Netflix Quietly Smothers 3rd Party App Ecosystem
goodfil.ms
goodfil.ms
I can understand people thinking this might be a bad idea for them and I agree that it's possibly a PR mistake. But there is a difference between complaining about access and demanding access to a company's data.
When you build your house on someone else's foundation, your house is at the mercy of the foundation's owner's plans.
Publically available APIs are great, but at times I am troubled by how many people develop entire products and applications around other's data, and then scream bloody murder when their business model goes up in smoke because the parent decided to evolve and innovate their own business.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to be unhappy about a reduction in value to me, the end consumer. Do I understand it? Perhaps – I still view it as a poor sort of competitive behavior because it's built around increasing information asymmetry and reducing consumers' ability to compare offerings – rather than making their own offerings stronger.
What you've watched & thought of it is, of course, your data.
However, Netflix is in no way obligated to act as your memory in when & whatever manner you demand.
Similiarly Netflix's APIs add value for customers, and apps and outboard memory are/have been a big part of Netflix for me. Will loosing that make me leave? I don't know - but clearly this is a major downgrade in their service.
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* It looks like they pretty much are obligated by law - thanks benatkin.
I get an email each month, that I don't think I can opt out of, that says "New (name of bank) eStatements Available" and links me to the bank's website, where I can view and download it.
You're probably right that they aren't legally obligated to provide transaction data in a machine-readable format.
banks used to that to gain customers. Some time ago, every developer working at banks knew that customers were measured in cost per customer. You'd had the cost to please them, and then you'd make money investing their money.
then, fast forward a measly decade, and banks are seen as obligatory. nobody things about NOT having their money in a bank. So banks drop all of the benefits, and we start to measure clients as profit per account. banks now are profiting from investing your money AND holding that money for you just because you never though about not paying the bank.
So, that's the time when we started to have some regulations and minimal service the bank's supposed to provide.
True, you provided the information. But, to me at least, since Netflix is the one who collected it and are actively storing it then it is their data in terms of ownership. Unless there is some language somewhere that states that Netflix is storing this data on your behalf it belongs to them to do with as they please.
For me it seems that you are referring to the data as something you provided and I'm referring to it as something Netflix collected and is storing. These two ideas do not necessarily contradict each other.
If you go to a site and sign up for their newsletter, that data now belongs to them. If you go to your Google Docs account and type the same information into a text file to store there then that data belongs to you. The difference being is that Google Docs is storing that data for you, while the other is not.
That's all I'm saying.
What I eat, my shoe size, where I've been, the drugs I take, where I work, my mortgage and tax payments, the movies I like.
Netflix should pay me for the honor of storing, mining, analysing, and reselling any and all information about me.
Ditto every one else peddling my data. Exploiting me (and you) for profit.
I want my cut.
And you have always been free to write that down in your own notes, if you wish, however you wish. Some folks actually keep their own simple written text notes on what movies they've seen and want to see. same with books, albums, etc. It's free, fast and simple, and nobody has or probably can take that ability away from you.
Perhaps there is a startup opportunity for an API driven unbranded movie streaming service where the product is the viewing API/data rather than the streaming.
Maybe that's exactly what Netflix intends to offer -- a separate product that's just API/data. Developer account?
can easily be turned around to say
"it is the customer's data as they are the people who spent the money to produce it."
Legally, sure... all of you guys are spot on. But this article speaks to what people want, not what they legally deserve
What I will say relating to the Netflix story is that they probably shouldn't put themselves in a position where they alienate power users (read: evangelists) of the site. They've had a rough couple of years (content loss, product stumbles). Hunkering down and putting up fences is exactly what old media has tried to do, and it hasn't exactly been going so well for them.
I was thinking in more of an ethical/common-sense kind of way. If I pay NF $8/month for their streaming services, is it reasonable for me to claim that I deserve a fully-featured and well-documented API, complete with access to my historical data? Legal questions aside, it seems unreasonable from a gut-check point of view to expect the services of all the engineers & tech writers responsible for making that happen (and keeping it updated) in addition to the streaming service.
If my business depended on access to this Netflix data, you can be sure I'd be making calls and in-person visits if possible to try and form some kind of partnership with them. I think it would be reasonable to assume that kind of business model (NF's model WRT data access) is probably unsustainable and I'd have to do something to protect my business.
I'm betting NF is in the process of creating developer accounts. For $xxx, you get an API key that you embed in your apps that turns these features/this access back on. I wonder if pricing is what's keeping dev accounts from showing up yet -- NF seems against utility billing for end users, but they must deal with it all the time on the back end. Hmm. To your point about the power users, some kind of freemium model would work fine for keeping them happy, I'm guessing... once usage is "Real Business" level, make them pay for it, Google Maps-style.
That sounds about right to me. I'm sure Netflix expects the net effect of this change to be beneficial to the company, and they may be right, but they are going to loose the benefits of the ecosystem that exists today. I certainly don't see any whining, complaining or demanding. It's more of a heads up to everyone involved in the Netflix ecosystem that this is an important change with significant consequences.
AFAICT, goodfil.ms is informing and preparing it's community for changes they're going to have to make. Surely you don't expect them to protect Netflix from the negative PR that this move will generate?
( via http://gigaom.com/video/netflix-42-billion-api-requests/)
1. Third parties can't do nefarious things such as share my data with Facebook or tell my insurance company should I have watched some "surviving cancer" documentary in the past. They're enforcing laws which protect the privacy of my viewing history.
