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Netflix and iTunes Rentals Aiming At Different Crowds
Engadget notes an article in the New York Times discussing the substantially different markets that Netflix and Apple's movie rentals are aiming for. The site views the loosening of Netflix streaming restrictions as a reaction motivated entirely by the iTunes movie rental announcement, but beyond that the two services seem to have little connection. From Engadget's observations: "After speaking with Netflix's Reed Hastings, it was found that the vast majority of its streamable content was 'older,' and considering that users of this service can never look forward to brand new releases being available, the cost (i.e. free to most mail-in subscribers) makes sense. As for Apple, it's able to focus on crowds who are looking for a more robust, generally fresher selection, but of course, you'll pay the premium each time you indulge. Furthermore, Netflix has yet to make transferring video to any display / device other than your monitor easy, and while an LG set top box is indeed on the horizon, the differences in content selection are still likely to lure separate eyes."
The problem with AppleTV and this revolutionary new service is that, for some time, I've already had a device that lets me rent new movies via the internet (even *gasp* HD movies) and watch them on my TV. It's called an "Xbox 360." It even comes with the bonus features of letting me play videogames and chat with my friends.
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Netflix did an excellent job of separating themselves from Apple. They didn't punish their current subscribers by charging them extra for this service (as Apple did for iPod touch owners with the new apps).
As I've said before, the Netflix service isn't too great for new movies (as this article points out), but it is wonderful for older TV shows (and some newer ones). Now that they've lifted the time limits, I'll be sitting down and watching tons of old shows. Full seasons of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Amazing Stories (well, the first season at least), and tons and tons of BBC stuff (Doctor Who and Red Dwarf, anyone?). I saw that they recently added Dexter Season 1. Hopefully they'll be putting up Season 2 of that soon, too. Perfect timing, too, since it's the middle of Winter and there's nothing new on TV due to the writers strike.
This guy's the limit!
Some of the most attractive offerings on Netflix's streaming service are television shows. There are lots of seasons and even complete series available through the service. I was able to watch the entire run of the British show "Coupling," the UK's raunchier version of Friends. They also have every Law and Order known to man, short-run series like "Dead Like Me," and even modern shows like Heroes and 3rd Rock.
I always wonder why these sort of discussions leave out public libraries. Our local library has an amazing DVD selection (much of it purchased from a failed video store). Sure, the new stuff is often hard to get (Hot Fuzz had 66 holds on it, last I checked), but there's tons of classics, Anime, and other things I missed in the theater.
It's become a weekly tradition for me to head out to the library after Saturday breakfast and return with my booty of media. Like Santa, I open my sack and hand out books and movies to my kids and occasionally my wife (depending on whether or not she's on the naughty list).
I think that $3 for a movie "rental" is way too expensive, which is the very reason I dropped Blockbuster for Netflix in the first place. I don't care if it is a new release, recent T.V. episode, or whatever--three dollars is half the cost of a matinée on the big screen.
We don't have cable or satellite T.V. and I can't see spending money on the antenna we'd need for broadcast digital--five hundred channels of nothing is still nothing. So we have Netflix. While I don't watch much, my wife watches about one episode of a T.V. series each day. Perhaps every other week we get a movie, and occasionally we'll watch episodes some old series together. So we run through maybe 10-15 DVDs worth of content each month. That type of viewing pattern would be significantly more than the $18 a month we currently pay Netflix, say around $45 if you had to get all the TV episodes as individual "rentals"
It will be interesting to see if Apple can do to video viewing what it did to music (make the music player ubiquitous, or nearly so). The main issues I see are cost (per video) and cost (for a device to play the content).
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No, they have not. The law suit that they lost was had nothing to do with 'throttling', as keeps getting repeated. What they were sued for was for immediately sending high usage subscribers a movie lower on their list instead of the top one if they had to choose between sending a high usage subscriber the last copy, or a low usage subscriber. They have since updated their TOS to reflect this.
You should rally have been looking at your post office as the culprit. Netflix has way to many people to be individually targeting people for delayed shipments. The only way that they could realistically get any benefit from it would be if they had a system to automatically flag accounts. There are way to many people like me that have spent years (over 5 for me) returning just about every single movie the day after they receive it for Netflix to have an automated system to throttle.
The big difference between the two is that Apple is making a genuine try at starting a business: they've revamped the Apple TV after the first attempt didn't get a great reaction, they've cut deals with all the movie studios, they let people do the obvious thing with movies, namely watch them on the TV.
NetFlix, on the other hand, may be smart enough to realise that internet access to movies is inevitable, but only came up with some shitty "on your computer only" service, with bandwidth restrictions. It's a little experiment without serious backing. My bet is that whoever within NetFlix has responsibility for the online service has little power within the company, and is probably seen as competition to the main DVDs-by-post business. Apple's announcement probably gave that person a rare bit of clout to argue to the rest of the company that unless the NetFlix streaming service improves, it will simply become a laughing stock.
All that said - if they deliver on easy access via the TV, their model of "classic" and hard-to-find material plus their que idea is a great one. Hope the online person now gets the respect and funding they deserve. They've got to prepare for the future where the postal service just ain't necessary for their business model.