Netflix Earnings Are Driven by Investment in Original Content
wired.com
wired.com
"tl;dr: Advertising ruins everything, which is why netflix originals are better than cable TV shows."
https://np.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/5ou7px/netflixs_...
Which amazingly we don't do.
Oh you don't like google and facebook eventually abusing what they know about you? Don't use their services.
Think about what your local cable company charges for HBO. They have no advertising and programming is pretty good. Back in the day it was $20/month, now it's something close to $10/mo, right?
What would your cable bill look like if every single channel was $10/month?
Of course, Netflix is well worth the subscription and if you don't watch a lot of TV, it has enough content to keep you entertained for a while. But I've noticed that I discuss HBO shows more with my friends/family than Netflix ones.
A former Netflix tech guy once told me that "People get Netflix for the movies and stay for the TV shows." Though that's probably less true than it used to be given Netflix Originals and a pretty wide recognition that their streaming movie catalog is limited. Today it's probably the Originals that drive the purchasing (as with HBO).
Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Sex and the City, Entourage, etc., all well before Netflix did originals.
Netflix has obviously run with the idea though. I'd love to see Netflix and HBO merge actually.
HBO was doing that long before Netflix had original programming and Netflix, fairly overtly -- as in, I'm pretty sure I remember Netflix execs saying this -- was following HBO's arc rather than vice versa.
It happened.
Lately I'd agree, but a few years ago that didn't have much and it was mostly high quality. So many of netflixs originals seem to fall into the super hero category that I'm not interested in.
Which ones were those? Are you sure they were Netflix originals?
It is true that, if you start slicing out ESPN, A&E, etc. it would theoretically be possible to subscribe to an overall lower cable bill but the cable cos would almost certainly raise per-channel (or mini-bundle) pricing to compensate.
Everyone passed on Mad Men except this little movie-rerun channel called AMC. Would Walking Dead have happened without it?
The secret is that there's no "whole amount", because that would imply the concept of "enough money". There's no such thing as "enough money".
I mean that entirely non-sarcastically; to the extent it doesn't go to cover their costs, it goes to increase their profit, which has no upper bound. If they've found a way to extract more money, they'll do it. They question then becomes "to what extent have they found a larger revenue stream, and to what extent have they obtained more money now by alienating customers and driving them to other services".
Losing subscribers is fine if they don't go anywhere else (because they can't), but losing subscribers to a competitor is a risky move.
I've never been so upset about a product like this. I think I paid ~70GBP for the Fire TV and 20 each for two Fire TV sticks and then they sneak advertising in with a software update after the fact. It's particularly egregious because they've recognised the equivalence of ads and charging you money on their tablet range which I think you can buy at a discount if you agree to have ads shown to you on the home screen.
Cable was originally advert-free. It was slipped in gradually over time. They got away with it because people put up with it and didn't call foul and stop subscribing. Expect Amazon, Netflix, everyone to do it. Precedent was set with cable subscriptions. The bar is set very low, and our resistance is known to be pitiful.
I don't think that's true, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13460306
> Bin them. Bin Amazon Prime too.
That would be altruistic but I don't think that enough people will do it with me (and I have no interest in organising them to do so). I'm tempted to return the device since they've changed the fundamental functionality, IMO.
But why would I ever be interested in watching a season in progress when I can watch backlog until it finishes, then watch the entire season on my own schedule?
If you keep up to date you can discuss the EP on various forums right after it airs. Then it's something to talk about with your co-workers who are also fans.
The first problem goes away after the initial transition, and the second goes away when everyone you know also uses Netflix and/or Amazon Prime. But don't underestimate the value in getting people to switch.
Really? So why don't they show more commercials, or charge more for the service?
The reason there are commercials is it allows them to offer the service for less money and most people don't care.
Because there's a balance where doing more would lead to much more immediate revenue loss. Few people would watch a channel with 20 minutes of commercials for every 10 minutes of show, but network TV has already demonstrated that people will watch shows with 8 minutes of commercials for every 22 minutes of show, especially if they don't have a good alternative. The loss of customers from such a move takes longer to show up in the bottom line, and it started before alternatives like Netflix existed.
> The reason there are commercials is it allows them to offer the service for less money and most people don't care.
