Qwikster: Netflix's NGE

[Engels]

Seems like a trend. Keep MBAs the fuck away from businesses.

[Khaldun]

It's really fundamental--you could practically measure the probability that a business is going to lose its way by the per capital hiring of MBAs with no particular experience or insight into what the business is. Most businesses would be better off hiring one guy who knows the numbers, locking him in a structural cage where that's all he does, and then a bunch of people who know what the business is about and does and wants. Netflix should have been hiring people who watch a bunch of films first, MBAs last, really. Every single big business failure I can think about involves a very heavy admixture of people who do business but know fuck-all about the business they're actually in.

[UnSub]

MBAs are an easy group to blame, but in my experience even those who set up their companies from scratch have some very large blind spots, or are unable to deal with a changing environment.

A quick look indicates that Reed Hastings set up Netflix and is now the one behind the move to Qwikster. It isn't necessarily the MBAs at work here.

[MahrinSkel]

"Destroy your business model before someone else does."    They thought they were being clever (transition their brand from DVD's in the mail to content on demand), but did a *lousy* job of managing the transition (and may not have needed to transition at all, what they had was working).  And in the process they may have destroyed their brand, which was their only real asset.

--Dave

[Chimpy]

So ya, I decided I would cancel because my BluRay player's nic died and I can't watch on my tv anyway plus with all this new bullshit.....and if you cancel it is "effective immediately, no refunds for partial months".

Seriously. I have to wait until the last day before my card gets charged before I can cancel?

[Strazos]

Damnit, I was planning on getting a lot of use out of Netflix while in Africa...I guess that plan is screwed. 

[Margalis]

I'm done with Netflix streaming I think, they add things very slowly and most of them are very bad, the novelty has worn off.

[Selby]

Well I guess I'll finish up the movies I have in my physical DVD queue and then cancel.  I'm not really interested in dealing with the second rate streaming content and splitting it into separate brand names just seems... stupid.

[Samwise]

End of an era.  The DVDs are no longer worth it, and I haven't used the streaming in a while but was holding on to it mostly in anticipation of Spartacus.  If they're not getting that, well, fuck 'em.

[Furiously]

For kids netflix streaming is awesome. They have tons of kids shows and stuff and then the wife and I order the blu-rays we want. Not sure what I'll end up doing now. If amazon prime gets a lot of kids shows it will be pretty easy to decide.

[naum]

They say they have a bunch of new content coming on to the streaming…

New movie releases are slim pickings, but they did add a bunch of TV series recently -- all the Star Trek series (TOS, TNG all I care about), Mad Men, and they have all The Office, Arrested Development, etc.…

I am done with DVDs and I never did jump on the Blu Ray bandwagons -- find myself just clicking on movies that I know have a DVD on the shelf somewhere. And irksome thing is, some of those things get yanked off NetFlix -- for example, Big Lebowski has been available for streaming but recently became unavailable (I reckon in lieu of recent Blu Ray release).

David Pogue of NYT wrote a column a while back lamenting how what a mess it is to actually find where you could locate a movie you wanted to watch -- for purchase or stream or DL -- some only on DVD but not on certain outlets, some stream on NetFlix, some are available on iTunes, etc.…

The big movie studio houses think they're protecting their assets but they're really just clipping sales from customers. Bit torrent or not --  meanwhile, I'll just settle for the stuff I can get on the internet (watch old youtube videos or Amazon Prime) or hit the library again (if that it still an option after Republicans get to finish their task of destroying all facets of American government). Will keep Netflix until end of year, but we'll see what they still can offer after that.

[Sky]

I'm still getting a lot of mileage out of streaming netflix, but I've only had it two months and I'm using it for tv shows and an occasional movie. Once I dry those up, it's Amazon Prime. One of our tech-savvier librarians just switched a month ago and loves it (though she already had Prime, so it's a no-brainer).

Lebowski should be available on netflix starting 10/1 (according to my queue).

Naum, thanks for supporting your library. Watch for ballot initiatives or ask at the reference desk if there's anything you can do to help out. The other end of my comment about the big influx of DVD donations is that the libraries will have a ton of titles you can usually borrow for free.

[caladein]

I got the email too but I think I'll go to Amazon Prime.  I just bought Thor and X-Men FC on Blu-Ray and will rent other new releases thru AP.

If you're going to rent instead of just stream the stuff that comes free with Prime, you should try Vudu out too.  Vaguely similar app penetration and the quality can really go through the roof.

