players without worrying about the internet hiccuping.

    I think it's less that people like their physical media and more that the Internet hiccups on a regular basis. Even for my household, we have a connection that can exceed 10Mbps, but I still can't get Netflix to stream SD content at the 4 bar level all the time.

    And that doesn't even count the huge swaths of this country that don't even have easy access to broadband, if at all. I would totally support the hypothesis that DVDs will die out in 5-10 years, except that 20% of the country doesn't even have an option to go that route.

    And that's just the US. Prospects for this idea get even worse once you leave the US and start having to deal with licensing and places with less or shittier internet or the like.

  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    It'd be cheaper to wire up my house than pay for AppleTV. Like, for the same price I could run 8 network cables to each room if I wanted too.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • ShanadeusShanadeus Registered User regular
    So in other words, people who don't bother with the DVDs will now have a cheaper service?
    That sounds pretty good.

    Now if only Netflix would come over here.

  • Skoal CatSkoal Cat Registered User regular
    Shanadeus wrote:
    So in other words, people who don't bother with the DVDs will now have a cheaper service?
    That sounds pretty good.

    Now if only Netflix would come over here.

    What? No, there is no way streaming only price point is dropping.

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