I think the game rentals makes a lot of sense. Even if for some reason it doesn't work out, I wouldn't think it would a huge financial loss to them.
It will. Many game producers are moving toward content-to-user locking or other forms of DLC to prevent rentals and sharing. The rest are moving to all-digital and definitely wouldn't stand for people renting their $55 games at $5 a pop. Game rentals are a dead end business model.
Qwikster has got to be one of the stupidest fucking names they could have come up with.
It's like they want it to fail. It's the name I would give the spinoff company in a parody Onion article about Netflix breaking in two.
I can't help but feel like Netflix is trying to kill its physical distribution side. They've said that streaming was always their ultimate goal, and following their moves, I've seen them make streaming easier and easier (you can stream on pretty much anything now), but everything of late has been towards raising the price of DVDs, and now even splitting it off into its own company. Call me cynical, but I feel like this is their backhanded way of trying to end it; making an entirely separate company, so consumers have 2 accounts, so websites to go to, 2 plans to manage (and that name... really?)? I've dropped my DVD plan honestly because I don't have too much time for TV, and when I do want something, 9 times out of 10 it's on streaming (or Zune on my Xbox). I'll be very curious to see how this plays out, but my money's on this being the first step of a phasing out process.
I'm thinking. Maybe the content people are thinking like this. They still get a lot of money from DVD sales and TV deals. They get less money from streaming. Streaming has a much lower costs than mailing DVDs. Maybe if they deny the content companies their DVD money, they'll be forced to make a reasonable streaming deal.
I'm thinking. Maybe the content people are thinking like this. They still get a lot of money from DVD sales and TV deals. They get less money from streaming. Streaming has a much lower costs than mailing DVDs. Maybe if they deny the content companies their DVD money, they'll be forced to make a reasonable streaming deal.
My thoughts as well - offset lower profits with lower costs, and a greater customer base. Netflix is already something like 20% of the US's bandwidth (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong), so there is clearly a lot of potential for profit there. Convince the content providers to jump in and there won't be any reason not to pay the paltry 8 bucks a month, if it gets you everything.
More importantly, if this is part of some great master plan that might ultimately work out, yet is causing some panic by people who don't see the big picture, is this the time to finally jump in on Netflix stock? I feel like an idiot not doing so two years ago.
I don't really care about Netflix business model (I'd just switch to streaming only, as the only things we get on DVD are weird Japanese and Korean flicks that would be worth the money) but how many jokes can I make about Qwikster? It sounds like the Bizzarro equivalent for The Flash or Quicksilver. It sounds like an MMO for 7-Year-Olds. Maybe a line of toy hamsters whose claim to fame is that they move quickly. And of course: because poor literacy is kewl!
I'll probably still hold on to Qwikster, just cause for whatever reason there is still a lot of stuff I'd like to see on DVD that isn't on streaming yet for some stupid reason.
I'll probably still hold on to Qwikster, just cause for whatever reason there is still a lot of stuff I'd like to see on DVD that isn't on streaming yet for some stupid reason.
I would, and did hold onto the physical media until now. But I like being able to just watch something on a whim with the instant. There are still quite a few things on instant that I still want to watch, and for $7.99 a month it's worth it to me. But I end up a lot of times keeping the disk sometime for weeks. So that's just not worth the extra money to me, especially now that it's going to be on a separate site.
I'll probably still hold on to Qwikster, just cause for whatever reason there is still a lot of stuff I'd like to see on DVD that isn't on streaming yet for some stupid reason.
I would, and did hold onto the physical media until now. But I like being able to just watch something on a whim with the instant. There are still quite a few things on instant that I still want to watch, and for $7.99 a month it's worth it to me. But I end up a lot of times keeping the disk sometime for weeks. So that's just not worth the extra money to me, especially now that it's going to be on a separate site.
As would I if everything I wanted to watch was on instant. Unfortunately, it is not.
I think I'm going to upgrade to get more DVDs at a time, marathon a bunch of stuff we want to see before the Quikster(d) switch, then cancel. Netflix streaming is enough for us. Plus we still have that stone-age thing called cable to keep us entertained.
Yeah, Netflix realized they done fucked up. They managed to anger every single member of their customer base simultaneously. And to their credit, they acknowledged that and reversed their decision.
