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Is Netflix Doomed? - Page 3

post #61 of 103
9/20/11 at 9:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by stanger89 View Post

Last week, you were just changing your plan, nobody was losing a customer.



I find these comments interesting, I wonder if a lot of folks here have worse internet performance than they think. Reason I say that is I'm on a "mere" 7Mbps DSL line, and the HD, even high quality SD streams, I find to be of surprisingly good quality. Certainly on par with the HD I get from Dish. I do have toubles, but those I chalk up to my internet connection, I know my provider was getting hammered for a while, but they upgraded or tweaked something that mostly resolved that issue.

Then again, I don't watch netflix on a PC.

(shrug) I have cancelled all of my Plan. I am no longer a customer in any way. I have a t1 with cat 6 everywhere I want it. I have 3 players, 2 blu-ray and 1 WD TV Live Plus that did netflix streaming as well as four HTPCs. None did streaming well. I am glad that you were satisfied with the quality. I was not.
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post #62 of 103
9/21/11 at 2:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by stanger89 View Post

Exactly, I don't think the bandwidth caps are sustainable. Or at least not the current caps. Sooner (or later) people are going to really start screaming about that. Netflix has stated that already, an extra GB of data only costs them $0.01.

As more and more people start consuming more and more bandwidth, and running into bandwidth caps, something is going to have to change. I suspect what will happen is as larger and larger portion of their customer base start running into bandwidth caps (and not just the "extreme" users), the caps are going to have to go up.

I mean just think of a situation with a 250GB cap and 25GB streaming movies common, before long half of your customers are going to have blown their cap in no time. Sooner or later somebody is going to "blink" and either up their cap, remove it, or advertise that they don't have one, and the arms race will be on again, for the ISP that will allow the most data through in a month.



Except the selection is horrible. Even new releases, unless you're happy with DVD.



Yeah, but nobody "rents" them, that's what I mean. My point was Qwikster will continue on, but their selection will dwindle. I've seen this in my own queues for the past year or two, more and more stuff just going permanently unavailable or very long wait (and never shipping). It seems that lots of older, less common stuff, when the discs die, they just don't bother replacing them anymore. I expect this to continue for Qwikster.



But that logic would mean Blockbuster should have demolished Netflix. As pessimistic as we are about Qwikster, there's no official word of any service or policy changes. If nothing changes, why would BB suddenly demolish a service formerly known as Netflix.

Agreed, bandwidth caps will dissapear as network usage increases due to streaming. In a lot of European countries, these caps are a thing of the past for many years. And hopefully, so will the reliability of the connection, because if your ISP craps out during a Sunday movie viewing via streaming, a lot of people are going to get mad. That`s my main issue with streaming besides quality, God forbid you`re watching a movie and the internet connection goes kaput. On the other hand my wireless and ethernet network never let me down.

Funny enough, in my country, the high rate of piracy was the thing that forced ISPs to remove these caps years ago, before proper streaming was even feasible, and enforce a "alll you can download from the interwebz at light speed and above" policy. Now you can get a 60MBps unlimited data plan for less then 10 bucks. Heck at 19-20 USD (at todays rate) you can get 80MBps + TV + landwire telephone. Add another 4-5USD and you get HD channels + 3D HD channels. Too bad that the reliability and quality of the hardware is a joke.

Yeah, i thought you were talking about the availability of content on disks in general, not specifically for renting, my bad. For renting movies, the same thing happened in my country, but mostly due to piracy, not legally streaming. Weak selection of titles, outdated and few to none video shops were you can actually rent them.
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post #63 of 103
9/21/11 at 4:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenEyez View Post

Funny enough, in my country, the high rate of piracy was the thing that forced ISPs to remove these caps years ago, before proper streaming was even feasible, and enforce a "alll you can download from the interwebz at light speed and above" policy. Now you can get a 60MBps unlimited data plan for less then 10 bucks. Heck at 19-20 USD (at todays rate) you can get 80MBps + TV + landwire telephone. Add another 4-5USD and you get HD channels + 3D HD channels. Too bad that the reliability and quality of the hardware is a joke.