As for sticking with Netflix, I still have huge queues going and at the new price (plus whatever the game tier is) it's still laughably good value.  My only complaints are the same ones I've had since I started with them years ago: subtitles are burned-in and occasionally get partially cropped and anime is almost always dubbed rather then subbed.

[Numtini]

you could practically measure the probability that a business is going to lose its way by the per capital hiring of MBAs with no particular experience or insight into what the business is

If I read another stock analyst babbling how this is the bet move EVER for netflix I'll vomit. Though with the depth of the backlash online, they seem to be backing off. You could see that in the bump yesterday the stock price got when the imbeciles read the business pages and then the drop when they realized complaints were trending on twitter.

Business makes money when it exists to build a product or offer a service. Making money comes naturally from that unless you're incompetent. It dies when it starts to see the "product" as making money.

[Khaldun]

Was reading some more analysis this morning. Netflix is fucked. They loaded up on streaming content at a time when no one was paying attention to what they were doing, and they got a gigantic fucking inrush of stuff for a song and a dance from Starz. Netflix subscribers slowly awoke to how much shit they could watch via streaming, and really liked the ease and convenience of doing so. But the users got an expectation that more and more would be added and started to get annoyed as the good stuff increasingly disappeared and the streaming library became increasingly crap-infested.

Now all the content owners are aware of the value of what they're sitting on, at least potentially, and they are going to charge premium prices to Netflix to get access to it. Plus some of them want streaming media of any kind to just go away, they want to live with their old business models, or they're protecting an older form of subscriber-based service (like Starz). Netflix has less cash in the bank than any of the other possible content buyers who have streaming infrastructure who are ALSO now aware of how much consumers like streaming media and they're aware that DVD rental is almost dead because Netflix killed it.

Netflix just did a great job doing proof-of-concept for whatever company it is that ends up being the real streaming-media giant. Netflix is basically the MP3 player that didn't work all that well but convinced Steve Jobs to make an iPod and create iTunes. Probably most of the possible successors to Netflix are just pissed that the company unnecessarily shot its own dick off in such a spectacular way earlier than any of them wanted to make a move.

[UnSub]

What Khaldun said. Netflix broke the Blockbuster model of DVD hire, but now is stuck between less interest in DVDs and having to fight content owners for rights to stream desired content. It's a squeeze that they probably can't beat.

I've seen some pieces suggesting that this move sets Netflix up for a sale to someone who wants the brand but could actually afford the content rights, like Google.

[Merusk]

Down another 8% already today.   

I wonder if there's some mesh of dvd rental & streaming that could work as the bridge between these two eras.

[Johny Cee]

Was reading some more analysis this morning. Netflix is fucked. They loaded up on streaming content at a time when no one was paying attention to what they were doing, and they got a gigantic fucking inrush of stuff for a song and a dance from Starz. Netflix subscribers slowly awoke to how much shit they could watch via streaming, and really liked the ease and convenience of doing so. But the users got an expectation that more and more would be added and started to get annoyed as the good stuff increasingly disappeared and the streaming library became increasingly crap-infested.

Now all the content owners are aware of the value of what they're sitting on, at least potentially, and they are going to charge premium prices to Netflix to get access to it. Plus some of them want streaming media of any kind to just go away, they want to live with their old business models, or they're protecting an older form of subscriber-based service (like Starz). Netflix has less cash in the bank than any of the other possible content buyers who have streaming infrastructure who are ALSO now aware of how much consumers like streaming media and they're aware that DVD rental is almost dead because Netflix killed it.

Netflix just did a great job doing proof-of-concept for whatever company it is that ends up being the real streaming-media giant. Netflix is basically the MP3 player that didn't work all that well but convinced Steve Jobs to make an iPod and create iTunes. Probably most of the possible successors to Netflix are just pissed that the company unnecessarily shot its own dick off in such a spectacular way earlier than any of them wanted to make a move.

Yes, exactly.

Netflix never had a product...  their whole business model was based around being a better middleman than video stores and getting in early on streaming content.  Just like video stores, the market is now moving past them as new practices take hold and bargain prices on streaming content go away.  The writing is on the wall, and they need to do something big while they still have some kind of first mover advantage.

Some vestige of Netflix is going to survive at least as a source for old, niche and other content.  But that would be a major contraction for them.