They're not in the business of offering a specific fixed service for as little money as it takes to cover their costs; that logic would apply to a non-profit or co-op, not a for-profit company. For a for-profit company, lowering prices isn't an end, it's a means.
Of course. There's nothing nefarious going on here. They're constrained by competition, the amount of advertising people will tolerate, and what their customers are willing to pay, but within those constraints they'll set up the business so that between commercials and the monthly fee they make the most money.
> Why can't they just charge tv subscribers the whole amount and get rid of ads on tv?
It's because doing that would mean artificially constraining their own business when they don't have to do that. So why would they?
As the article itself notes, few people buy a subscription service for one or two shows.
If Netflix can continue to bid high enough to starve its competitors of high-quality content (because it can amortize its costs over a larger subscriber base), then no competitor can grow large enough to compete without running substantial initial deficits (which Netflix can make temporarily worse if they choose to, by overpaying for content and driving prices up).
So essentially, lack of competition.
Somewhere is the optimal balance, where they have lots of subscribers, and show just the right amount of commercials to prevent people from leaving, and thus maximize the value of the ad slots.
Personally, I don't pay for anything with commercials. I just don't want to pay to be fed ads. Instead I pay for streaming services and movies. But if they want to sell me premium channels without commercials, I'll consider it.
As for "native advertisements": it really depends on genuineness, and disclosure.
To pay the bills.
> Why can't they just charge tv subscribers the whole amount and get rid of ads on tv?
That's what premium channels (HBO, Cinemax, etc.) do, and they appeal to a different audience than non-premium cable, because most people are more willing to accept the cost of advertising than the cost of paying for premium channels.
However it turned out that by paying for TV they were signaling to advertisers that they were better off (and willing to spend money for things) than regular free-to-air TV watching people, and therefore their eyeballs were worth more. So now pay/cable TV in Australia has more ads per hour than free to air TV.
Look at the bottom line. Netflix lost 126 million dollars in 3 months. Revenue per user is negative and going down. Needless to say, this can't last. Either price more than doubles, or ads come.
And how could revenue per user be negative? Even if Netflix were burning cash they wouldn't have negative revenue.
[1 (xlsx)] http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/NFLX/3717249512x0x924...
Personally I'm not too bothered by it as long as it's subtle, and so far it has been.
But generally I find I notice the product placement spots because they seem out of the flow of the program, I guess they work best when the brand is more hands-off and lets the creator do it subtly.
No, he likes playing video games on his PLAYSTATION(TM) to relax, and it feels like this bit of character detail was kludged in purely to satisfy the product placement requirement.
It's obvious that with a different sponsor the character would have had different behaviours.
I can see why you'd consider it heavy handed. Had I watched that in the episode proper, it would have set off the 'placement ad!' bell in my head.
However, as stated elsewhere, that's orders of magnitude less invasive than a real ad., and it would not break the flow of the show, for me, at all.
It's really the same kind of exchange I have actually been involved with many times in real life.
Slow, ugly, poor UX.
Netflix on the same device is excellent.
Every time I use Hulu, I say "I wish this UI was half as good as Amazon's."
For players: Amazon's interface is much better than it used to be when Prime TV firt began but it has a lot of gimmicks too that take time to understand. Hulu's still buffers or gets stuck on an ad or does something dumb.
Finding stuff: Hulu isn't great for that and I hate my queue/watchlist. I think it was following in the footsteps of Netflix, switching to the big pictures, which I'm assuming is meant for swipe-y screens/tvs more so than the computer browser these days. The findability of items on Amazon is appalling, despite having a generally good selection.
To actually browse, on Prime and Netflix at least, I use instantwatcher.com.
However, that works surprisingly well. And it has a bonus feature: While the episode is playing, you get annotations on the phone about what actors are on the screen and what music is playing, with the ability to click on them to get bios etc.
(I'm sure this isn't offered on every show streaming on Prime; the last example I remember was Goliath.)
Also why I don't bother streaming from UK's other commercial channels e.g. ITV and Channel 4 as they are riddled with ads. And you have to log into them which is annoying, not helped by rubbish players especially on Linux. May also be that their programming is mostly irrelevant, e.g. reality show and singing contests etc.
I do endure some ads when streaming sports channels. (Sky sports, BT Sports, Eurosport). But at least then they are limited to before and after the events.