Not to get totally off-topic here, but where is this?
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post #64 of 103
9/21/11 at 4:40am
They would have been better off with a slow fee hike to maintain streaming content. The split is the biggest mistake, destroying a liked, established brand.

Speaking personally, I get most of my real content on BR, with streaming acting as 'filler' while my 1-disc-at-a-time is in the mail.
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post #65 of 103
9/21/11 at 4:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suntan View Post

Stereaming + discs = just streaming ....

-Suntan

Nah, I guess I didn't make my point well. My point was for me it's not worth $20 a month for the one disc at a time. I opted to try BlockBuster anyway, 2 out at a time and that includes games for $14 is a better option for me.
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post #66 of 103
9/21/11 at 6:04am
"I dropped My 3 at a time disc service a few months ago. Changed to Blockbuster. They are much slower but I have a local store to swap my titles with."

My problem is finding a Blockbuster still open to go in and exchange movies. I'm on the Blu-ray plan with Netflix so a Redbox is not going to help me get the quality I want, and frankly, most movies aren't worth buying unless you plan to see them more than once. And while streaming with Netflix has been fun, the quality has been anywhere from dismal to almost DVD... nothing I would dare show on my projector and 133" screen.

Netflix did a lot to kill the video store model and now it's going to let its disc service slowly expire, leaving many of us in the lurch.
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post #67 of 103
9/21/11 at 8:54am
The advent of the ppv streamers is causing the demise of Netflix streaming. The content providers look at Netflix and see 1,000,000 subscribers that can watch their movie. netflix pays them say $1,000 for rights to that movie. So in the content providers eyes they are getting paid $0.001 per view. The ppv streamers of course pay much more to the studios.

What the content providers don't realize is that all 1,000,000 subscribers are not going to watch that movie, and certainly will not pay a ppv price to view it.
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post #68 of 103
9/21/11 at 9:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by stanger89 View Post

I mean just think of a situation with a 250GB cap and 25GB streaming movies common, before long half of your customers are going to have blown their cap in no time. Sooner or later somebody is going to "blink" and either up their cap, remove it, or advertise that they don't have one, and the arms race will be on again, for the ISP that will allow the most data through in a month.

I'm sorry, but you seem to be living in some fantasy world where there is real competition for what I call HSI, which does not include DSL or wireless. In most areas it's a virtual monopoly and the incumbent provider can have any cap policy they want (or charge you more to exceed it) because you don't have a choice.

If we get to the point where this is happening on a widespread basis and the government is not willing to intervene in the marketplace, we're screwed.
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post #69 of 103
9/21/11 at 12:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by slowbiscuit View Post

I'm sorry, but you seem to be living in some fantasy world where there is real competition for what I call HSI, which does not include DSL or wireless. In most areas it's a virtual monopoly and the incumbent provider can have any cap policy they want (or charge you more to exceed it) because you don't have a choice.

If we get to the point where this is happening on a widespread basis and the government is not willing to intervene in the marketplace, we're screwed.

i think were a long way off before streaming can top a BD and if it gets to the point were we can down load 25 or 50 gigs at a time and than isp put a cap on or charge alot per gig, the physical disk may be the preference over streaming
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post #70 of 103
9/21/11 at 12:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mcturkey View Post

Not to get totally off-topic here, but where is this?

Romania, East Europe.
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post #71 of 103
9/21/11 at 12:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by slowbiscuit View Post

I'm sorry, but you seem to be living in some fantasy world where there is real competition for what I call HSI, which does not include DSL or wireless. In most areas it's a virtual monopoly and the incumbent provider can have any cap policy they want (or charge you more to exceed it) because you don't have a choice.

If we get to the point where this is happening on a widespread basis and the government is not willing to intervene in the marketplace, we're screwed.

What do you mean a monopoly? As far as i know there are several ISP providers in the United States.
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post #72 of 103
9/21/11 at 1:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by slowbiscuit View Post

I'm sorry, but you seem to be living in some fantasy world where there is real competition for what I call HSI, which does not include DSL or wireless. In most areas it's a virtual monopoly and the incumbent provider can have any cap policy they want (or charge you more to exceed it) because you don't have a choice.

