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Not to mention, I just can't be bothered to wait for my PS3 and/or <insert distributor> to shutdown one application to start the other. It's very annoying to sit in what feels like 3 minutes to, for example, stop Hulu and start Netflix. Add HBO, WB, and whoever else wants to run their own show, and we're back to having a better experience with pirating.

Btw, can someone (Netflix?) chime in on the app performance? What's the deal with the start/stop time on a PS3? I can't decide if it could also be the Netflix app, as it seems to chug slightly when just browsing video thumbnails -- maybe this is related to some PS3 sandbox or resource allocation. I feel I shouldn't have to wait for thumbnails to load when scrolling left-right in a category -- the row should start pre-fetching. Likewise, selecting a thumbnail shouldn't take so long to load the preview panel.

Meanwhile the Roku just rolled out a main menu search that searches many of the "channels" it has installed to find content, so you Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO Go, etc and search within them.

That said, I still just leave it in the Netflix channel all the time because the (young) kids use it and it's easiest, especially with the hundreds of recommendations it shows so they don't really have to search by name at all.

Search would be helpful, but I would also want a joined "recently" watched, "favorites," etc. I don't mind, much, having to open different applications; it's possible it would be cumbersome to do so, if I had more than just Hulu and Netflix -- HBO, WB, etc have their own apps. I just can't understand why it takes more than a second to open and close what is essentially a browser and webpage. Again, (Netflix?) is this partially due to the platform (PS3 or Xbox)? Does a Roku launch an app, or does it work faster by controlling the interface and merely making API calls? I should really fire up a sniffer when launching/browsing PS3-Netflix; it'd be curious what parts of the sluggishness might be explained by network trips having to, for example, going through the PS network, which I can imagine sucks.

The Netflix channel loads fairly quickly, within a 3-4 seconds, but then the retriving of your instant queue list and the downloading of all the images for the items in your instant queue (and the suggested groups) takes a bit longer (and loads visible items first). If it's not the first launch since a boot (or some internally defined timeout), it's faster since the images are cached, yielding a total time of ~4-5 seconds until the Channel is fully usable with all show images shown.

Then again, I'm almost never loading the channel, I just leave it in Netflix, since that's all I really use. The launch time is essentially NIL.

It chugs on the 360 too. It's just slow in general and has only gotten slower/less usable since I started using it 2 years ago.

From the article it sounds like this may have as much been Netflix fault as Warner Bros. It isn't ideal for any one company to have exclusive access:

"Netflix contacted Mashable to state that it prefers to license TV shows and movies “on an exclusive basis… [to] provide a unique experience” "

I see two possibilities:

1) Netflix turned down a reasonable new "non-exclusive" contract from Warner Bros.

2) Netflix came up with its "prefer to license ... on an exclusive basis" policy as a face-saving measure after Warner Bros refused to renew the contract.

In that case, maybe someone should aggregate Netflix content together with content from other sources...

I'll call it "Netflix"

Agreed.

Caption below screenshot of homepage for new Warner Bros service sums up the lunacy of this:

The Netflix competition heats up, for the 55+ demographic.

It's tough for TV to monetize the 55+ demographic because advertisers don't care about it. Since they aren't being catered to by TV, it would make sense for other entertainment ventures who can monetize them to compete for them.

What? I thought 55+ was the primary demographic for actual TV watching these days. Everyone under 50 uses DVR and everyone under 35 uses netflix/itunes.

On the other hand it's not really fair that Netflix becomes a monopoly and everyone has to agree to Netflix's prices or lose most of it's audience. Even if Netflix is completely fair about it, they are still have to somehow divide $30 per month per family, among all the videos they watch (and no advertising revenue either.)

But you are right that 50 different competing video services would be absurd. Perhaps it would be better to distribute videos in a marketplace, like steam did for games. They set their own prices so they don't have to worry about "exclusivity". And then they could allow for subscriptions to watch unlimited content for a set price, for people that value that.

The weird thing about movies is that they aren't like other commodities. People want to watch a specific movie, even if there are others that are just as good. Supply and demand doesn't work as well.