No third-party ads. Prime pre-roll advertises its shows in its own show.
Viewers/subscribers are a zero sum game, as they're not growing as a total in places like the US.
Traditional content was designed in a content-scarce environment (from the few broadcast channels, to a few more cable channels, to VHS, to DVD).
That's not the world we live in anymore: now it's a time-scarce environment.
There's more content (both legacy and new) than I could hope to consume, so I'm only interested in the best content for me. Traditional content providers aren't optimized for micro-targeting.
For some odd reason they cut out the ads although you have to create an account and give them a Scottish address and postcode.
Caveat/ the app sucks btw so you have to use the web version.
There are occasional gems worth the effort, but not many.
I tried to watch Friends on comedy central, which is 20 minutes per episode... each episode had 3 ad slots... 3!!! ad!!! slots... and I was paying £70 a month for that thing, they were trying to milk me out... I've quit sky and I don't miss it at all, and am very glad I quit it.
Still, while some of their original content is good I am not subscribing to their service just for that, let alone I don't need six semi super hero shows. If they keep pairing down their catalog I am going to lose interest real fast
In that entire article, there's not a single mention of HBO Go. Looks like Netflix succeeded.
0: http://gizmodo.com/5980103/netflix-the-goal-is-to-become-hbo...
It occurs to me that it's a lot easier for Netflix to become HBO, than for HBO to become Netflix - You don't need to build up a tech base, or a talent pool, to make an amazing show - it's all rented or hired per thing, so if you can pay for the talent, it's available, and can start making magic immediately.
Not trying to imply the creation of amazing content is easy, more that the lead time is waaay less than for the creation of tech like Netflix's.
Netflix comes along and starts ordering shows where they know the target audience is going to be very limited, say only 10% of all college graduates from big metro areas. That's enough for a show to be Netflix success. Some of them they contract with US production companies (House of Cards, OIT New Black etc.), others they source from non-US TV networks (Sherlock, Black Mirror etc.)
If they have enough of these shows, they can cover most of their target audience and make sure that most people have at least a few original shows keeping them hooked to the $10/month subscription. There's no limit on airtime since Netflix is all on-demand. So now there are dozens (or who knows, even hundreds) of these shows and all they need for you is to get hooked on one or two of those. And a few of them have been legitimate breakout hits like House of Cards, Stranger Things, OITNB etc. Maybe individually none of those shows is as big as Game of Thrones, but combined, they're obviously doing a great job for Netflix.
For HBO to truly compete with Netflix, they'll have to break their "Cable first" model and truly start thinking in terms of unlimited online hours. We'll see when they release their first online only show.
When HBO launches a new series, they market to their entire viewer base and arrange/hope for more attention.
When Netflix launches a new series, they know exactly what is similar to it and who watched those things, so they target those viewers first. Odds are, those viewers talk about it in their circles and word/attention spreads. If it blows up further, great! But since they knew exactly how big their starting niche was, they probably (a guess) had their ROI planning based on those.
As noted in the article of the top 10 shows googled last year, 5 were Netflix Originals. They're not just winning, they're blowing away everyone else.
Diversity is really good, and both of these methods bring something special to the table.
Specifically - You're spot on with Netflix's limited audience appeal per show, and making the work. What HBO really brings to the table is a show that EVERYONE talks about - and by releasing it on a TV-style schedule, we all have time to talk about it. GoT was as much about all the hubub (re: watching twitter when readers knew Red Wedding was coming, and viewers didn't...) as the show itself.
As much as I love Netflix shows, you don't "bond at the watercooler" over them nearly as much, since you have to worry about where someone is in the plot progression, and by the time we've both seen it, the moment has passed. I tell people to go watch Netflix shows, but I talk with people about HBO.
he tried and failed to get HBO to understand streaming
After all, if you're making $10 per customer per month, it's bound to be an uphill battle to convince people you should change to a business model that makes you $5 per customer per month.
This is my theory for why so many companies have outdated business models.
That's something I just didn't get. Netflix has already set the bar by pricing their content at $10/month; why can't HBO do the same?
HBO Go/Now (that's another thing; why two different apps?) is $15/month, but with less content, albeit most of it better than the average Netflix title. So...it's not exactly a losing proposition for them. Why is it such an uphill battle for HBO to do this exactly?
