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Netflix CEO Hesitant To Fight Cable
imamac writes "Those who were hopeful that Netflix would bring the fight to the cable companies may be disappointed in the latest comments from their CEO. 'Reed Hastings is pleased with his company's massive growth, but he fears that getting too large will start "an Armageddon" with cable networks.' It's a fight he doesn't think his company could survive."
"Nice little Netflix you got there. Pity if something were to happen to take you down, hmm? Your friend, Comcast"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
That could be the result of the fact that we gave the keys to the pipes to the same people who create content to push through those pipes. It's not difficult for them to decide that Netflix's traffic is a conflict of interest, and can be easily choked off.
This is the first time in my computing history that I like my entertainment service, and don't feel like turning to alternative sources for my movies and tv. So please Netflix, take em to the mat, let us count to 10.
If it came down to it, I wouldn't put it past the cable companies to destroy themselves just to take Netflix down. The cable companies would probably put themselves to the brink of going out of business and only be pulled back by being bailed out by the government.
And at that point, Netflix would be gone and it would be mission accomplished.
Netflix, gives me, for the most part, exactly what I want in television watching. I pay a reasonable monthly fee. When I want to watch a movie, there is a selection of B-movies and older classics (I use the term lightly) for me to choose from. No commercials. Nice! I pay my cable/internet bill on-time and regularly. I watch on average 1.25 moviews per day. AS far as I can tell, everyone wins. I'll never go back to straight cable. If netlix dies, I'll throw the TV in the trash and be done with it.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
What it will take for true competitiveness happen here is a regulatory order to have the cable and DSL companies split their content purchasing sides off from their "pipes" business. Whilst they still have vertical integration there is going to be no further incentive for them to compete on usage limits and speeds. What they have today is "fast enough" for web access, email, etc. Their own digital content whilst travelling across the same physical infrastructure does not count toward usage limits.
The problem is that market forces do not work towards efficiency in situations of "natural monopoly". I don't blame Comcast, or AT&T for how they behave, it's only natural and in the interests of their shareholders, however economically they are benefiting from an externality and this must be gradually dealt with.
Okay, but what happens when the FiOS and DSL outfits do the same thing?
Neither company is very well served by the way the telecommunications monopolies in the US work. If they teamed up with Google and funded alternate companies and bribed regulators and such, I bet they could create a telecommunications infrastructure that was independent of these monopolies and a whole ton better for everybody.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Honest people call their congresscritter and demand that internet be considered "common carrier status" and a "utility" that instantly fines comcast high $$$ for their antics.
Trusting the "free market" to do the right thing is for fools.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I agree, but Netflix will need to be a lot bigger to win this fight. Right now they have to play nice or they'll get squeezed out of many markets.
Developers: We can use your help.
No less foolish than trusting your "congresscritter".
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
And watch a lot of them get turned away. The cable companies have been hard at work introducing legislation to greatly limit competition in a lot of areas. Try asking Verizon when FiOS will be available in Tennessee for example. In the entire Memphis area, your choice is pretty much Comcast or Comcast. There is DSL, but its throughput is laughable and the service is highly unreliable, and there is no "high end" DSL to speak of.
Next time the government bails a business--any business, I don't care if it's a healthcare provider or an orphanage for puppies or the largest car manufacturer in the world--we should start a riot in DC. Imagine if GM and Chrysler collapsed ... Ford would own the market, but they don't have the capacity. People would still buy Toyota and superior Mazda cars (Mazda way better than Toyota), Volkswagen and Audi, and of course new American car companies would spring up.
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How much boat-rocking could you expect from such a guy?
All Netflix needs is the consumer on their side. They have that, already. Just not enough, yet. Right now, it's about 7% of the population with Netflix accounts. When they reach 20%, they'll have the critical consumer support to push those efforts. People will continue to flee cable, because even though there's more great television on now than ever before, it's not worth $1,200-$2,400/yr for it. Especially when the competition can do it for only $96/yr. For that much of a price difference, I think just about everyone can tolerate their content being a year behind.
In the mean time, Netflix is already working on generating their *own* content. They'll be able to sell that content to traditional television/cable networks for a nice up-front price and then after they've run it, he can return it to his own service and make long-term profit from it as content to generate new Netflix viewers. If he burns his bridges with cable before that, he has nowhere to shop that content they're currently spending $100,000,000+ producing.
Also, it's hard to argue with the man's history. In 2006, Mark Zuckerberg was listed in the CNN or Forbes (I forget which) list of "Top Tech Industry People That Don't Matter". Zuckerberg was on that list, because he came too late to the game when Myspace was already the big guy on the block. Then, they listed Reed Hastings a couple pages later, because the world was moving to streaming content and DVDs weren't going to remain relevant.
Five years later, those two "people that don't matter" are the biggest shit on the planet.
Producing content is an expensive and painful business.