The eventual winner is either going to be your local cable company (who already have the infrastructure, client lists/agreements, and operating agreements with content makers) or the companies that own the rights to the libraries.  Businesses using an agency model (iTunes, what Amazon Prime seems to be) will likely survive as well because they're just acting as the front end for the content providers/owners.

I honestly use the free portion of my cable OnDemand all the time.  It gives you anywhere from a month to an entire season of current TV (though some networks are being stupid), as well as a bunch of free content/movies.  Combined with the package I'm in that gives me a few of the Premium channels, you also get a good roster of recent movies.

[HaemishM]

The only good thing I can say about Comcast cable is their free OnDemand service provides a lot of content. Of course, some of it has built-in cock-in-ass syndrome (like the Fox stuff you can't fast-forward through) or the selection is limited (like Breaking Bad which only allows 4 episodes at a time so if your shitty DVR ate the other 6 episodes from this season you have to get AAARRR Matey to see the goddamn thing). I mean, it's Comcast. They can't do anything totally right except fuckup.

[Salamok]

So what is the next best streaming service for ps3?  Hulu +?  Amazon?

[HaemishM]

I'd like an answer to that question in relation to the X-Box 360.

[Viin]

Netflix.               

[UnsGub]

TV Everywhere.  The technology for the content creators and owners to manage their work is cheaply available.  No need for the middle to exist.

[Salamok]

TV Everywhere.  The technology for the content creators and owners to manage their work is cheaply available.  No need for the middle to exist.

Netflix's success was always about the amount of content they could lock in with contracts the technical details of how they delivered the content is the most trivial part.  Whatever independent content creator/owners who are standing up and saying "we can do that too!" are missing the point.  They are not going to build a netflix level subscriber base by asking everyone to manage 10 or 15 subscriptions, consumers want a one stop shop and historically the successful 1 stop shops have been brick and mortar rental stores followed by pirating followed by netflix.

Instead of tearing netflix down to build their own solution you would think it would be far more profitable and sensible for everyone involved to use netflix and it's subscriber base as their launching point.  They should not be yanking all their content and looking to host it elsewhere, they should be doing everything they can to talk netflix into creating a premium addon for their library of content, for example if I could upgrade my netflix streaming with individual packages of Stars, HBO, Showtime, ESPN, Disney I would be pretty interested where as I would not be nearly as interested if I had to subscribe to separate services for Stars, HBO, Showtime, ESPN and Disney in addition to managing my netflix subscription.  At this point netflix should be doing everything they can to sell their subscriber base to content creator/owners and unfortunately I just don't see them doing that.

[UnsGub]

... for example if I could upgrade my netflix streaming with individual packages of Stars, HBO, Showtime, ESPN, Disney I would be pretty interested...

Sounds like TV.

At this point netflix should be doing everything they can to sell their subscriber base to content creator/owners and unfortunately I just don't see them doing that.

That is unlikely.  Apple and Google have been trying to do the same without much success.

One could even say Apple and Google are content companies now rather then technology ones.

[Khaldun]

The basic Gordian Knot here is convincing the content owners to come into an arrangement that makes all content available to customers all the time. It's been technically possible for a while, the question is really whether the owners can be convinced that there is some possible arrangement under which they make revenues equal to or greater than what they realize now in a totally fractured and balkanized media/content environment. What makes this worse is that some players have money and are highly motivated to make any unified platform fail because their business model requires balkanization. Others have wildly unrealistic expectations of per-consumption pricing based on old models. (Time-Warner execs recently acknowledged that their whole on-demand model was built around the insane pricing of on-demand porn, and that free porn has pretty much broken every expectation of profitability that they have. So they have to relook at how to make the non-porn content available to people on a model more like Netflix: flat fee, access-at-will.)

The boogeyman that has to be paraded around is that if they don't get a pay platform set up that facilitates content consumption, people are going to pirate like crazy. If you force people to hunt over six services and have ten passwords and eight subscriber fees to see what they want to see, they're going to say: fuck you. Eventually.

[Viin]

... for example if I could upgrade my netflix streaming with individual packages of Stars, HBO, Showtime, ESPN, Disney I would be pretty interested...

Sounds like TV.

HBO started offering their own streaming service: HBO GO

While it's only available to HBO TV subscribers, I imagine they will soon roll out a monthly-subscription fee for online streaming only.