When I first signed up, Netflix Original meant high quality shows produced/funded by Netflix itself, like House Of Cards & Orange Is The New Black & Daredevil. Netflix Original meant the best TV you've ever watched.
Now Netflix Original often means terrible unfunny stand-up comedy, or made-for-TV movies by big name stars phoning it in. Much of the new Netflix Original content is rated one-star - on my account I see Wet Hot American Summer, XOXO, Easy, Chelsea, A Very Murray Christmas, The Ranch, Mascots, Chewing Gum, Richie Rich, Lost & Found, all with one star. And there's a ton more. Worse is that it keeps pushing those as recommendations to me, even though it thinks I'll only rate them 1 star.
I can't see myself cancelling my Netflix yet, but there have been times when I've been tempted to pause it for a month or so.
Daredevil never really did it for me. I thought their Wet Hot American Summer reboot was really entertaining. Go figure.
It started on A&E 2012 to 2014; it's produced by Warner Horizon -- how is this original to Netflix?
Lots of the Netflix Originals aren't by Netflix at all. In Australia, The Expanse is a "Netflix Original", even though in America it's on Amazon Prime Video and was made by SyFy. Glitch is a "Netflix Original" in the US, but it was made by ABC Australia. And we have Designated Survivor as a Netflix Original in Australia, even though it's made by ABC Studios and currently airing on ABC in the US.
It seems Netflix Original now just means "currently Netflix holds exclusive rights to this show in your country".
Netflix is on the production team for the second season.
> It seems Netflix Original now just means "currently Netflix holds exclusive rights to this show in your country".
That's not really out-of-line with current industry norms though. Larger production companies buy the rights to films made by smaller production companies and put their names on them all the time. For example, Moon comes to mind. Sony didn't produce it but it's a "Sony Picture". Or Primer, StudioCanal had nothing to do with the production but is currently listed as the production company.
Daredevil S1 was 7-8 episodes of content stretched over 13 episodes, with clear front-loading of the good stuff (where did the decent fight choreography and good direction/camera work go after the first few episodes?!). If they'd hit that same level of overall quality again I'd have stopped watching, but fortunately S2 and Jessica Jones were quite a bit better overall, though not perfect—haven't seen Luke Cage yet, can't vouch for it.
My wife is not into superheroes and SF at all, but she loved Jessica Jones. She doesn't like Daredevil or Luke Cage at all.
There's plenty of other stuff to watch, though. We recently discovered a new season of Doctor Who, which I thought was supposed to be disappearing from Netflix. But for everything I could watch on regular TV, watching it on Netflix is simply more convenient, because we get to control exactly when and how to watch it, and Netflix keeps track of where we are.
Stranger Things and Wet Hot American Summer were absolutely perfect in that regard.
(As regards Daredevil season 2, it was unfocused, full of ninjas and superfluous side characters. They completely lost the plot.)
It perhaps speaks to how mediocre-bordering-on-bad season 1 was that I agree with all of that and still think it was quite a bit better.
The Punisher was an attempt at a similarly complex figure, but it failed miserably, particularly because, for all of the Daredevil group's shenanigans, we know he's a protagonist, not a classic bad guy. The central dilemma that the series tried to elevate to a theme was Daredevil's non-lethal approach vs. the Punisher's lethal one, which makes for weak TV indeed. Especially since all of Daredevil's enemies were ineffectual McGuffins that only existed to be mowed down.
It was also bogged down by the fact that the character (or his portrayal, at least) was humourless, dour and unpleasant, adding to the existing roster of humourless, dour and unpleasant characters (including Daredevil himself, who must be one of the most boring superheroes of all time, as portrayed by the show). Karen Page could have contributed some heart to the proceedings, but as in S1 her role was merely being constantly on the verge of tears in every single scene.
Oh, and the ninjas. Apparently the comic is all about ninjas, but still. Ninjas, really?
In the end, I felt the show only come alive around Foggy, especially when he was being a brilliant lawyer. I'd personally like to see Daredevil replaced with a courtroom comedy/drama around Foggy Nelson.
And their half-assed effort to have that one Special ninja, but that never went anywhere. So strange.
The portrayal of Kingpin was the only reason I didn't stop watching Season 1 about half way through.