Really? Then stop hiring Charlie Sheen and look for cheaper talent. Movies continue to be made for peanuts, you just don't know where to look or refuse to watch something that isn't overproduced and chock full of special effects.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Here's the thing about cable TV:
It's really expensive for the content that most people actually watch.
If you have a good ATSC receiver, you get a SIGNIFICANTLY better looking (less compressed) picture off the antenna for free than you do off the cable for large bucks.
Netflix is, what, $4.99 a month for unlimited streaming, which is not an "introductory offer" that's going to triple in 6 months, and Roku boxes are about $100, a one-time cost, not the monthly rental that the cable companies want you to pay.
"Triple play" packages are not really a very good deal. Minimal phone and internet is less than half the cost of the total package, and you're not paying for content you're not watching. Consider, even HBO and Showtime original series eventually make it onto DVD, and become available on Netflix.
Even with the "triple" discount, our cost went from $135/month to $60/month just by dropping cable and returning the two set-top boxes. Now, they'll tell you that you're paying a (slightly) higher price for phone and internet, but the important thing is that your total bill is down by more than 50%. In a down economy, that's increasingly important.
Get a phone base station that'll pair with your cell, (about $60) and you can even drop the land line and buy internet service only.
Even if netflix gets extinguished, those red boxes at the supermarket are good enough for a significant number of people.
Cable TV is becoming this century's AOL. More and more people are realizing it's a crappy high priced service for shlubs who don't realize that all you really need from them is an internet connection. I think this is why Comcast is trying to leverage their current capital (as did AOL) and branch out now, before the inevitable collapse comes.
Frontier, the company that took over Fios from Verizon in our area, is getting out of the cable TV business. Comcast comes by about twice a month to remind us of that and try to get us to switch, so we can keep our cable TV. But we've already dropped it, and we suspect Frontier has seen the handwriting on the wall.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Actually, Netflix streams about 60% of the content in the US that is streamed. They are getting very big, and scaring the cable companies. Reed Hastings is wise to tread lightly.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
I'm going to quote Noam Chomsky on this one:
"Government has a flaw that General Electric doesn’t have. The government is potentially democratic. There’s a way of influencing the government and participating in it. I’m not joking, just think about it. When you’re saying that the government is doing this and that and the other thing to us, yes, the government is reflecting the interests of the people in it, but they could be representing us - there is no way for private tyrannies to be representing us. So yes, they would like you to hate the government. There is a lot wrong with the government, there is a lot to be hated about it, there is a lot to be changed about it. But the main thing about it is you can participate in it. And there are ways of changing what it does, and therefore, for at least people who believe in democracy, gives us advantages that other systems of powers don’t have. It is potentially our system of power, and the private corporations aren’t."
I am officially gone from
moving, definitely!
Cheap storage VM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
Fiber?
Pretty simple. Look up "Comcast Exclusivity Agreements"
This apparently changed in 2007, but 4 years is not enough time to undo the damage of decades.
As an atheist with a layman's interest in neuropsychology, I believe that what I would call my "soul" is an emergent phenomenon arising from the highly complex biochemical and electrochemical reactions in my brain. If my soul is decoupled from my brain it immediately ceases to exist, and my brain quickly gives rise to a new, largely identical, soul.
Consequently, I've sold my soul, dozens of times -- usually for change to use in the soda machine. My brain, however, is not on the market.
If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
The participation is minimal because everyone who has a decent idea or principals gets washed out by idiots. Something is wrong with a country that cares more about Osama Bin Laden or abortion funding over the national debt, or the fact our rights in the Bill of Rights are being violated on daily basis by A) The RIAA lawsuits (cruel and unusual), B) The TSA (freedom from unreasonable searches) and... etc. You get the idea. Our country is full of morons and smarter people that are greedy assholes and that is why we are quickly falling compared to Europe, Japan and China. Once they stop relying on us economically the system will rebalance itself and they will flourish.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
My refusal to give General Electric (or any other corporation) my money has zero consequences. They do not send employees with guns to raid my wallet, audit my bank account, or throw me in prison. Furthermore if enough people feel the same as me, the corporation will go bankrupt and disappear (see Montgomery Wards, Commodore, Circuit City, UPN, and so on).
They would if they didn't have to follow the rule of law enforced by the government.
Now try that with the Congress or State Legislature. Refusal to give money is not a wise course of action. They have a monopoly over your money, your property, your liberty, your life, and the use-of-force to make you submit to their will.
To live in industrial society you must pay taxes. Places where you don't have to pay taxes are generally not nice places for the majority of the people that live there.
I consider corporations to be far more democratic. Every time I spend a dollar (or not) I am casting a vote to keep the corporation afloat, or drive them into nonexistence.
In a democracy everyone gets one vote. In a corporation only a few people with money really matter.
Brilliant man, but Chomsky's dead wrong on this. You can vote in an election once every 4 years. You can vote with your dollars every day. The free market is far more democratic. Our current problem, though, is that government and corporations are in collusion. The term for this is fascism, and it is the hated enemy of free market capitalism. No, it's not some minor offshoot or deviation of free market capitalism, it's the complete opposite. Governments and corporations destroy laissez-faire capitalism.