My DSL ISP provides 7Mbps to may people, and is rolling out fiber too (up to 20Mbps service). LTE is already capable of 40Mbps (depending on load) and is expanding rapidly (far more rapidly than I'd ever have expected), and LTE Advanced (data rates up to 1Gbps) is not too far out.

At some point Verizon, Sprint, ATT, are going to realize that their 4G service is not just a competitor/alternative to their wireless peers, but also to cable and DSL companies, and they're (if they're smart) going to offer services to accommodate that.

But really, I just don't see how 250GB/mo caps are sustainable 10 years out. If lack of competition really meant the cable companies didn't have to continually improve, we wouldn't have 10, 20, 40, 50Mbps cable today. I just don't buy the "it's a monopoly so it won't improve" argument because despite being a monopoly, things have improved dramatically.
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post #73 of 103
9/21/11 at 1:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by chris71478 View Post

A lot of people here seem to be hung on the idea of Netflix getting better content. At the rate they've paid to re-up the last few contracts, my guess is that within three years, they could be pushing 13-14 dollars per month just to keep the content they have now. Add in new license fees for content that's in any way impressive, and you end up at a price that most just won't be able to justify. Unless they change their model to a tiered or PPV system, I just don't think there exists a happy balance between cost and content. And Hollywood doesn't like the all you can eat model, so don't think that they can be reasoned with on fees. Netflix just doesn't have the cash to pull in great content without raising rates.


Yeah, Netflix claimed that Starz' demand for a tiered payment model was what killed the deal. And yet, all these recent moves by Netflix seem to be intended to set up a tiered payment model.

My guess is that they'll end up with a $15/month basic plan, which just like basic cable, doesn't have anything worth watching on it. And then they have the $25-30/month premium tier where the real content is at. And they'll probably start doing some PPV too, for special events.
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post #74 of 103
9/21/11 at 2:44pm
Not sure if you guys have seen this.

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/ric...its-customers-
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post #75 of 103
9/21/11 at 3:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bunts View Post

Not sure if you guys have seen this.

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/ric...its-customers-

That guy doesn't get it. Streaming is not ready for prime time, and the caved Starz deal proved it. The content owners are not ready to offer their product under the Netflix model at a price that current customers will pay. Plus ISPs are probably chomping at the bit to cap or tier their bandwidth if a full HD movie catalog ever does exist.
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post #76 of 103
9/21/11 at 4:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenEyez View Post

What do you mean a monopoly? As far as i know there are several ISP providers in the United States.

In many areas, the local government negotiates a deal for exclusivity. Comcast, for example, has had exclusivity and preferential treatment from local governments for years in many areas. In others, it is Time Warner Cable or Cox Communications. Some areas allow multiple providers for the purposes of appeasing citizens but the fact of the matter is that the competition is usually anything but competitive. Where I live, Comcast, Verizon, and Cox Communications all have niches that they have carved out through deals though they can now compete in most of the general area with a few exceptions that they hold on to through their previous deals.
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post #77 of 103
9/21/11 at 5:38pm
As a long time (2002) Netflix customer, they have completely lost their way. All they had to do was drop the Blue-Ray fee and keep their pricing the same and everything would be good. Never have I seen a company that got so much right get it all wrong so quickly. Netflix is your brand and that name has value. Changing the name to something that reminds of (Quixtar) Amway, which is not a compliment.

Who is running Netflix right now? Why did they pay so much to air Mad Men? Hollywood should be paying people to watch some of the crap they make.
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post #78 of 103
9/21/11 at 6:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hans Gruber View Post

Netflix is your brand and that name has value. Changing the name to something that reminds of (Quixtar) Amway, which is not a compliment.

They are going to sell off Qwikster - and become a streaming only company. They now look at DVD/BD rentals akin to dialup ... a dying business.

Wonder whether blockbuster/dish will buy Qwikster. That would be ironic.

