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Netflix May Already Be Killing Blockbuster?
Mattintosh writes "A blogger at C|Net takes a moment to consider the impact Netflix has had on Blockbuster. Some notable highlights include heavy losses ($35 million), job cuts ($45 million worth), and store closings: 'Much like the print media and retail stores refusing to change, Blockbuster has been a victim on an online company finding new and inventive ways of bringing a product to a customer. And due to its size and outdated corporate culture, there really is no salvation for Blockbuster at this point. Try as it might, the future of Blockbuster is bleak, at best. Sure, the company still enjoys revenue that climb into the billions of dollars, but with an ever-increasing net loss and a public refusal to focus on Total Access--the area where Netflix continues to dominate--what is the impetus for us to jump on the Blockbuster bandwagon?'"
Meanwhile, the only thing saving Netflix's ass is the anticompetitive nature of the telecom industry in the US, which causes us to have broadband slow enough to make downloading DVD-quality movies too painful... time marches on.
Blockbuster lost me (and several of my friends' accounts) to netflix when they recently did away with their in store exchanges unless you opted to pay like 30% more for the exact same service. I have to imagine that a lot of people did the same.
It's a subscription service and a brick and mortar blockbuster isn't.
It would be nice if someone offered a service where I could just request a movie, pay my couple of bucks or whatever and have it mailed. If I didn't want anything that month then I wouldn't have to pay.
Gone!
Blockbuster is dead!
We at slashdot are scientists, specialists and kernel hackers. Your FUD will be found out.
I'm a netflix cusomter - 4 CD's in three queues (child, bride, me). As a perk, they also let you have an hour/usd of streaming content each month. For me, that works out to ~24 hours a month. Great, right? Well, it only works in the States, so any gigs in Canada are right out.
The chink in the armor is the selection. While they have a massive collection of DVDs, the streaming selection is really poor. I would not pay extra for it as it stands. At home, It looks about the same as a DVD on a high bandwidth connection - here for example, is a movie getting piped to a TV via my laptop. Bandwidth in hotels works better than I expected, and it is good enough for watching on a computer. I hear Blockbuster might have better selection... they should embrace the streaming!
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Blockbuster's online offering is far superior to Netflix's.
Netflix constantly sent me random movies from my queue instead of using anything remotely resembling the order I'd prioritized them in. IIRC, they were everntually sued for that.
Blockbuster only seems to have tried that twice with me and a single email to their customer care address resolved that and got me an apology along with it.
I can also drop my total access movies off at the local LackLuster and trade them for free in-store rentals. And they ship my next online rentals the next day.
Not affiliated, just a happy customer.
Their website sucks (while Netflix's is fantastic), but they still have a larger catalog. I've never had any throttling problems at all. I hope they don't go under. I have something like 600 movies in my queue and no way in hell to pull it out without some nasty screen scraping...
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
For a minute there I was going to mod -1 overrated but I thought I'd reply instead. Apparently some mods were swayed by your flashing for the cameras and offering up a sound bite.
But as I see it, even if the MPAA *did* blame it on piracy, the article is about Netflix *winning*, so right there is a built in counter-argument. That is to say, "If it's piracy, MPAA, then shouldn't Netflix be eating shit too??"
However, there is the argument that the MPAA is a buncha lying fucks, so in a way you have a point. Don't put anything beyond them, even if there is a possibly logical argument to the contrary.
No sig for you!!
First time in my life a subscription service has gotten cheaper.
Actually, the netflix settup uses fewer copies of movies, because each individual shipping location covers a larger population than a given brick and mortar blockbuster. Basically, the statistics of it say they need fewer padding copies to cover the (unexpected) surges in demand. This means that even though the same total amount of renting happens, the movie studios see fewer dollars as a result.
I know my statement appeared as a general hatred of the MPAA, without much forethought, but they do lose money with netflix compared to brick and mortar.
This whole argument depends on netflix and blockbuster both having sensible purchasing policies with demand analysis. I don't know that.