What is there to do? The companies suck and don't care. The politicians suck and don't care. They're all butt buddies of one another. Voting is for shit because the system filters out anyone but sociopaths even before the primaries.
So give us *your* magical solution.
If it's "contact your sociopathic congressperson in between fuck sessions with lobbyists" we will laugh at you, put dirt in your hair and steal your lunch money.
Ooo! I know! An internet petition! Yeah! That'll learn 'em!
There's a reason no one else is quoting you. The only reason corporations do not have guns or throw you in prison is because the government has a monopoly on that. As soon as the government abdicates its monopoly on that, corporations will have that ability, and they will use it. And then, you will finally discover for your own what failed states have discovered a long time ago: government sucks, but lack of governments suck even more.
Furthermore, what's the difference between a police officer pointing a gun at you and throwing you in jail because you stole some CDs, and a police officer pointing a gun at you and throwing you in jail because of a law that the corporation running the state jail drafted put through the legislature through bribery - sorry, I meant campaign contributions? For you, there is no difference. Chew on that.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I believe that what I would call my "soul" is an emergent phenomenon arising from the highly complex biochemical and electrochemical reactions in my brain. If my soul is decoupled from my brain it immediately ceases to exist
Which is not entirely unlike annihilationist belief systems such as that of Jehovah's Witnesses: the soul dies with the body.
The barriers to entry are entirely artificial, by mandate of local governments
The barriers to entry are exclusive rights in land. How is a new utility supposed to dig under non-subscribers' land to reach subscribers? True, exclusive rights in land are artificial, just like any other exclusive right since the dawn of government, but they're so enshrined in tradition that any practical solution would need to work around them.
"comcast offers a superior broadband service that I find to be worth the money"
Comcast's service is superior to having to live next door to the startup ISP because non-subscribers won't let the startup ISP pull fiber or copper across their land.
Furthermore, what's the difference between a police officer pointing a gun at you and throwing you in jail because you stole some CDs, and a police officer pointing a gun at you and throwing you in jail because of a law that the corporation running the state jail drafted put through the legislature through bribery - sorry, I meant campaign contributions?
Well, clearly in the first instance you're stealing a physical item (compact discs) and thus clearly guilty of a crime and in the 2nd instance your thrown into jail for....ummm......incoherent rambling which violates your first amendment rights?
Your analogy breaks down because you are constantly using government services. If you really don't want to pay them, don't use government services. Sadly for you, that means you have to move somewhere without a government.
Exactly. People don't seem to realize that the reason big corporations lobby for (and often get) legislation passed in their favor is that the overreaching government has the power to change and shape the system in their favor. If the government didn't have this power to begin with, lobbying would be a fruitless endeavor. Instead, all of them tug and pull to get what they argue is "fair" for them, and all of a sudden we have thousands of tiny laws for every permutation of business out there, leaving gaping holes for rampant corruption.
Too bad, really. The Constitution was set up specifically to limit the government's power to very few, very particular things. What it does today, or tries to do, continues to astound me, and they're only pushing to make it bigger. A government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have.
Corporations also require participation in them - it's called cash-flow.
They don't necessarily though.
Imagine you live in a farming community downstream from West Virginia coal country. You don't buy coal directly, hardly anyone does, but you're most definitely affected by the runoffs coming from the mining upstream. You can't easily vote with your dollars, because the people making the decision on who's coal to use (or whether to use coal at all) aren't you, they're purchasers in electric companies and consumer goods companies who have no incentive to minimize your runoffs.
But you can vote with your ballot, through your elected representatives. It's not a big chance, but it's a non-zero chance.
I am officially gone from
Your refusal to give a corporation your money has the consequence of depriving you of the best available prices, and also imposing on you the burden of doing costly research before each and every single purchase to see what practices the often foreign manufacturer is engaged in. To say it costs nothing is dishonest. Any refusal to perform a transaction for anything except purely economic reasons has a cost.
Ultimately since you have no way of knowing who actually has manufactured any given product or the components of it, you'll just buy what's available, the same as everybody else.
Corporations exist as a legal fiction created by government. They have access to your money via tax incentives, grants, government contracts, and unfair business practices enabled and imposed by government.
The corporation is an extension of government. It is a deliberate way to shield the wealth from public accountability while giving peons like you the illusion of freedom.
When the richest 400 americans earn more than the bottom 150million americans, you think your paltry dollar counts for anything? Trying to boycott anyone is going to hurt you more than they.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
You can vote in an election once every 4 years. You can vote with your dollars every day.
To vote with your dollars, you have to have a sufficient amount of dollars. What's worse is that people with more dollars have a more significant vote - it's oligarchy, not democracy.
To quote myself, "When government is corrupt, it is for the same reason we need it"