Anyway, if Netflix thinks, streaming has a lot of margin - why do they think Hollywood would tolerate that in the long term ?
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post #79 of 103
9/21/11 at 7:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenEyez View Post

What do you mean a monopoly? As far as i know there are several ISP providers in the United States.

In a lot of areas, a particular ISP, usually a cable company, owns all the infrastructure -- so the wires that go to the houses, etc. They then enjoy a complete monopoly. It's even negotiated with every single town. This is especially true outside of cities. Where I live there is only one choice for high-speed internet and that is Comcast. They charge outrages fees -- so much I've had to recently cancel my cable TV. That alone was $120/month. My high-speed internet is still $50/month.
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post #80 of 103
9/21/11 at 7:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by chris71478 View Post

A lot of people here seem to be hung on the idea of Netflix getting better content. At the rate they've paid to re-up the last few contracts, my guess is that within three years, they could be pushing 13-14 dollars per month just to keep the content they have now. Add in new license fees for content that's in any way impressive, and you end up at a price that most just won't be able to justify. Unless they change their model to a tiered or PPV system, I just don't think there exists a happy balance between cost and content. And Hollywood doesn't like the all you can eat model, so don't think that they can be reasoned with on fees. Netflix just doesn't have the cash to pull in great content without raising rates.

There are already rumors that Netflix may soon be forced to have tiers so companies can get even more money. After what Netflix just did raising rates...the thought of them raising rates AGAIN for the movies that most want now? I mean....are they trying to piss off every single fan of their service? And I understand that the movie companies are the ones forcing the rates...but either way, Netflix will be blamed for another increase IF one occurs in the next few months.
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post #81 of 103
9/21/11 at 7:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenEyez View Post

Agreed, bandwidth caps will dissapear as network usage increases due to streaming.

Maybe years down the road but I don't see a single reason that ISP's will ditch the caps when they KNOW data is sky-rocketing and they see a very, VERY easy way to get more money off penalties.
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post #82 of 103
9/21/11 at 8:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenEyez View Post

Agreed, bandwidth caps will dissapear as network usage increases due to streaming. In a lot of European countries, these caps are a thing of the past for many years.

In the US this won't happen. We are stuck with caps.

Many ISPs are cable companies that make money on VOD - and they would like to restrict streaming as much as possible. There isn't a great deal of competition either (as in hardly any competion).

Esp., all you can eat streaming like Netflix will just not work for content providers. They want pay-per-view.
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post #83 of 103
9/21/11 at 9:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by StardogChampion View Post

Qwikster is a horrible name. It makes me think of Napster. They would have been better off with something like Qwikflix. I have no idea why they would have chosen Qwikster. Horrible.

Snail-mail-flix would have been best. Even Postflix would have worked
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post #84 of 103
9/22/11 at 4:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by stanger89 View Post

But really, I just don't see how 250GB/mo caps are sustainable 10 years out. If lack of competition really meant the cable companies didn't have to continually improve, we wouldn't have 10, 20, 40, 50Mbps cable today. I just don't buy the "it's a monopoly so it won't improve" argument because despite being a monopoly, things have improved dramatically.

If you think the incumbent VIDEO providers are going to roll over and let you stream all you want over the net instead over the same pipes that they own, I've got a bridge to sell you.

This is the inherent conflict of interest - all of the big HSI providers have a vested interest in video and will do everything they can to preserve that money stream.

The end result (IMO) will be usage-based billing, and we're already seeing that with AT&T - if you exceed 150GB/mo. on DSL, they charge you $10 extra. It's just a matter of time before cable follows suit, UNLESS the government wakes up.

The real problem is that the gov't screwed up years ago and failed to mandate common carrier status for HSI, with all comers welcome at true wholesale rates. All of the other countries that have cheap broadband have done this, but our system is bought and paid for by lobbyists.