S2 had much better work on the action scenes (except The Hallway Fight near the beginning of S1, which remains the best in either season and had to be the work of someone they only brought in for that one episode) until the very end when S1's filmed-by-enthusiastic-amateurs-with-a-love-for-flat-medium-shots-and-one-camcorder-in-a-warehouse aesthetic came back with a vengeance.
Agreed about Foggy. Side characters and villains save the show, really.
^ is the thing. My dad was really into this teenage Battle Royale type series, even though I thought it was absolute crap. Netflix is an international company, aggressively expanded everywhere. What one person considers crap and shovelware is someone else's favorite series.
Compare it to idk, games. There's a load of very weird games that just don't sell at all in the US, but catch on like crazy in Japan (for example). I hear rumours of this bad-looking brick video game that's objectively bad, but kids love it. Same with Runescape for example. And there's probably loads more similar things.
tl;dr, someone will like it, and I'm sure that Netflix is well-aware of this. They probably have lots of statistics that roughly estimate how many subscribers they get (or retain) for what show in what demographic.
Negative reviews don't matter if a show still gets them 100K subscribers.
I would prefer a lot better if it's displayed the average rating on Netflix or from IMDB for example.
Whether powered by algos or people, any rating system is "letting a machine do the thinking for you". Take the ten(?) minutes you spend researching the thing to watch ten minutes of the thing, and I bet you more often than not you'll know whether you want to watch it.
[I'm glad someone got a higher rating for Very Murray Christmas, I like some of his movies. Perhaps I'll give it a try.]
On the broader topic, I'm not sure anyone has really figured out how to do recommendations well whether film, music, TV, restaurants, or other products. And the more "clever" and personalized a system tries to be, the more likely it is to throw out some really bizarre recommendations.
Someone I know did a lot of work on music recommendation and gave some presentations on it (including at SXSW as I recall). It's a harder problem than one might naively expect.
Though most of the ad's I see have a handsome margin added to the product that I neither want nor if I did I could find somewhere on ebay cheaper.
The only thing today that directed me to specific products and services are sites like hackernews, youtube channels like Eli the Computer Guy, and Louis Rossmann. I've donated about $500AUD to different youtube gaming review channels (because I like their content). I've donated to schools and donated my time with teaching programming. Though do I trust a advertisement GIF or Ads in the middle of a youtube video (hell no!).
Deep down I do want advertisement to get better and I DO want them to target me with meaning full advertisement. Though it still is a game of pop-ups in the middle of the screen of Skype, News, Web-sites all wanting to TELL me about how special they're.
I really hope Netflix disrupts this in some way and not become another engine for bombarding users with ads.
I tolerate quick ads. But lengthy or too many consecutive ads, and I switch channels and never return.
I would probably prefer more frequent very very brief ad breaks than infrequent longer ad break. Better then to be very infrequent, middle ground is the most annoying.
I am sure there have been many statistical analysis of ad break lengths, frequencies and lost viewers. And that there are big differences between countries.
I can understand general commercial channels needs ads. Not everyone can be Netflix or tv license subsidised. But that is also what they compete against so they can't have too many ads.
I remember whenever I am in the states that I am shocked at how much commercials there are during the shows on US network tv channels. And when visiting family in Norway at Christmas the financially struggling TV2 seemed to have extended their ad breaks so much that none of us watched their channels any more.
I have no idea how to do that.
Edit, source: http://www.businessinsider.com/blockbuster-ceo-passed-up-cha...
Those aren't the the part of old media that people are dissatisfied with. Who decides what gets produced? How do advertisers affect the decisions? Isn't that what is changing? Also, aren't the decisions at that level what viewers tend to be dissatisfied with?
But this isn't Netflix producing high quality content while the studios lose out. It's Netflix paying the studios for quality content.
Anyhow, they're killing it on every front, and it costs what, $10/month? I'd pay much more. Anyhow good job Netflix.
Meanwhile, HBO Now and other cable fossils still show "We refuse to accept your 15EUR/month" screens to most EU and world countries. Serves them right.
Netflix still suffers from a fragmented back catalogue though, where non-Netflix Original content can only be viewed in certain geographic regions.
I still hope they can go even further and offer globally their back catalogue of kids shows in Norwegian language currently only available in Netflix Norway. I noticed some UK shows are available with Norwegian subtitles but for the smallest it would be good to have the audio track as well.