But I am worried about Netflix becoming monopolistic. They aren't now because they do have competition and have only a fraction of movies and TV shows available. But if it or something like it becomes the dominant video streaming service, they could charge consumers or producers whatever they want (within reason) because there are no other platforms to distribute your movies, and no one else has the ones you want to see.

"I don't necessarily want there to be just One Uber Aggregator either, so you're going to have to deal with Amazon and Netflix and iTunes, but you can't go it alone."

In fact, I'd suggest a better defense for WB et al against Netflix as the uber-distributor is to make it easier for someone else to set up a distributor rather than harder. Of course nobody's going to run a major video distributor out of their metaphorical basement, but putting in place relatively clear expectations about policy and pricing, and opening the content to anyone who meets those expectations without too much grinding negotiation on a per-service basis, will tend to undermine Netflix's singular power. If, say, Wal-Mart knew they could get fair and nondiscriminatory pricing on a whole whackload of content while they were still kicking the idea around, they'd be that much more likely to jump into the game.

The more content that becomes accesible, the lower value each piece of content can command.

If artists were pissed about being paid pennies by Spotify and Pandora, film houses are about to sail down the same river of hurt.

Wait? What's that you say? You'll hold your content hostage? Compete with free (Pirate Bay, etc).

"The more content that becomes accesible, the lower value each piece of content can command."

Not many people realize this fact. As our ability to record and retrieve stuff increases, the prices for 'entertainment' or 'art' will drop. Production of any unit that is not consumed (i.e. used up/destroyed) will result in surplus. The counter-example is food. Food production will still be valuable in the future because the old food is used up or destroyed. Movie and music production, book writing, etc. will be near worthless for most folks because there will be infinite choices.

Might want to start planning your children's future careers appropriately!

I could see Amazon and Hulu becoming competitive with Netflix, so they're hardly a monopoly. And there are a ton of non-subscription competitors: iTunes, Sony, MS, Amazon, etc.

But the problem is, if one has exclusive content that none of the other services have, people will go to it first. Not many people want to subscribe to 5 different services like gp said. Then people who distribute their content agree to their terms, because they want to get on the platform with the most consumers. Which attracts more consumers, repeat.

I'm not saying it's going to happen for sure. It didn't with music or games, however those industries are not exactly the same. I'm just worried it could.

Is the "fair[ness]" you demand in the same terms under which Comcast, AT&T, et al operate for cable? Why is a prospective NFLX monopoly, which is even more unlikely due to the differences in infrastructure compared to existing TV monopolies, worse than the current ones?

Aggregators are not the inevitable end game. This is like saying Walmart will eventually sell every brand in its stores, which is clearly not true. Differentiated retail opportunities provide different experiences and allow for price discrimination, especially when it comes in an all-you-can-eat subscription plan. Technically speaking, a stream is a stream, but HBO's entire $3bn/yr business is proof that content has different value.

Also, I don't believe it's clear that it's a winner-takes-all category. We're maybe in the first mile of the marathon, though Netflix has a huge lead. So long as there are viable aggregation competitors to Netflix that are willing to pay premium prices for exclusive access to content as a means to acquire subscribers/customers, Warner and other distributors/studios will sell exclusivity. Based on this comment [1], it sounds like Netflix chose not to renew.

[1] http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/04/30/netflix_queue...

Aggregators are the inevitable endgame for Warner Brothers, because nobody is going to sign up for their non-aggregated services. If it's not aggregators for them, it's nothing. Which may be what they choose, in the end.

Maybe HBO can make it on their own, but I doubt it. The money-per-show in this market is getting diluted, fast, as the past now competes with the present more than ever and creates an ever-larger supply. This tends to have only one effect on prices. If all video production stopped right now I could probably easily survive for another 3 or 4 years before I even really noticed.

Agreed. This is just going to push people towards piracy.

Amen. Furthermore I cannot believe that each fractured distributor is going to invest anywhere near the amount of time and intelligence into the user experience as Netflix/Hulu has.

Neither Netflix or Hulu have got it spot on but they are leagues ahead of any of the old school distributors and rights owners who clearly don't understand or indeed care about their audience.

Even if all the different services worked on all your devices, searching through different apps is already a pain. I don't keep track of who owns what content. How are consumers suppose to know which app to search in when looking for a movie?

Isn't HBO part of Warner?