It's funny how some people are laughing at Netflix and saying they will never go back.
Isn't this a good thing? A big company realizing they did wrong and trying to rectify it? Isn't that what we want as consumers from major corporations?
I've had an order for a couple hundred dollars of Netflix stock waiting to process for about 3 weeks, goes through tomorrow morning. (I am not a serious investor, I really only use money I can afford to lose, so I used ShareBuilder's $4 trade service which is only on the second Tuesday of every month). Perfect timing! It shot the stock down another 5%, now down to 111 from a high of 304. That's ridiculous. They report Q3 earnings on October 24th, when I am banking on the fact that this is a vocal internet minority of bitchers and moaners, resulting in an earnings report that shows they taking at most a minimal dip.
I've had an order for a couple hundred dollars of Netflix stock waiting to process for about 3 weeks, goes through tomorrow morning. (I am not a serious investor, I really only use money I can afford to lose, so I used ShareBuilder's $4 trade service which is only on the second Tuesday of every month). Perfect timing! It shot the stock down another 5%, now down to 111 from a high of 304. That's ridiculous. They report Q3 earnings on October 24th, when I am banking on the fact that this is a vocal internet minority of bitchers and moaners, resulting in an earnings report that shows they taking at most a minimal dip.
There certainly is a lot og vocal grumbling on the web, even after NetFlix changed their mind about Quickster. However, if you read the article, it wouldn't surprise me if they tried to do something again in the future to split their DVD and streaming services. All it would take is a single company that had more streaming movies and a smaller monthly fee than them to topple NetFix.
This is just pure conjecture and speculation on my part, but I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon tries to buy Netflix or hulu to add their catalogue to its Amazon Prime catalogue. Granted, this made much more sense when Netflix split off their DVD business, but with the release of the Kindle Fire, Amazon is trying to position itself as a viable alternative for streaming media. Buying Netflix or Hulu would made Amazon Prime much more attractive an option.
This was very likely prior to the flip-flop on Qwikster. Now it'd be too costly given you'd have to gobble up the DVD business as well, a business dependent on a physical media that will be extinct in 5 years. I still think Netflix will find a way to cast off their DVD business, but they'll find a way without pissing people off. Maybe in a few years when they are finally ready let it go and the worth of DVD is plummeting, they'll just change their plan to "we'll mail you a disc every 5 days, and you just go ahead and keep it!"
Maybe. I definitely agree with you that now that Netflix has backtracked on the whole DVD thing, it's probably too costly for Amazon to buy them up. I was talking about Netflix with a friend the other day, and we basically came to the conclusion that the idea to split the dvd side from the streaming side is going to ben necessary or at least smart at some point, but that the way Netflix did it was stupid, and it was probably premature.
5 years from now, I can defintely see Netflix trying to kill off the physical media part of its business again.
It was started in 1996, when streaming services were not even possible. It was called Netflix because you could order your media on the Web.
Or because the creators had the forsight to realize that we would be streaming almost everything in the not-so-distant future?
The first ADSL standard wasn't approved until 1998, and that would have provided a pretty minimal level of streaming ability relative to today's cable lines and FiOS, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say "no."
I was just assuming that the creators of Netflix were visionary enough to imagine a future where we would get most of our media through the internet. There are plenty of example in science fiction that portray this, so I thought that the whole DVD in the mail thing was just the first step, until technology allowed us to stream.
The first ADSL standard wasn't approved until 1998, and that would have provided a pretty minimal level of streaming ability relative to today's cable lines and FiOS, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say "no."
We were streaming media with RealPlayer back in 1995. Even then, I was aware that the future of all media was streaming. It was painfully obvious to anyone who spent more than five seconds thinking about it. Bandwidth was guaranteed to rise at rates similar to EVERY OTHER ASPECT OF COMPUTING!
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Isn't this a good thing? A big company realizing they did wrong and trying to rectify it? Isn't that what we want as consumers from major corporations?
5 years from now, I can defintely see Netflix trying to kill off the physical media part of its business again.
I mean, it's called NETflix for a reason...
I was just assuming that the creators of Netflix were visionary enough to imagine a future where we would get most of our media through the internet. There are plenty of example in science fiction that portray this, so I thought that the whole DVD in the mail thing was just the first step, until technology allowed us to stream.