This is probably all down to what ever rights agreements they have signed with the local publishers. And would apply to every countries catalogue and agreements, so not an easy negotiation.
Netflix's execs have some serious cajones to go where Hollywood went almost a century ago. They're going to need to be very careful in order to avoid government interference. Showing even a hint of favoritism towards their own content could land them in heaps of trouble. Maybe online distribution will be viewed differently than cinemas were, or maybe it won't.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic....
It's pretty much gotten to the point where, if there's an older/less popular movie you may want to watch, there's a good chance you'll need to just buy it.
The streaming/cloud tech company sort of came later.
Google at least had something of a workaround with their various efforts to provide access, but I don't see how they are going to circumvent the tollbooths which are popping up on the last mile.
Sounds good! <goes to Google>
> "HBO GO. It's HBO. Anywhere."
Awesome!
> "To access HBO GO℠, you must reside within the fifty states of the United States of America."
Oh. That anywhere.
Fortunately they finally came to their senses and now offer HBO "Now", which is a separate, online-only, offering that doesn't require cable.
I wouldn't be surprised if Now is still geo-blocked though.
My biggest pet peeve is that everything has to be graphical though. I'd much prefer a list of filterable shows like the steam games list.
The BBC has done a pretty good job of buying and airing foreign TV, but in North America a lot of this stuff hasn't come over. I really appreciate the effort that Netflix has done to air this sort of thing and I hope to see a lot more.
Independent of their foreign nature, these are really good shows, but their foreignness makes them even more interesting as you get a bit of a glimpse into a different culture without having to travel yourself.
(If you liked Trapped, make sure you check out Baltasar Kormákur's [2] other non-Hollywood work. 101 Reykjavik and Jar City are particularly good. I also liked The Sea.)
I love that they're pulling in quality indie/foreign films such as Rams [3], but these are few and far apart. There are so many superb "arthouse" films out there that they could offer. I wish someone would sponsor the digitalization of older "out of print" works that now only survives on old, out-of-production DVDs or on VHS. I wanted to find a few of Icelandic director Friðrik Þór Friðriksson's films (Children of Nature is one of my all-time favourites), but they're not available anywhere. I was hopeful for Filmstruck [4], but their selection is very limited.
[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5269594/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltasar_Kormákur
If Netflix has found a worldwide market for content, that's good news for the studios they're hiring to produce that content.
I'm curious if the additional revenue from Netflix, and presumably Amazon, Hulu, and a nervous HBO will be enough to offset the declining revenue from broadcast TV.
As a developer, I want to make something as beautiful as a Netflix original. I'm not really sure how, tho...
* As opposed to, eh, merely aesthetic beauty - that code looks good.
Tools like Processing[0] are very accessible even to those with minimal programming experience, and can be very powerful and fluid environments if you have any familiarity with Java or similar languages (or clojure[1]). It's very easy to iterate rapidly (even some live-coding elements) and have a lot of visual feedback, such that it almost feels more like sculpting than a normal programming workflow.
(Unless you think the codebases of these projects are themselves beautiful? Then they might be a The Thing)
They've also been pumping out animated kids shows quite heavily. Those are almost certainly less expensive per hour than a lot of their blockbuster hits, and would easily allow for a 66% increase in content-hours with only a 20% budget increase. And, anecdotally, are the types of shows that keep subscriptions active long after parents stop actively watching things. Kids get attached to characters easily, can watch the same season repeat dozens and dozens of times, and benefit from consistency (i.e. not app hopping between Amazon Video, Netflix, Hulu, etc). And the value of Netflix during times like extended traveling and running errands is not to be underestimated.
My subscription would have gone long ago if my daughter weren't so attached to some of their Originals. They're really good at making spinoffs of popular movies (like the Puss in Boots spinoff from Shrek) and popular toys (like Ever After High, based on the Monster High dolls).
- existing shows which reduce set/CG/marketing costs;
- lower production costs as shortage of sets and filming equipment is lessened by new supply entering market;
- less need to higher huge stars to sell the idea that the programming is high quality, and with more huge stars willing to do TV, paying not quite as many million dollars to get them;
- expanding into lower cost TV (similar to the Tesla strategy to move downmarket.) Sadly, this means people who enjoy a lot of the existing shows won't have twice as many shows targeted towards them, but it shouldn't affect their perception of Netflix.