[Salamok]

The boogeyman that has to be paraded around is that if they don't get a pay platform set up that facilitates content consumption, people are going to pirate like crazy. If you force people to hunt over six services and have ten passwords and eight subscriber fees to see what they want to see, they're going to say: fuck you. Eventually.

Exactly, I'm currently on the fence between the following options (mostly because netflix streaming content is getting stale fast):
1 - Try out hulu+ or amazon.
2 - Just do netflix dvd rip and return.
3 - Get back on the torrent bandwagon.

[Teleku]

... for example if I could upgrade my netflix streaming with individual packages of Stars, HBO, Showtime, ESPN, Disney I would be pretty interested...

Sounds like TV.

Somebody quite simply needs to roll out a netflix/roku type service that will let me stream everything instantly, on demand (no set times for any shows or commercials).  Let me pick and choose the exact channels I want to have access to (HBO, Starz, Fox, HistoryChannel, etc.), at a small increase (depending on who's content I'm adding) in my monthly rate for each channel I add.  It would be the death of normal TV as we know it, and it would be glorious.  No more giant channel packages with 100 channels I'll never watch.  No more waiting for a certain time to watch a show.  Just exactly the content each individual person wants, delivered to them directly to peruse how they want.

Who ever can do this first wins.  Everything.

[HaemishM]

Somebody quite simply needs to roll out a netflix/roku type service that will let me stream everything instantly, on demand (no set times for any shows or commercials).  Let me pick and choose the exact channels I want to have access to (HBO, Starz, Fox, HistoryChannel, etc.), at a small increase (depending on who's content I'm adding) in my monthly rate for each channel I add.  It would be the death of normal TV as we know it, and it would be glorious.  No more giant channel packages with 100 channels I'll never watch.  No more waiting for a certain time to watch a show.  Just exactly the content each individual person wants, delivered to them directly to peruse how they want.

Who ever can do this first wins.  Everything.

Yes. Of course, Comcast, Directv and the other current content providers (whose SOLE PURPOSE is to deliver shit) will fight a la carte pricing to the death. It's more work for them, and it will kill a lot of the fees they currently get, as well as killing a lot of the niche content they have.

My Breaking Bad example above was the most infuriating. See, I had Tivo'ed all the episodes from this season, I just hadn't watched them yet. The shitty Comcast DVR box has like no fucking capacity, so it starts deleting them even though I did ask it not to. With the episodes gone from the Tivo, OnDemand only had 4 of the 10, so I had to go searching for non-legal sources to see the shit. It's not like I wouldn't be willing to watch commercials for the streaming, I would. I would be GIVING them money, either in eyeballs or in sub fees to someone. But they don't want my money unless it's there way.

And that's what will kill Netflix... in addition to their own stupidity.

[naum]

[Numtini]

Every time we do an honest evaluation, we can save about 20% off our cable bill by going with a la carte programs on amazon, hulu, and netflix for our "must see" stuff. But that ends up being a 20% savings to cut off 90% of our media options. And I tend to think that's exactly what would happen if we had cable a la carte. It would be a far lower number of channels and we probably wouldn't save that much.

Look at what we do have a la carte. $10 for Gol and Fox Soccer. Another $10 for FSC plus if you're lucky enough to have access at all.

I think by the program/event/whatever through the net is a lot better model for a la carte than cable ever was. There I can see it becoming a more viable option without returning to "the three networks and pbs" that I remember growing up.

[Sand]

... for example if I could upgrade my netflix streaming with individual packages of Stars, HBO, Showtime, ESPN, Disney I would be pretty interested...

Sounds like TV.

HBO started offering their own streaming service: HBO GO

While it's only available to HBO TV subscribers, I imagine they will soon roll out a monthly-subscription fee for online streaming only.

Im praying they do!

[UnsGub]

The boogeyman that has to be paraded around is that if they don't get a pay platform set up that facilitates content consumption, people are going to pirate like crazy.

Youtube has already set the stage for free content and a scalable platform.

Pirate does not work in the long term.  Content creators are already suffering the decline in revenues.   If there is no money the artists do not get paid.  It could go the way of the music industry and maybe all great actors and writers will on be experienced only on live stage shows.

http://www.fox.com/ has a new take on shows.  We are going to find out how it all plays out in the next ten years.

[Numtini]

The problem with the independent streaming stuff is most of the people with the money want to watch stuff on their very large tv in the living room, not on their laptop in their dorm room. Netflix had a big advantage here in that it's built into everything and if it wasn't, there's a $50 box that offers it and a lot more.