2. Someone can't gouge consumers by layering on additional fees to access what you've already paid for. eg: "Want to watch Netflix on your mobile device? That'll be $5/movie, please, and will show up on your next AT&T statement."
3. An application presenting itself as being a Netflix app can't pull the rug out from under you and make it easy to accidentally click on an iTunes version of the movie, get charged $4.99, and the third party gets an affiliate commission.
4. Third parties can no longer in bad faith scrape the Netflix database and use it for non-Netflix purposes. Do they really need to enforce common sense and decency here? There are many other sources for movie data if sites need that info.
Consumers just like nice ways to use the services they're on, developers like nice ways to integrated services into their projects. Companies like revenues from people discovering their service outside of their normal channels. So, without knowing their genuine reasons for changing the API access it seems like Netflix basically have made a really stupid decision.
Not that it matters one bit what I think, and they clearly know that.
totally lack of understanding of system. dumb choices all around. the most limiting search ever conceived by mankind. absolutely no way to see related content from one movie like you can even on the official netflix site.
Update: We’ve received word that the new API Terms of Use aren’t as sinister as on first glance. From VentureBeat:
We are not prohibiting sites from showing competing services, however we do not want anyone to use Netflix content such as titles and descriptions to advertise a competing service.
We’re not prohibiting developers from monetizing their applications by selling them directly to consumers. We will not, however, permit resale of our information in a business-to-business fashion.
All developers should stop integrating netflix in their services and concentrate on the competition. They have nothing to lose as they are not allowed to make money using netflix anyways.
Can anyone see this going any other way? There will be no 3rd party apps supporting Netflix anymore.
They don't mind listing their products alongside other retailers. Otherwise many shopping comparison engines would go bust. They probably allow it, not from the goodness of their hearts, but only because it drives sales seeing that they usually come out on top in price comparisons.
Netflix probably doesn't make much money off people coming to them via comparison apps (because they are already signed up anyway).
Building your entire business on top of one or two powerful companies' data and APIs will always be extremely risky. So, it's best left for hobby apps.
Netflix, of course, is aware of this and is quietly attempting to procure rights to in-demand programming. This is the motivation behind picking Arrested Development back up. It's a good strategy if they believe they can swing it, but it's very threatening to the media conglomerates (who are already terrified of the internet); certainly a tough act to balance. Netflix is between a rock and a hard place.
For anyone that wants to read it: http://developer.netflix.com/blog/read/Upcoming_Changes_to_t...
I'd like to use your site, but I don't have a Facebook account (removed it a couple years ago), and don't want to be bothered to remember what my twitter password (which I virtually haven't used once in the past years) was.
I understand why you might want to enforce a social network account (1. engaging people to be more social and bring their friends and 2. simpler management of accounts), but I personally have literally zero interest in what my friends like to watch, and have never and would never use Twitter/Facebook. Why can't I use your site? I know I'm not the norm, but you should allow everyone to use your service. If you're valuable to them, they'll bring their friends with them, and if they're not, then having their friends' usernames won't help you. Registering and keeping track of users is absurdly easy, so I think you should re-consider your choice of mandating social accounts.
(Sorry it's not relevant to this topic, just wanted you to know that there are people like me who shy away from any and every service that requires OAuth)
I would imagine that the vast majority of Netflix's customers not only do not use this third-party app ecosystem, but that they have no idea it exists.
"charge, directly or indirectly, any fee (including any unique, specific, or premium charges) for access to the Content or your integration of the APIs in your Application,"
It seems pretty clear to me that this point says that you can't add additional fees to include the Netflix API data in your app, or charge an additional fee to enable such a feature. Nowhere does it say that you can't charge for an app that includes the API.
However, that no enterprise-app statement is quite odd. I wonder what the specific driver was for that addition? There was likely some straw that broke the camel's back there, and it would be entertaining at the least (IMO) to learn what it was.
It certainly reads like that to me. (How else are you supposed to use the APIs in your application?)
Is the actual text, the part you added was your interpretation of the meaning - however, there are some indicators (starting with the parenthesized text in the original) which imply you're reading it overly broad.
"For access to the Content" (the Content being the content served by the API), and "or your integration of the APIs".
Nowhere does it say, "You may not charge any fee for any application which accesses these APIs," which if it were the intent of the lawyers to ensure that only "free" applications used the APIs, they would've stated so.
Instead, they talk about fees for accessing the content and fees for integration, which seems to be to be clear that they are indicating that they don't want people selling the content served by the API or charging extra for using the Netflix API.
From http://developer.netflix.com/page/Api_terms_of_use, section 1.9:
1.9 Appropriate Conduct and Usage Restrictions. You are responsible for your own conduct while using the API and for any consequences thereof. You will use the API only for purposes that are legal, proper and in accordance with these Terms and any applicable policies or guidelines provided by Netflix from time to time. In addition to the other restrictions contained in these Terms, you agree that when using the API, you will not do the following, attempt to do the following, or permit your end users or other third parties to do the following:
...charge, directly or indirectly, any fee (including any unique, specific, or premium charges) for access to the Content or your integration of the APIs in your Application, or use the APIs to build an enterprise application (e.g., that you distribute to other companies);
I think the enterprise clause is to prevent companies from selling software to do analytics against the Netflix DB. Netflix wants that pie. The problem is that can become a very gray area.
One thing I like about instantwatcher is that title do expire from netflix, and instantwatcher will sort by expiration date: http://instantwatcher.com/titles/expiring
http://feedflix.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/expiring-dates-for-...
Screenshot: http://cl.ly/HTyu
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