If they're smart, none. You can't just go out and buy quality. Stranger Things for example was a pretty low budget show and most people really quite liked it. Marco Polo on the other hand cost a fuck ton and I've yet to meet anyone who really liked it.
My wife's pitch to try to get me to watch that was "it's pretty good when Marco Polo's not in the scene". Didn't work.
But there will always be someone bummed out.
Edit: apparently at least not within Australia.
You're right about Top Gun, though.
http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/netflix-cw-streaming-licensi...
Also I don't think Netflix has won the streaming wars, already. I use both Netflix and Amazon (with two more competitors I don't use, in my country). And they are actually different enough to both survive together. Netflix is the everybody solution: cheap, broad, but certainly not covering all corners. Amazon is the "rich" solution: You can have nearly everything there is, but for some of it you need to pay premium (i.e., buy/rent the movie despite paying for prime already).
Honestly, if you browse Netflix originals and choose one with 5 stars, and give it 3 episodes, you're most likely going to be hooked and start binge watching into the wee morning hours.
I speak from very recent experience -- first with Stranger Things, then Travelers (it's fantastic), and now Lovesick (possibly the funniest comedy I have ever seen and also my wife's new favorite show).
Netflix quickly changed the name
Let's put it this way, we are finding that we are recording dozens of movies shown on the FX channel an end-up watching these recordings, even though FX is great about ruining the experience with pointless commentary and tons of commercials (thankfully fast-forward on the DVR takes care of that).
FX (and others) have had better content for at least a year. Not sure why we keep paying Netflix. I need to have a serious look at Amazon video and other options.
They already do, in the UK at least. 4k is only on the top tier 4 stream subscription. The standard subscription is 2 stream and tops out at 1080p.
Obviously, because it would cost too much. However with enough customers paying monthly for the full service maybe they will start thinking about video on demand. I'd pay 1 Euro (not more) per episode.
I used to be a Netflix subscriber via VPN, before they officially opened here, but it just became cumbersome and risky to connect (remember the controversy surrounding sketchy Chrome VPN plugins?). Unfortunately, right now I don't have an active subscription at the moment, sadly, because I finished watching most of the things that interested me from their catalogue in 4 months. Kind of a shame because the company that cracks international expansion first is usually the one to stay in those markets.
On the streaming music front, aside from some sketchier ones, Apple Music was one of the first to open up shop here, and I'm still using it with no plans to ever abandon it because it's a great service -- not only that, but Apple decided to offer regionalised pricing, so their is priced very fairly (to compare and contrast, their subscription costs a little more than twice the amount than here, but the country I live in being a poorer one, I think it's perfectly acceptable). On top of that, they have their original content. Even if Spotify managed to come to this market, I wouldn't switch. There was a time when I desperately tried to pay for their service but they did not let me, now I wouldn't, because I already have superior service.
Edit: I can't stand advertising on services, the ads on most American TV channels and services are so bad that I have to stop using them from time to time. It's not exactly the norm in my country, but there was a time when I thought our ads were crazy annoying! Some of it is extra annoying, like YouTube's, I would love to get YouTube Red, but it's not available here, even tho Google introduced some really crappy business practices to try and steer users towards it.
”killing it” is not a positive statement for foreigners! It looks like they are dismissing their content creation department!.
And I'm still subscribed :) . Need to check Netflix too, hope they have a bigger content selection.
They'll have to figure out their pricing if they want to do well in these markets
You know how a tree over produces seeds in the final phase of it's life? One last push to spread it's genes?
What if the decline of global western hegemony is producing art in much the same way?
This isn't a DVD that you physically own and can make a strong case for format shifting to watch on other devices.
Why wouldn't they want to do that? When they were pushing EME garbage into HTML standard, their main excuse was that it's not because they want DRM, but because without it, major film studios won't release anything through them. That was before they started making their own stuff. And now that they do, where is it DRM-free?
> You're not buying their content.
What stops them from selling it? It's theirs, they can do whatever they want.
Who needs obsolete physical media these days? Where are they selling files?
I'd enjoy a way _to buy_ not DRMed, high quality digital movies. But I don't have any illusions that a subscription model is feasible without DRM.