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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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.