Netflix Pioneers Industry To Get Left in the Dust?

prostoalex writes "The New York Times profiles Netflix, the company that pioneered subscription-based DVD plans where a disc is sent via postal service and no late fee is charged. It describes the company from May 1998, when it originally launched the Web site as a DVD-by-mail rental service (with late fees). Interesting factoids: Netflix operates 30 centers around the country and 11% of San Francisco residents subscribe to the service. Turns out, the company is not really afraid of Blockbuster, Wal-mart and Amazon moving into their markets, but they do consider on-demand Internet-download services to be a threat to their business model."

Comments

MPAA's Move

[TGK]

So the question then becomes, what will the MPAA do? Netflix is probably right, as long as they run a open ended service w/out late fees, they're set. Blockbuster is still tied to a brick and morter establishment that prevents them from really running Netflix into the ground, Amazon and Walmart while in possession of huge amounts of $$$ aren't first to market on this.

Fundamentaly, when someone thinks of mail delivered DVDs they think netflix.

They're right, download on demand movies are the only real threat they face, and that decision remains up to the MPAA. A legal download option stands to one-up netflix simply because it removes the need for postage.

Of course, there is still the bandwidth/time/storage problem to contend with, but time should solve those for any theoretical on demand download site.

Impact of Netflix seen in Blockbuster

[Staplerh]

While Netflix may feel that on-demand Internet-download services are a threat to their business model, it is truly signifigant that Blockbuster viewed Netflix as a threat to their physical-store business model.

I believe the rise of Netflix was instrumental in their adopting their 'no-late-fees' policy (I know some exceptions apply), and this was mentioned by many pundits around the time of Blockbuster's move.

Blockbuster's move and the related coverage for Netflix/zip.ca introduced a lot of people to the whole industry - the people that wondered why Blockbuster would do such a move. Great P.R. for Netflix and zip.ca.

I doubt this is true + blockbuster vs. Netflix

[Kunta Kinte]

I have been a netflix subscriber for about 6 months now. They advertise unlimited accounts, but hold your shippments even when they are in stock to slow you down if you start getting too many. This is my last month. Can anyone recomend another?

I've been a Netflix subscriber for almost 2 years, blockbuster for maybe about 3 months now and I am probably the most hated customer at Netflix.com and blockbuster.com

If I send out a movie on say Monday, I get that movies replacement by at least Friday. Everytime.

You see, I have a movie addiction and watch about 6+ movies a week ( never watch television or play video games otherwise though, so this translates to well under 10hrs/week of tube-time ).

I watch and return movies to netflix and blockbuster.com as fast as they send them usually. Overall I get to watch about the same amount of movies from each. That is 3-4 movies per week.

Netflix has always been honest, and blockbuster reasonalbly so as well. Blockbuster has a gimmick price though ( $15.99 is introductory, it's actually $25/mn ), but they give 2 instore rentals per month ( which I need for quick fixes ).

The difference is the web interface. Blockbuster's is clumsy. You don't get your recommendations on the first page like Netflix does. Netflix gives me, personally better movie recommendations but that maybe because have rated almost 700 movies with them. Netflix also gives links of critic links and customer reviews on every movie page. You can even see how many customers have rated a movie. Blockbuster's killer feature to me is that you can search movies by writer. Netflix needs this badly.

Re:Internet?

[nuclear305]

" I know you were joking, but IMHO downloading movies is not that far off.

I have been downloading episodes of "Lost" because the quality is quite a bit better than my (analog) cable TV. Yet the files are only about 350 MB in size. That translates to a little over 1 megabit per second. In practice, my internet connection (Comcast) doesn't seem to have any problem exceeding 1 megabit per second. (It is 3 or 4 mbps claimed)."

Actually I was very serious. Who wants to watch a 750mb xvid movie on a 52" HDTV? I would expect to be downloading a near 1:1 DVD quality movie--which is typically 4.6-8.7GB.

Now, I could probably easily download a full dvd within a matter of hours on my connection--but not everyone has the luxury of bandwidth and not restricted by transfer caps.

How would these be distributed? I'd suspect a direct system such as FTP would be expensive considering most bandwidth at the minimum is $30/mbit when purchased in mass quantities (read: 100mbit->GigE) Bittorrent? Right...I love bittorrent as much as the next person but truthfully I rarely max out my line downloading something from bittorrent and I still find FTP faster when downloading linux iso's (some in DVD format...) Not to mention the fact that your average user will not be happy having to pay for a service and then sacrifice upstream bandwidth to feed a service like bittorrent.

I would like to have a movie at the click of a button too...but it's not going to happen until the network infrastructure can handle the bandwidth requires, when the costs are affordable to users. And, I'll say it again--compressed video isn't going to fly.

This is true.

[slashkitty]

This is true. The other post on this was moderated troll by the netflix loving mods.

http://www.hackingnetflix.com/

I noticed a significant decline in shipping speed in the 3rd month and have filed a complaint with my states attorney general.