The best part was when they doubled their late fees, and advertised it as "NO LATE FEES" then in microscopic print "because we doubled the late fees and renamed them restocking fees"
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
If they had a system where the top items in my queue were in the store when I returned a DVD, it seems that would beat the service I get from Netflix. They don't need to always have MovieC in inventory, but if it is near the top of my queue, they can arrange to have it in stock, then after I rent and return it, they can send it off to wherever else it might be wanted. All the stores in a region could share the less popular movies. And I rent a lot of TV series. You don't even need to look at my queue to know what I will want next since I watch each season in order, and if I like the show, I watch the seasons in order, too. A system like that would easily beat Netflix since the transit time would be shorter.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
Back in Pullman, WA, I found blockbuster online really helpful. Everything about it was great, and the fact that NetFlix told me Star Trek V (for RiffTrax) was "soon available" and then a week passed without ever sending it didn't help NetFlix's case either. Then I moved to a larger city where all of the blockbusters were franchise within a 100 miles. Their "two night rental" was actually a "next day rental", they had late fees, they stopped accepting blockbuster online's coupons for free game rentals (7.50 to rent a game...), when I did have a free rental coupon, they wouldn't allow me to write down the code and simply present that to them- I had to print it out as well, and finally their selection was worse. When I asked why they were so crappy, they answered "Sorry, you probably were renting from a corporate blockbuster- and all the ones around here are franchise". I quickly canceled my blockbuster online subscription, mostly because I could no longer get a free game rental and because Red Box ($1/night) has come around and proven to both be superior to Blockbuster and Netflix when your primary interest is new releases.
Sadly, within two weeks of showing up, Red Box put the local Movie Gallery out of business, which had been my blockbuster replacement for games. Now I'm not sure where to rent games anymore.
We were in the same boat and had the 3 disc plan. I had even been dissing my Netflix friends because they couldn't just go pick up a new film when they were finished with theirs. Then one day I was told at the store I reached my exchange limit. "Limit? What limit?" "You received a letter explaining it a few weeks ago." "No, I didn't." "Sorry" I then went home, joined Netflix, and cancelled my blockbuster plan.
I do miss in in-store pickups and just browsing the selection in person. Though, I had NCIS Season 1 on my Blockbuster #1 spot for a year (no, really... and 3 tech support tickets didn't change anything). Added it to my new Netflix account when I created the account. Just after I finished canceling my Blockbuster account, Netflix Shipping emailed me that those same DVDs Blockbuster couldn't give me for a year, had shipped.
Their huge losses explain the problem though, clearly they aren't putting resources toward the logistics or suggestion systems.
Revenue is not profit, and if your market is a brick and mortar store, there is a limit to how much you can cut costs - you have to stock the store, pay employees, etc etc. Closing stores means losing that market, but I suppose they could simply close all stores operating at a loss... I wonder how many stores they would have left.
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definitely live in a different area than me. Kiosk at my safeway has under 30 movies, and most are around $3-4. pre netflix I watched 3-4 a month, and had watched every movie I was interested in (that was available) a few years back.
Netflix has a great site, I have rented 300 movies in the last 2 years, and I have 50 movies in my queue. The site has no problem finding new (to me) movies. No more wondering rental stores, or hanging out at a kiosk daily. monthly I visit netflix.com, and imdb.com in seperate tabs, 1 hour max to top off a new list of movies for us. To do anything equivalent at a remote site would require printing the results of the same browsing, and printing the queue, and then hunting for which of them are their.
Actually for a pirate, Blockbuster is the better deal (not that I have looked into this. I'm legit. Promise.)
For 17.99 a month you get 3 by mail at once, unlimited by mail per month, PLUS you can take them into the store and trade each in for store flicks, and they STILL mail you your next 3.
A pirate could kick ass on volume with Blockbuster. Not that I would ever look at it that way. I'm legit. Promise.
No sig for you!!
1st.) The highest level tier for both services is basically the same price, However
2nd.) The blockbuster 500 yards from my apartment, will let me exchange my mail order movies for free ones
3rd.) as a result the best value for my dollar come from blockbuster.
Assuming I can get 3 new movies every 4 days via mail from either service I get 21 (rounding down) movies a month. However, with blockbuster, I get 21 more from the store. 42 movies block buster (approx $0.595 per movie), 21 movies netflix ($1.19/movie).
It's obvious which service will quickly fill up your disk drive while giving you an excellent value.
Looks like it is time to replace your Personality Module. You are a bit to clingy, guess I better replace your fuser to
About a year ago, I stumbled into a forum where film makers were talking about current distribution trends. Apparently, Netflix is considered a major distribution venue, and is quite profitable for films that normally wouldn't see a wide distribution. Some independant filmmakers see Netflix as a godsend.
There was some discussion on some of Netflix's constraints; Netflix will only carry DVDs that are at least 1 hour in length. This causes some documentary producers to stick 10-15 minutes of filler into a special edit for Netflix.
No, I will not work for your startup