The stupid part is that taxpayers and the government, in large part, paid for the original telco and cable infrastructure through monopoly and subsidy regulations. And now they get to keep all that and keep all the competitors out due to the high barriers to entry in the market.
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post #85 of 103
9/22/11 at 6:06am
Thread Starter 
Slowbicuit has answered GreenEyez question. GreenEyez has it better in Romania because cash runs US politics.
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post #86 of 103
9/22/11 at 6:43am
slowbiscuit nailed it right on the head.

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
Tax-payer subsidized monopoly is Good business
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post #87 of 103
9/22/11 at 7:20am
Thanks for the clarifications guys, didn`t know about the monopoly in one area thing. Here, it actually started like this : Basically at first there was one national/goverment ISP and landline telephone, offering crappy speeds and caps at high prices. Then smaller, neighbourhood area ISPs started appearing like flies all over the country, with 100BASE-TX ethernet cables hanging from the trees in various neighbourhood and better speeds with no caps, and some even with their own private torrent trackers. Eventually a lot of people moved to them, and a bunch of these formed a bigger ISP that quickly became number one. The national/gov ISP was forced to compete, and that`s how it started.

Unfortunately, judging by what you guys are telling me in regards to the goverment having its hand stuck firmly in this matter and not having some proper regulations regarding equality and competition in this sector of the economy and the size of the country (a lot of smaller local ISPs would have to appear to cover such a vast amount of space and population and compete with the big boys), i don`t think something similar would happen in the US.
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post #88 of 103
9/22/11 at 7:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by slowbiscuit View Post

If you think the incumbent VIDEO providers are going to roll over and let you stream all you want over the net instead over the same pipes that they own, I've got a bridge to sell you.

This is the inherent conflict of interest - all of the big HSI providers have a vested interest in video and will do everything they can to preserve that money stream.

Exactly ..

And on the whole NF issue .. first, I believe Hastings and the Board knows some things we don't know .. as well, no one ever seems to factor in the roll out of Netflix South America which was just completed and Netflix Europe which is in process .. none of the out of the USA services offer physical disk .. which, IMO is one of the reasons they have split into two distinct entities ..

Will they sell QS .. ?? I'm guessing it's a 70% chance .. and they will do it to fund content for Netflix ..

The whole shot themselves in the foot with a price increase combined with a company split .. ?? As they say, any publicity is good publicity .. and when you roll out this kind of news, it's best to just get it over and done with as quickly as possible .. which they have done .. now, if NF would just anounce some major content deal, most of the haters would fade quick ..
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post #89 of 103
9/23/11 at 1:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mgkdragn View Post

.. now, if NF would just anounce some major content deal, most of the haters would fade quick ..

If they coulda....they woulda.... 99% of content is owned by just 4 studios. You think they don't talk amongst themselves?

Edit: Some more thoughts. Netflix is actually killing what made it "Netflix". You cannot build a business model on what someone ELSE owns, with no long term deal in place. Keyword - long term. Like 20 years. What's the cost basis that Netflix is using to price it's content?? Do they even know? Is it a SWAG? Educated guess? Shot in the dark?

Unless you know exactly what that content is gonna cost you for the foreseable future, you cannot price your service correctly. And when you don't and start increasing prices because your content lords aint happy with you, you piss off your customers.

Netflix may have been the first to the streaming video market, but streaming video is a very replicable model. The infrastructure is cheap and easily quantifiable. The content is not. It takes someone like Steve Jobs to make the studios bend over. And Apple and Amazon are sitting on more cash individually than the market cap of Netflix. It's a numbers game and money wins.

Netflix IS doomed.

p.s. And I put my money where my mouth is. When the news about the Starz deal broke, I immediately turned around and shorted Netflix at whatever they were trading at. Turns out it was $263 and change. I could pay for 100 years of Netflix subscriptions with what the stock's trading at right now. And I still haven't covered.
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post #90 of 103
9/23/11 at 9:17pm
I don't know if anyone saw this article but there is speculation that Amazon may be buying out NetFlix's streaming business:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/new..._amazon_buyout

This would explain the division of NetFlix into two separate companies. The NetFlix name is already associated with streaming capability built into numerous consumer devices so it makes sense that the name would stay with the streaming side of the business.
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